Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Would you pay £59.99 per year for Opodo Prime?

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

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.

  • Pete M says:

    Absolutely not – only way to get money back out of them is chargebacks if anything goes wrong, but at least they don’t seem to fight them as hard as, say, TravelUp. Not touching OTAs again after the past year, though.

    • Akebah says:

      They appealed my charge back quoting Spanish emergency legislation. I write a lengthy reply and did not hear anything back. I also had proof that the airline I was booked on refunded them.

  • Jonathan says:

    One of the problems with booking directly with BA is that their price promise only applies to flights operated entirely by themselves, and will reject a claim if even one section of the plane journey (however short the flight might be) is operated by another OneWorld airline, so sometimes the third party ticket agents can be worth using. Some of them are worth nothing more than running a mile though!

  • Nick says:

    Paying a subscription fee to Odigeo is like paying to be put in a boxing ring with Mike Tyson and no PPE. I’m sure there are some people who get a kick out of that, but I don’t. There are few companies that come with a bigger ‘run as fast as you can’ warning flag.

    Good luck to anyone who does this. And you can bet they’ll be signing people up sneakily without them really realising what they’re agreeing to.

    • Mike says:

      I don’t think i would want to be in boxing ring with Mike Tyson even if I had a COVID 19 Face Mask !

  • Chris L says:

    You couldn’t pay me to use Opodo

  • Mikeact says:

    You try calling these people or others, out of hours the other side of the world , when you have a ticket issue that needs sorting….never again.

  • Chris says:

    Booked once with Opodo and let me tell you … NEVER AGAIN.

  • Shashi says:

    It’s not worth booking with OPODO. They are very bad for refund. I know two people. One had booked 2 tickets. When the airline cancelled flight and they requested refund opodo have refunded only half of the ticket price and after numerous calls and emails they’re saying they are waiting for refund from airline. The other person was waiting to use the voucher when ready and yet opodo refunded the fare without that person asking for it

  • Stagger Lee says:

    I have used Opodo a few times over the years and never had a problem but, and it’s big BUT, I never had any issues with my flights so didn’t have to deal with their apparently abysmal customer service.

    After reading reviews I would never use them again so it’s hard no on a subscription from me.

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

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.