One week starts from around £147 per person, including flights from regional airports and staying in a four star hotel near the sea in Malta.

Choice Holidays who are offering these deals are taking advantage of Ryan Air flights, and combining them with their own hotel purchasing power to give people good deals. And I’m absolutely for it! If someone else has the headache of booking Ryan Air flights for you, then it’s not a bad idea to take advantage of it.

I’m not sure whether Choice have managed to negotiate anything with the airlines themselves. It’s not uncommon for travel agents to buy up large numbers of seats at a reduced fare, and then bundle them with hotel deals and mark them up. Since Ryan Air’s business strategy is so different from many other airlines, I’d be interested to know if that’s what’s going on.

However they manage to do it, it’s got to be a pretty good deal. Just remember to check out the TripAdvisor website before you book! Oh, and check on Kayak to make sure you’re not getting ripped off. At these prices though, that’s unlikely.

Choice Holidays > Malta deals

I’m always watching the rather brilliant icelolly.com website for good deals – even if I have absolutely no intention of travelling. The deals they offer are somewhat staggering, although a quick flick over to tripadvisor reveals that many of the cheapest deals are in sub-standard hotels. Having said that, for cheap trips to Spain, you can do a lot worse than to check out this website first.

I found this rather tempting trip for only £60 per person, including return flights from Edinburgh and three nights’ hotel accomodation. Difficult to imagine a cheaper deal than that (bearing in mind that the flight alone would usually cost twice that).

http://ow.ly/1FmIk

This particular one is at the hotel Merce which gets a 73% thumbs up on Tripadvisor (pretty rare for a hotel in this category). Your £60 won’t cover the transfer from the airport to the hotel which is around 70km. Hiring a car would be a great way to see this fantastic part of Spain – much of which is overlooked by most tourists. However, it’s likely that your car hire would cost almost the same as the package. But then at £60, who cares?

Just to drum the point home about TripAdvisor, the next option up is the rather smarter looking Hotel Flamingo. It’s just £6 more for the trip and going by the photos the hotel looks immeasurably better. However a glance at the reviews on Trip Advisor show that it’s probably one to avoid, with 37 out of 86 travellers rating the hotel as “Terrible”. Not so good.

Think of India.

One other tip for those thinking of India as a holiday destination. Although airfares have come down considerably in the last couple of years with the increased competition, you can get an absolute steal by looking for trips to Goa around November. If you’re prepared to hop on a plane tomorrow, you can get a return flight to Goa from London or Manchester for under £200. More about that nearer the time…

It didn’t ever occur to me that one of the main things people want to do when they come to London is take afternoon tea. Having grown up here, afternoon tea just seems like an ordinary (and fairly “mumsy”) thing to do. Pleasant enough, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to do it. On the other hand, for the millions of tourists who come to London each year, afternoon tea can often be a highlight of the trip.

Which is why I was so please to find an excellent resource for anyone wanting to compare prices and options in London for this very English activity:

Afternoon tea .co.uk

It has all of the main places covered – most of which are smart hotels. There’s a deal on at the moment for £9 at many of the Radisson hotels, and for only £16 you can have it with champagne! That’s a seriously good deal in my eyes, since a glass of the stuff in host hotel bars would cost £12+

At the other end of the extreme, the Lanseborough hotel offers a champagne afternoon tea for £45 per person, and promises to be an experience to remember. The Laneseborough was also voted ‘Best Afternoon Tea in London 2008′ by The Tea Council. Pricey, but if it’s a special occasion it could be worth it!

I’m not retired yet, but if I was then I can imagine worse ways of spending the winter than to be on a mild island in the middle of the Mediterranean. For most tourists, Malta is a scorching summer destination, but if you’re prepared to travel out of season there are some staggering deals to be had.

Typically, if you commit to two weeks or more in a hotel your room can cost as little as £15/night. Most hotels also include heated swimming pools and access to local facilities. It might not be hot enough to lounge on the beach, but it’s a pleasant 20 degrees, and a lot nicer than snow-blotted Britain!

Run a search for Malta extended stay hotels to get some ideas, and also have a look on Kayak. The other thing worth doing is ringing up the hotel directly, telling them that you want to stay for a longish time and see what deal they’ll offer you. It will usually be cheaper than the websites.

Airlines are also conspiring to make Malta a much cheaper destination than it was previously, with several budget carriers flying there (including Ryan Air) as well as the country’s national airline, Air Malta. You can find return flights from London in winter for as little as £50.

If you’re interested in staying there, there is currently a winter promotion running until 31st March that gives you rooms from only $39 per night. Not bad!

Keep an eye on their special offers page:

http://www.goldennugget.com/specials/index.asp