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Would you pay £59.99 per year for Opodo Prime?

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Subscription services are all the rage these days – although we won’t be introducing one – but Opodo may have gone too far

Despite not entirely covering itself in glory during the pandemic in the way it has dealt with customers, Opodo believes that you are willing to pay £59.99 to become an Opodo Prime member.

You can learn more about Opodo Prime here.

What is Opodo Prime?

Opodo Prime is basically a membership programme offering discounts on your travel.

The headline benefits are a little vague:

  • “Discounts on 100% of flights
  • Up to 50% off on accommodation
  • Equal savings for everyone travelling with the Prime member
  • Free exclusive customer service hotline 24/7″

Here are the promised savings on flight costs:

  • £0 – £149 – average saving of £25
  • £150 – £299 – average saving of £30
  • £300 – £499 – average saving of £35
  • Over £500 – up to £65

It isn’t entirely sure how Opodo is funding these savings, given that airlines offer minimal commission on flight sales. I imagine that much of it is Opodo simply reversing out its booking fee. Opodo is usually more expensive than booking a flight direct so Prime may not offer much of a discount overall.

Importantly, the Prime discount applies to up to nine people on the same booking. If you are regularly booking flights for a large group then it will be easier to save.

Here’s an example

I looked at a return flight from Heathrow to Miami in August.

The headline price of £577 was reduced to £544. This means that, for two people, the Prime membership fee is immediately covered.

However, when I looked on the American Airlines website for the price of booking the same flight direct, it was only £561.

You were still making a saving with Opodo Prime, but only £17 per passenger. A family of four would still see their £59.99 fee covered with one booking.

To be fair to Opodo ….

The only way to join Opodo Prime is when making a booking.

You will be offered the opportunity to add Prime, for £59.99, and the Prime saving will be immediately deducted.

This means that you can make an educated decision at that point. If the saving was over £60 then joining is a no-brainer. If it is close, you might want to join in the anticipation of making additional savings over the following 12 months.

There is a one month free trial

Importantly, you will currently receive a one month free trial. You can sign up, take the discount on your current booking, and then cancel before your £59.99 fee is taken.

Once you have joined, your membership will automatically renew each year unless you cancel it.

You can find out more about Opodo Prime on its website here. There is also a clone called eDreams Prime at edreams.co.uk which offers exactly the same benefits from an identical website.

Comments (39)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Aston100 says:

    “Opodo is usually more expensive than booking a flight direct”
    Sorry but this is incorrect.
    Not that I would ever recommend using an OTA over a direct purchase from the airline; you’d be a bit silly to do that with all that’s going on right now.
    But, like a lot of OTAs, myself and many others have found Opoda to be usually cheaper than booking direct.

    • Anuj says:

      I’ve found travel agents are more expensive for low cost airlines but can be cheaper for legacy airlines

      • Paul Pogba says:

        Random data point from Momondo, LHR-FAO (16/07 to 19/07) BA flight:
        BA £152
        Expedia £152

        Opodo £197.

        Seems to be lots of variation between OTAs.

    • Bs says:

      I have never found opodo cheaper in reality. Although headline prices may appear cheaper, when you ring the airline they will be able to find the cheaper bucket, and match/beat the OTA price. I’ve always had telephone booking fees waived as well.

      • kitten says:

        Or, worse, they take your money, then after 2 or 3 chases and about 10 days say “that fare’s sold out so we can’t ticket it the best fare we can do is £130 more [was actually more expensive than booking the airline direct]

        Them, and eDreams.
        You’d have to be off your trolley to go for this.

  • Akebah says:

    Saving a bit of money with Opodo is all very well until something goes wrong and you discover that there is no way of contacting customer services. Although charge backs and all the other legal resources mean you will get your money back eventually, it’s really not worth the added stress and hassle. It makes you appreciate BA customer service phone lines.

  • @mkcol says:

    It’s a hard no from me, even if it saves me money.

  • Dani says:

    Opodo and Edreams…. Just avoid these companies…. No no no no no.

  • Phillip says:

    I often find most OTAs sell cheaper fares on legacy carriers by selling IT/Package fares as flight only. Normally agreements with airlines are that they can only sell these fares with ground products and not disclose the actual flight element cost. But alas…

    • Alex Sm says:

      They still disclose this element and provide the breakdown (perhaps, legally required?) even if booked with ground products. And I guess that there might be a made-up ground product or charge which triggers the special price and… Bob’s your uncle

  • John says:

    Perhaps the idea is to get you sucked in by covering most of the fee on a first booking, then you go to them as your default booking site because of the sunk cost fallacy.

    I would use them for flights I am certain to fly, booked 1-2 weeks before travel, if covid travel issues ever end. But they probably wouldn’t have much of a discount in this situation

  • Dani says:

    Opodo 2.8 out of 5 on trustpilot…

    Edreams 3.3

    Says it all…

    • John says:

      You’re much more likely to leave a 1 star review when you get screwed over, most people don’t leave reviews if they buy a ticket and get to their destination.

  • TimM says:

    The comments so far have all been in relation to flights. As far as accommodation is concerned, Opodo has never ranked as competitive in my searches over the years.

    I agree rolling subscriptions are the new way of extracting money out of us regardless of whether we actually use the service. I am strictly PAYG wherever possible and where not, I put the date of the expiry of the minimum contract term in the calendar the moment I take it out.

    As far as flights are concerned, the calculation should not be Opodo vs direct, but Opodo vs. the lowest discount source, e.g. via Skyscanner. Then I believe that £60 fee will look like a wasted fee on top of higher fares.

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