Cheaper holidays alone or with a travel agency in Poland
How much can you earn and lose by organizing your vacation on your own or buying it at a travel agency? By booking your flight and hotel yourself in the middle of summer, you will save 90 PLN on Crete. However, flying to Sicily with the office will pay up to PLN 1,100 less than preparing a vacation on your own. In most cases, we will save several hundred zlotys by choosing a travel agency offer.
Statistics showing very high customer growth in travel agencies show that Poles are convinced by the offers prepared by tour operators. According to the report of the Polish Chamber of Tourism "Poles' Holidays 2018", co-authored by Travelplanet.pl, during the holiday period the increase in trips with travel agencies was about 35 percent. Certainly to some extent they are tourists who went with the tour operator for the first time but a significant percentage are those who have recalculated in advance whether it is more profitable for them to book airline tickets, accommodation and transfers, or maybe it is better not to waste time and buy a trip in travel agency. But not only money plays an important role in these decisions.
Safe holidays with TFGThe situation on the tourism market is stable, but it is worth remembering that travel agents' offers are covered by the Tourist Guarantee Fund. This means that in the event of problems with going on vacation or during their lifetime, caused by the financial situation of the travel agency, we will receive a refund for the unrealized trip, we can also advertise the wrong level of service. When organizing a trip on our own, we take one hundred percent on ourselves.
EHIC is not enoughIt is worth remembering that the prices of travel agents' offers include the care of a pilot / resident in a given country and, above all, basic insurance against the costs of medical treatment and the consequences of accidents. It is a statutory obligation of leisure organizers. It is worth having such insurance despite the European Health Insurance Card, which only covers the basic benefits basket in force in a given country, and it is not always the same as in Poland. However, because the additional insurance of an individual trip is a matter of individual decisions, we did not take this fact into account when calculating the trips we prepared.
13: 6 for travel agenciesWe carried out a simulation similar to the current one before the 2016 summer season . Then, in rare cases, you could save 1 - 15% on preparing your own trip for holidays. In most cases, however, offers of travel agencies from the same airports, to the same places and often to the same hotels turned out to be cheaper by several hundred zlotys.
What does it look like in the upcoming season? In 13 out of 19 cases analyzed, holidays with the office turned out to be cheaper - and quite a few - than those prepared independently.
Vacation on your own can be cheaper in Italy by a few hundred zlotys if you decide to lower the standard of rest (in the analyzed periods the offer of a 3 * hotel in travel agencies was not available) Almost PLN 100 can be saved by flying to the top of the season to Crete, but only from a specific city and within a specific period. Finally, we will save symbolic PLN 10 by organizing holidays in Bulgaria on our own (let us remind you - without buying additional insurance, which is already included in the offer of the office).
We will also make small savings by flying the office before the high season to Sicily or at its peak to the Croatian Zadar. But in most cases the difference is several hundred zlotys. Below is a comparison of the most popular holiday destinations to which low cost airlines fly directly from Poland.
The cheapest tickets to Greece with departure and at the turn of May and June, for 875 PLN, were found from Wroclaw. The total cost of the flight with a 20 kg suitcase and the transfer from the airport in Crete to Kalamaki, where we booked a 3 * hotel. We managed to book a week in a double room with breakfast for PLN 630. Seven three-course meals (similar to dinner served during trips) in a mid-range restaurant will cost around PLN 500. The total cost of an independently prepared trip to Crete is 1985 PLN. The tour operator's offer in a hotel of a similar class is up to PLN 480 cheaper, and in addition we have insurance for medical costs and accident insurance.
In the high season, the cheapest to fly to Crete at the beginning of August from Krakow - with a transfer to the hotel and the airport you have to pay a little over 1000 PLN. Add to this 7 nights at a three-star hotel in Scaleta (850 PLN) and meals. Holidays prepared in this way will cost us PLN 2,360. In a travel agency, a trip from Krakow to the same hotel at the same time will be 90 PLN more expensive (although KL and NW insurance is already included in this price) but if we are flexible and we can fly a vacation a week earlier, we will save PLN 500 on departure from person.
Neither before the high season nor during it, self-prepared holidays on the Costa Brava will not be cheaper than bought at a travel agency. The difference is significant - from over PLN 300 in August (then we found the cheapest flight to this Spanish coast) to as much as PLN 550 in June. Then both the flight (PLN 650 return trip) and accommodation (3 * hotel for PLN 700 per person per week with breakfast) looks extremely attractive. So what if we buy a similar offer (already with KL and NW insurance) for 1340 PLN.
What can we save by going on holiday to Italy? On the standard of rest. The three-star offers of travel agencies are very scanty, which is why we have also adopted the 4 * hotel rest option for comparison.
When booking 3 * hotels, self-booking for holidays brings considerable savings: from 100-300 PLN in the low season and about 600-800 PLN in the middle of summer school holidays. But let's remind - these savings are the difference between holidays in a 3 * hotel and offers of offices offering rest in 4 * hotels.
If we compare the same standard, the situation will change dramatically. Travel agency offers become cheaper by approx. 800-1100 PLN compared to a trip prepared by ourselves if we decide to depart not from Krakow but from Warsaw.
Those traveling to Sicily on their own must face another very important limitation. Low cost airline transfer buses only run to city centers (Palermo and Catania). Access to resorts located several dozen kilometers from these cities is a serious expense. In our analysis, we found hotels which, when traveling to Sicily on our own, we can reach without hiring a taxi. As for the offers of travel agencies, we were not guided by this principle, because transport from the airport to the resort is included in the price of the trip.
How much can you earn and how much you lose on vacation in Bulgaria? If we fly to Sunny Beach at the end of July, we will prepare less than 1700 PLN on our own - this is the cheapest option if we go there from Warsaw paying 825 PLN for the flight and the hotel 550 PLN and spending 300 PLN on three-course dinners in average restaurants. The travel agency's offer is only PLN 10 more expensive.
Holidays at the turn of May and June are definitely cheaper if you buy them at a travel agency. It is not 1385 PLN per person, but less than 1100 PLN. Departing from Krakow (hence we found the cheapest airline tickets) not on our own but with the office we will save 315 PLN or as much as 470 PLN if we are flexible and decide to depart from Poznań (or simply closer to this airport from our place of residence).
Prices of airline tickets from Poland to the Croatian coast (Zadar, Split, Dubrovnik, Pula) start at just over PLN 700 (with a 20 kg suitcase). The cheapest option is departures from Krakow (although they are not much more expensive from Poznań or Katowice) both at the beginning of June and at the turn of July and August. Before the high season, preparing your own holidays will prove to be 185 PLN more expensive than a travel agency's offer. At the peak of the season, this difference is symbolic, but only because you managed to book the last hotel room at an attractive price, for just over PLN 1000. The average prices at this time in 3 * facilities are 50 percent. more expensive. And thus the difference between the office offer and the independent preparation of holidays increases to nearly PLN 500 to the detriment of this last eventuality.
LEGEND- The cheapest flight with low cost airlines (Ryanair, Wizzair) in the period from 25 May to 15 June and 25 July - 15 August (20 kg suitcase) and transfer to the hotel
- Cheapest 3 * hotel near the beach, with breakfast, double room, offer from hotel search engines (Trivago, Booking.com)
- 7 dinners (3 courses) in a mid-range restaurant. Data from Numbeo.com, the world's largest cost-comparison portal in the world. Euro at the rate of 4.3 PLN
- Tour operator's offer on Travelplanet.pl at the same time, in the same region and at the outlet from the same city as in the case of a trip prepared independently - a 3 * hotel, breakfast and dinner (HB).
Red: 4 * standard hotel option
HOW WE COUNTED ITWe made reservations between 6 and 12 May. The basis and priority of the analysis was to find the cheapest flight in two periods: May 25 - June 15 and July 25 - August 15. The flight was booked with 20 kg luggage and a transfer from the airport to the resort.
In the accommodation search engines we booked the cheapest 3 * hotels with breakfast near the beach (but sometimes several hundred meters from it, due to very large price differences). We calculated the cost of food on the basis of data from the numbeo.com website - it compares the cost of living around the world.
After such a calculated trip on our own on Travelplanet.pl we were looking for the tour operator's most similar offer: departure from the same city, at the same time and preferably to the same hotel. However, the basis for the comparison was the hotel standard, in some cases they are the same facilities - this means that in the assumed dates they were the cheapest on both booking portals and travel agencies' offers.
Please select a valid form
