Why did the holiday auctions disappear?

[LuS1fer]

Around 2002 -2005, many of the travel companies used to auction off the seats and less desirable package holidays on their books. I profited immensely from these auctions with an all-in total cost for my wife and I of:

£99 to Roquetas De Mar for a week.
£635 to Kerala in India for two weeks.
£250 to Mojacar for a week.

I also went to Cyprus, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote all for around £400.

Thomson used to do the odd auction in recent times but they seem few and far between now. Any reason why?

[mike325112]

I was wondering the same recently. I went to a few places in europe for under a £100 for a week including flights. I seem to remember staying ending up in a 4 star B&B in Lanzerote for less than £70 once, it was a good hotel anyway but for that price it was brilliant. If I remember corrctly the parking at Gatwick near cost as much as the holiday!!

[uuf361]

Consolidation in the market by the Big 4 (Thomas Cook and My Travel merged as did First Choice and Thomson) together with reduced capacity has left less to sell in the lates market at a loss.......

[Four Cofffee]

I recall I bought first class air returns LGW or Heathrow to Edinburgh for £50 in about 2001.

I do wish they would come back.

[Dave_ITR]

uuf361 said:

Consolidation in the market by the Big 4 (Thomas Cook and My Travel merged as did First Choice and Thomson) together with reduced capacity has left less to sell in the lates market at a loss.......

This.

[LuS1fer]

Dave_ITR said:

uuf361 said:

Consolidation in the market by the Big 4 (Thomas Cook and My Travel merged as did First Choice and Thomson) together with reduced capacity has left less to sell in the lates market at a loss.......

This.

Surely they'd still make more money than giving it to their staff though. I recently met 3 stewardesses taking a £30 flight to Tenerife so that's £90 for seats they could easily have got £600 for at auction. Not to demean staff goodwill etc but.....

[bigdods]

LuS1fer said:

Dave_ITR said:

uuf361 said:

Consolidation in the market by the Big 4 (Thomas Cook and My Travel merged as did First Choice and Thomson) together with reduced capacity has left less to sell in the lates market at a loss.......

This.

Surely they'd still make more money than giving it to their staff though. I recently met 3 stewardesses taking a £30 flight to Tenerife so that's £90 for seats they could easily have got £600 for at auction. Not to demean staff goodwill etc but.....

Last time we went to tenerife in december 2009 I paid £25 each way for each of us (family of 4) and that includes the airport taxes. The year before around the same time I paid £30 each.

You just have to bide your time and snap up the offers when they pop up.

[LuS1fer]

bigdods said:

LuS1fer said:

Dave_ITR said:

uuf361 said:

Consolidation in the market by the Big 4 (Thomas Cook and My Travel merged as did First Choice and Thomson) together with reduced capacity has left less to sell in the lates market at a loss.......

This.

Surely they'd still make more money than giving it to their staff though. I recently met 3 stewardesses taking a £30 flight to Tenerife so that's £90 for seats they could easily have got £600 for at auction. Not to demean staff goodwill etc but.....

Last time we went to tenerife in december 2009 I paid £25 each way for each of us (family of 4) and that includes the airport taxes. The year before around the same time I paid £30 each.

You just have to bide your time and snap up the offers when they pop up.

Depends on your local airport though. This was Thomson who don't do much in the way of such offers and the previous year I snapped up some great offers from bmibaby only to have both cancelled at short notice and ending up out of pocket from villa deposits. Not that many great offers locally that aren't inflated by "extras".

I did see a great offer to Lanzarote recently but it was from Luton which is no good to me by the time you add on fuel, hotels, tolls etc.

Edited by LuS1fer on Tuesday 1st June 17:56