I’m not planning a luxury summer holiday this year, but I’m planning a short break abroad. The kids are doing their own thing, so I feel free to take a risk and grab a last-minute bargain.
With my passport in hand and an open mind, I go online hoping to discover a budget-friendly option for the next day.
With so many options, I take a chance on the travel website Skyscanner and hit the “Explore Everywhere” button.
Toby Walne in Biarritz, in the southwest of France, an elegant seaside town on the Basque coast
Biarritz has 20 surf schools where you can learn from ‘les tontons surfeurs’ so it is not surprising that the cheapest offers are hostels aimed at surfers.
Lucky Air flights that immediately catch my eye include a deal to Oslo, Norway, for just £15. But when I enter the dates, the deal suddenly disappears.
I found out it was for a one-way trip in September and I’m wondering if the term “Lucky Air flights” could be a marketing ploy.
I persevere and choose the nearest airport, Stansted, for my return flight and, voila!, flights to Ireland from £35 and France from £39 appear on the screen.
In search of an exotic location, a getaway to Cork, however wonderful it may be, is out of the question.
The cheapest flight to France arrives at Bordeaux airport at midnight the next day, which is not ideal for a relaxing break.
But it also offers a return trip to Biarritz for £55, a Basque seaside resort just 30 miles north of Spain.
The cheapest flight to France arrives at Bordeaux airport at 12:30 the next night, which is not ideal for a relaxing break.
Grande Plage beach with the Hotel du Palais in the background. Winston Churchill, Pablo Picasso and Charlie Chaplin stayed here
It is a stylish favourite among the French middle class and our own royalty also values it.
Queen Victoria used to drive a donkey-drawn carriage around the city. Other visitors included Winston Churchill, Pablo Picasso and Charlie Chaplin, who stayed at the Hotel du Palais and enjoyed the sandy beach of La Grande Plage and the glamorous Art Deco casino.
This five-star hotel was originally built as Villa Eugenie by Napoleon III for his wife in 1854 and was renovated into a luxury hotel following the fall of the monarch in 1870.
I pull out my credit card to book the flights. The website seamlessly switches me to Ryanair. The problem is that the flight leaves at 6:20 a.m. Despite living only ten miles from the airport, that means setting my alarm for 4 a.m.
The return home, which lasts 90 minutes, is scheduled for 10:05 p.m. the following day, so the offer provides two full days to live the French dream.
I resist Ryanair’s attempt to double the price with a £76 “flexi plus” option to choose a seat and bring on board anything more than a laptop-sized bag.
This bag should be no larger than 40cm by 20cm by 25cm and should fit under the seat in front of me. It has just enough room for a laptop, a notepad and a toothbrush, but not enough room for clothes.
The website then announces: “Oops, something’s wrong.”
When I refresh the page, this apparent technical glitch has brought my flight total to £59 even though I agreed to pay £33 for the outbound and £22 for the return.
Unless you travel light, with a bag that fits under the seat and is free, luggage is a considerable additional cost.
The cost of travel can add up. Currently, we spend an average of £36 per person on snacks, meals, wifi and duty-free items at the airport.
Still, taking a chance and choosing a last-minute flight means I could have paid less than the £100 or more I would have expected to pay if I had booked the seat a couple of months earlier.
Nightly rates for hotels in Biarritz on Skyscanner start at £49, with selected deals from websites such as Booking.com, Expedia and Agoda.
Biarritz has 20 surf schools where you can learn from ‘the foolish surfers“So it’s no surprise that the cheapest deals are the hostels aimed at surfers.
But for £69, I find the two-star Hotel Les Alizes near the beach, and I can reduce the price to £62 by visiting the hotel’s website and booking directly online.
Airbnb is another option and for £49 I can ‘share with Jeff’ but this type of offer doesn’t appeal to me.
Incredibly, the biggest bill I face is getting to and from Stansted Airport. I’m charged £88 to park my car overnight in the nearest short-stay car park.
So for just £2 more, I pay £44 for a taxi from home to the airport and £46 back (this includes a £7 surcharge charged by the airport for using their pick-up and drop-off areas which is added to the taxi bill).
The airport also tries to take money from my wallet as I make my way through shiny boutique shops and overpriced cafes and restaurants to the gate.
According to Holiday Extras, we currently spend an average of £36 per person on snacks, meals, wifi and duty free items at the airport. That’s a 37% increase in just two years and the price of meals has increased by around 9%.
Once on board, I am quite pleased because, despite my cheap tickets, I get one of the best seats on the plane. The flight is almost full, mainly with French travellers and British tourists who seem to be taking off to surf the impressive waves surrounding the city on the Bay of Biscay.
Arriving in Biarritz is a world away from the crowded city I left behind. I went through passport control and took a bus that cost me €1.40 (£1.20) to the city centre.
Despite buying a €3 (£2.50) baguette with ham and cheese for breakfast at a local supermarket, my budget is blown out of the water at the hotel.
The room is small and depressing, with the sound of the elevator echoing through the wall every time a guest uses it.
Fortunately, the hotel receptionist, Rebecca, is flexible and finds me another room at the three-star Hotel Marbella next door. I have to pay €20 (£17) more, but I get spacious accommodation with a balcony overlooking the sea. It’s easy to justify the extra expense after being so stingy when booking flights.
Prices for meals along the promenade are reasonable: €20 (£17) for a hearty plate of local cold cuts with cheese, bread and pickles.
Prices for meals along the seafront are reasonable: €20 (£17) for a heaping plate of local cold cuts with cheese, bread and pickles or grilled local prawns, salad and chips. The price of a pint (Basque beer) is €5 (£4). The hotel’s buffet breakfast costs €14 (£12) and is a smart buy, as it allows me to skip lunch. The bill for eating and drinking over two days adds up to about the same price as my flights.
Skyscanner isn’t the only website offering amazing holiday deals.
Wowcher offers a ‘Mystery Holiday’ from £99, but a key part of this mystery is how they lure customers in with images of resorts, such as Barbados in the Caribbean, when they’re more likely to end up sending them somewhere less exotic, such as Bulgaria or Poland. And in summer, you’re paying at least £129 for your stay.
Opodo also offers flight and hotel packages. Tap on “Anywhere, Surprise Me!” and you can get the “Prime Hottest Deals” which include return flights to Prague in the Czech Republic this month for €70 (£59) and hotels from £80 per night.
Other options to consider include Cheeky Trip, which has an “Anywhere” option that can offer you unexpected deals. For example, flying to Agadir in Morocco for a seven-night hotel stay with breakfast for £141 this month.
Low-cost airlines such as Wizz Air often have links to discounted hotels on their websites.
Budget airlines such as Wizz Air also have links to discounted hotels. If you click on the “Anywhere” destination link to search for countries, you’ll be presented with unexpected options, such as flying from London Luton Airport to Tirana, Albania, for £12.99 each way in September, with hotels at £19 per night.
Sometimes when you travel you get what you pay for, but the cut-price bet in Biarritz turned out to be the perfect getaway that offered excellent value for money.
The cost of flights, hotel and meals for two days came to just under £200. The real increase in my bill was the outrageous cost of getting to and from Stansted Airport (or the official parking fee), which added £90 to the bill.
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