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…

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!

This post falls into that category of “wishful thinking”, but if I did suddenly come into money then I can imagine a worse way to go around the world than in business class. Naturally, my preference would be for a flightless option, but if I did have to fly then this would be the way to go!

I found a site that does offer business fares, although they are basically glorified return flights to Australia. You can stop off in Asia on the way there, and in South/North America on the way back – which makes it a truly round-the-world experience.

Example routes, dates and prices at: http://www.rtwflights.com/Qantas4.aspx

For a slightly more flexible and luxurious approach, there’s a 5 stop business class fare that lets you go almost anywhere. Unfortunately it’s around £5500. But hey! If you’ve got the money…

Example Routes:

• London – San Francisco or New York or Boston or Washington or Chicago or Miami or Orlando surface Los Angeles – Auckland – Christchurch – Sydney – Hong Kong – London (New Zealand fare)
• London – Hong Kong – Sydney – Christchurch – Auckland – San Francisco surface Los Angeles or New York or Boston or Chicago or Miami or or Washington or Orlando – UK (New Zealand fare)
• London – Hong Kong – Sydney surface Cairns – Auckland – Vancouver surface Los Angeles or New York or Boston or Chicago or Miami or Orlando – UK (New Zealand fare)
• Manchester – Los Angeles – Fiji – Auckland – Christchurch – Sydney – Hong Kong – Manchester (New Zealand fare +£210)
• London – Hong Kong – Sydney surface Brisbane or Cairns or Melbourne or Adelaide – Christchurch – Auckland – San Francisco or Los Angeles or New York or Boston or Chicago or Miami or Orlando – UK- London (New Zealand fare)
• London – Los Angeles – Tahiti – Auckland – Christchurch – Sydney – Hong Kong – London (New Zealand fare +£110)
• Manchester – Hong Kong – Sydney – Christchurch – Auckland – San Francisco – Manchester (New Zealand fare +£100)

• Scotland – Hong Kong – Sydney – Christchurch – Auckland – San Francisco – Edinburgh (New Zealand fare +£100)
• Belfast – Hong Kong – Sydney – Christchurch – Auckland – San Francisco – Belfast (New Zealand fare +£100)
• London – San Francisco – Auckland – Sydney – Hong Kong – London (New Zealand fare)
• London – Hong Kong – Auckland – Melbourne – Auckland – Los Angeles – London (New Zealand fare)

I used to use a travel agent to book all my flights, and then Kayak came along and I assumed it was cheaper just to run a search that way. It’s certainly a lot easier to do it online, rather than ring up and wait for an agent and then painstakingly talk through the dates and locations. On balance I do prefer to do it on my computer.

But sometimes, an agent can not only save you money but get you all sorts of extras. Have you ever, for instance, tried to book a stopover using Kayak? It’s absolutely impossible! Last year I took a trip from London to Dubai, Hong Kong, over to Bangkok and then back to London. If I’d done it using Kayak it would have cost me about £3,000 and routed me via Sydney! A call to Emirates sorted it out, and I got it for a fraction of the cost.

The lesson? Sometimes it pays to ring up.

I found another site where you can enter a destination and various agencies will be dispalyed that give you the best deals to that destination, as well as the months they’re available from.

Just go to : www.cheapflights.co.uk and enter the destination. Then you can browse through different agents. If you’re booking business or first class, these agents can usually get you a better deal than searching online. And one last trick is to ring up FlightCentre who will actually give you the flight for free if you call them and they can’t beat the quote you’ve got from another agent or website.

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’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.

Roatan isn’t usually on the hitlist for British travellers, most of us preferring the rather easier-to-get-to options of Jamaica, Dominican Republic and The Bahamas. But for something a little different, the more intrepid of you might consider Roatan. Watching TJ Lynch’s brilliant video post about daily life on Roatan made me think: how on Earth do you get here from the UK?

Situated off the coast of Honduras, this tropical island is a paradise of outstanding natural beauty, stunning beaches and a lively local culture. Being so far West in the Caribbean, it might make a good end point to a central American journey, or a good place to begin.

To get here, there are a few options. The easiest is to buy an air ticket straight through to Roatan International Airport. Flights will typically go through Miami, Houston or New York. American Airlines operates a service, as well as Continental.

Running a quick search through Kayak it turns out to be much cheaper to buy your ticket all the way through. I experimented by choosing London to Houston and then connecting, but that way always seems to be more expensive.

The second option is to fly with Spirit Airlines from Miami/Fort Lauderdale airport, which costs around $100 each way (although it can be cheaper if you book in advance). That’ll take you to San Pedro Sula and from there it’s another hop on a light aircraft over to the island. You can regularly find lights to Miami from around £300 on Virgin Atlantic or cheaper still, by flying charter from Gatwick to Orlando.

Lastly, if you can get to San Pedro Sula, take the bus up to La Ceiba and then a ferry service runs to the island, taking around  1 1/2 hours and costing $28 each way.

Bus information here:

http://www.hedmanalas.com/

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.