Fuddland

I knew there had to be a catch to that free flight offer I mentioned. Well, not so much a catch, but a clause which makes the deal not as sweet as we first thought.

I received the second-stage form today, which confusingly asks you to go through the destination- and departure-time-choosing procedure again, but this time you’re asked to pick three suitable places and dates, not just two as in the first part of the process.

This isn’t a really a big deal, just a bit weird since we’ve already done this once. But here’s the tricky bit: with your departure dates still unconfirmed, you’re asked whether you want to take up their travel insurance or use your own. If you use theirs, no problem. But if you want to arrange it separately [and I think most people would probably want to shop around for the best deal, since their prices are higher than, for example, Insure And Go are quoting], then you must provide your policy details when you send off this form.

So you need to sort out travel insurance to cover arbitrary travel dates, and unless you already have annual insurance, this is a bit of a Catch 22. If the potential savings on the flights were significant then obviously I’d have no problem just using the travel company’s own insurance, but since, at the time of writing, I can book a flight to Barcelona with Ryanair for a penny each way at around the same travel dates, it’s simply not worth me taking up this offer.

#1

Gordon | 2004 / 12 / 14 – 11:44

which is, of course, what they’d hoped you’d do.

cynic? me??

#2

felicity | 2004 / 12 / 14 – 22:42

i once booked a holiday to ibiza and the company wouldn’t release the travel documents until they’d got a copy of my yearly travel insurance certificate. numpties.
have you ever flown on ryanair and the pilot sounded exactley like graham norton?

#3

David | 2004 / 12 / 14 – 22:47

Re #2: No, but I watched a Channel 4 chat-show once and the presenter sounded exactly like my Ryanair pilot. [See what I did there?]

#4

Daisy | 2004 / 12 / 14 – 23:25

What a shame. I suppose we knew really that it would turn out like this but still.

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