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

One of the most depressing things about 21st century travel has to be dealing with luggage. Packing it, taking it to the airport, unpacking it, lugging it up and down escalators — you get the idea. I’m constantly baffled when I see celebrities like Victoria Beckham and Joan Collins pushing trolleys at airports full of (albeit very expensive) luggage.

Surely far more civilised is to have your luggage sent ahead! A few times I’ve thought about using my courier account to send suitcases a few days in advanced to their destination. I’ve never actually gone through with it though. I did help one friend send his belonging back from Ireland where he’d relocated for six months — low cost airlines charge as much as £20/kg if you go over the limit.

The point of this post however, is to share with you Seabourne’s “Personal Valet” service. And long may it reign! Someone comes to your house, picks up your luggage and then essentially delivers it to your room, and unpacks everything. How marvellous! I really do think this is one of those added extras that’s worth paying for. Ok, Seabourne’s cruises (sorry : ‘yachting experiences’) cost upwards of about £3,000 but they definitely go the extra mile.

http://www.seabourn.com/PlanACruise/Personal/

Remember that volcano? Yeah – the one you couldn’t pronounce. Well, it was over a week ago now so no doubt you need reminding. A massive volcano errupted on Iceland and prevented tens of thousands of passengers from flying into British airspace. There was a lot of talk by the government to send the Royal Navy to go and pick people up from Spain. In the end, only one ship was sent.

At least that’s what I thought. In fact, Celebrity Eclipse was also sent in as part of a rescue operation, seemingly financed by Celebrity themselves. A pretty good gesture, Travelay thinks. The ship is due to launch this summer, and was doing a few days of showing off in British waters before being called into duty.

The ship actually looks stunning, and is the first at sea to feature a lawn on the deck. No doubt those stranded Britons deserved a martini or three for their troubles. I’m secretly dying to take a trip on this beast of a ship, not least because it also features an apple lounge, where you can hang out and play with Macs. Nice work if you can get it!

Economy can be terribly uncomfortable – particularly on very long journeys. With that in mind, Air New Zealand (which runs some of the longest flights in the world) has launched a new product in their 777-300 aircraft. The way it works is to offer a couple the chance to buy three seats instead of two. The row then folds out and creates a mini bed. Not exactly the lap of luxury, but still a lot more comfortable than sitting up.

There’s also another neat feature that I’m excited to try out — ordering drinks from your seat-back TV. Just scroll through popular drinks, press the one you want and one of the lovely Air NZ cabin crew will deliver it to you on a little tray. How marvellous! Travelay approves!

Usually if I read a deal such as “fly for free” I immediatley consign it to the dustbin – after all, an offer like that would usually involve participation or is simply a scam.

But the other night at a party I met someone who works for a travel agent called Flight Centre. It’s got quite a few shops on British high streets and a growing online presence. Unlike Expedia or any of the other big online flight retailers, you can’t enter your dates in on their website for the flight you want to take. However, they will show you their best deals and the times they’re available for – then it’s a matter of ringing up and asking. For instance, you might enter your dates for travel to New York in September, and they’ll show you deals they’ve got with different airlines for that part of the year and the cheapest fare. Then you ring them up to sort something out.

The good thing about this is that they’re often cheaper, and as a consequence the “Fly For Free” deal says that if you find a flight, and they can’t beat the price then they will give you the ticket for free! Just ring up after you’ve found a great fare and they will see if they can beat it. If not, you’ll get the seat for free.

It’s a good reminder that you don’t always get the best fares by searching through online sites. “Bucketshops” as they’re called were set up a few decades ago and still provide among the cheapest fares out there. Their premise is to buy seats in advance and then resell them, so they benefit from a larger economy of scale and airline discounts.

The other good thing about phone-based travel agents like this one is that they can also do special things like stopovers and good deals on round-the-world flights which are almost impossible to arrange online, even now. So if your flight requirements are even slightly complicated you should definitely ring up an agent.

In reality, I’m not sure whether Fly For Free actually gives out free tickets. More likely is that they’ll manage to find a fare that’s slightly cheaper than the one you’ve found and sell you that. It is, after all, a lot cheaper to let a fare go for £5 less than just to give it away. But still worth giving them a ring, because you’re bound to save something.

Flightcentre.co.uk
0844 800 8660

I’ve recently become rather obsessed with the idea of visiting my friend Yolande in South Africa, but flying there and back seems like a bit of a drag. Since I’m embarking on a world tour next year, I am going to try to fly as little as possible so this could be a good option when I need to return to Europe.

The ship MSC Sinfonia sails from Cape Town to Genoa which takes around 18 days. Because it’s a repositioning cruise (the ship returns to Europe for the summer months), it’s very low cost. Even with a flight to South Africa thrown in, and one back from Italy included the price can be as low as £890. Compare that to my two weeks’ rent or business class air ticket. Buying the cruise only will bring the price down further.

http://www.iglucruise.com/msc-sinfonia/3rd-april-2010_c46027

The only other alternative I can think of to get back from South Africa without flying would be to hitch a ride on a freighter which will set you back around $70-100 per night, so a lot more expensive and without the dining choice of a cruise liner. But then some people prefer to travel by freighter; your cabin is bigger and you don’t have to put up with annoying cruise passengers!

As someone rather slim myself, I’m quite pleased to see this imitative. Airlines constantly badger their passengers for taking over the 20kg luggage allowance, without taking into consideration the weight of the passengers themselves. Even if I took three heavy bags, I’d still probably weigh less than the kind of passenger who requires two seats.

Just so you know I’m not a total bigot, I don’t judge my fellow passengers for their size or weight. Rather I believe that if you’re in a position where you are inconveniencing other passengers or worse, putting yourself in danger then having two seats is essential. And if that means paying for it, so be it.

It’s not clear how this is going to work yet. I would like to see a clause whereby if the plane isn’t full then the second seat is refunded.That way the passenger gets two seats and the airline isn’t missing out on revenue because the seat would have been empty anyway.

Anyway, feel free to comment.

Or have they? Very cleverly, BMI has done what amounts to a re-brand of their business class by giving business travellers all the perks of flying business, but with an economy tag. The way it works is like this : instead of buying a normal, inflexible business class ticket, BMI will ask you to buy a flexible economy ticket. This guarantees you a seat on any flight. More importantly for business travellers, it also gives you lounge access and seating at the front of the aircraft. And while ordinary economy passengers will have to pay for food and drink, the flexible economy ones won’t.

It makes sound business sense, too : BMI still gets its premium fares, business travellers still get their little perks and companies can still say that their executives are not flying business – everyone’s a winner!

Mr Prock-Schauer, the new(ish) chief exec of BMI is obviously making some changes to try and improve the profitability of the airline. And it’s no secret that Lufthansa are thinking of selling BMI off once it becomes a slightly more attractive entity. But if things stay as they are at the moment, it might be quite a while before we see that day.

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