Touchdown Holidays - Good or bad?!

[Deep Stall]

Just wondering if anyone who took a Touchdown holiday could share their experience. Did you get the holiday you wanted and was it as good as the brochures look? Heading to Thailand in the summer and wondered if it was better than braving it on standby!!!

[Grandad Flyer]

I had the same dilemma recently and asked around at work and straight away two separate people told me that they had booked with Touchdown, all confirmed, then the tickets never arrived. In the end, after lots of phone calls, it turned out that Touchdown had never booked the flights, despite saying they had. Both people had to take totally different hols as with only as little as 2 days notice, they could not get a flight.
Having heard that, I decided to go with the standby tickets, and have had no problems at all. You can check load factors well in advance. Depends where you are going, but some routes have alternate non-direct routings, etc. in case one flight is busy you can take another.
So I would strongly suggest asking around at work too - I haven't had first hand experience of Touchdown.

[euroboy]

I`ve used Touchdown once, and tried several times.

The tried times are when I decided to book accommodation only, and then a Virgin LA holiday.
They could not get the room, and the Virgin holiday after 10 days they could not get a return flight.

The one time I was successful was the Laker Airways deal for £139 LGW-MIA. However, I could not get flights for the outbound so I had to go about 2 days later, resulting in only 5 days away.

A collegue tried the Laker deal and there was a very heavy surcharge for the time of year. She booked a charter flight to SFB. Which was about £20 more than I paid.

I did work in a Travel Agents and would say pick up a couple of brochures, BA Holidays, Thomas Cook Worldwide they use scheduled airlines and possibly Thomsons and Airtours and have a look in those. Thomas Cook and BA holidays offer deals such as stay 4 nights and get 2 nights free of charge. I will say its going through the brochure and reading the offers bit by bit. Early booking discounts and the Travel Agent may give you a discount if not ask for it especially T. Cooks on a Cooks holiday via a branch its their targets. Sometimes you may find the holiday cheaper, or only a few quid more expensive without the hasle of waiting to find out if you are going or not.
I did go to LA SBY and had no problems getting on either way.
I notice that Touchdown can have some heavy suppliments per night and flights at certain times of the year.
Hotel accommodation only look on the webb, I found a good B&B in Rio for last months holiday.
T Cook holidays and BA do tailor made as well.
You may laugh here but I got £150 off a holiday for 2 of us by buying 3 bottles of Flash Kitchen cleaner. I don`t know when you plan to travel, but if its later in the year, Thomas Cook have a credit card which as you spend on it, you earn points=£ off any holiday booked with them, even with any discount given.

I hope this helps.

[This message has been edited by euroboy (edited 15 March 2001).]

[This message has been edited by euroboy (edited 15 March 2001).]

[Avman]

I and many of my ATC colleagues used Touchdown some years ago without problems. However, in the past two to three years they went from good to bad. Now we don't use them at all. I think that they just can't cope with demand.

[Chalky]

I've used Touchdown for flights at least once a year over the past five years, including in the last month, and have had few problems. Some airlines won't allow them to apply for seats until two or three weeks before travel, which can be frustrating, especially if there are no seats available. However several including BA and VS will confirm within hours or days of booking, and I've not had any problems with tickets from these airlines.

As far as hotel prices are concerned, you may be able to do better by going direct to the hotel group, but some of their deals in the far east are pretty cheap.

Getting through to Touchdown on the phone is difficult, but booking on their web site seems to work well enough.

[goldenrivet]

We booked to go to Zanzibar last October with immediate confirmation on Kenya Airways. We booked the holiday in August. Two weeks before departure the connecting flights from Nairobi would not be confirmed until nearer 7 days before. Not enough time for the visa applications to go through! We changed our holiday to Sri Lanka and everything went fine. Touchdown are very difficult to phone and you never seem to be able to speak to the right person (except their voicemail). If you live near their office that would be handy. My advise is not to book anything with them until 2 weeks before departure so that it can be confirmed almost straight away.

[Deep Stall]

Thanks folks for all the gen, the feedback I've been getting from others in my company has been less than positive also, so I think I'll either brave it on standby or take the plunge and book the whole holiday via a package... theres no price on peace of mind, at least you know where you're going!!!!

[snooky]

I've only used Touchdown once, and they were ok, but a few years ago I was very badly let down by a similar firm called Lawsons, sometimes known as LITS.

[euroboy]

Throught you like to know Thomas Cook have a Special Offer leaflet for Thailand this summer. Lots of stay extra nights free-lead price is for 5 nights + get 2,3,4 nights free, just pay for b`fast, approx £6 Its a light blue thin brochure.

[JetMender]

I have used Touchdown for holidays to the Far East, Seychelles, Kenya etc over the years. They were excellent & I highly reccomended them. However, recently they dont seem to be able to get flights that I want and seem to be disorganised. They are quite poor at getting back to you if you leave a message or e-mail them and if they do, they dont always have your details to hand. I think their confirmed flight prices are good if you can get them. Their BA prices are't much more than ID80 stand-bys (which not everyone can get).
Using the internet and asking for Airline discounts, you can often get hotel accommodation cheaper by booking direct.

[Deep Cover Gecko]

I tried to book VS flights through Touchdown for LGW-BOS, and was told that there was no availability. I tried to get hold of them, but as has been mentioned before, they were very difficult to get hold of (even in our line of work where shifts are the norm!). Eventually I looked on one of the cheap flight web sites, and got flights on the day I wanted, (although they were via EWR which wasn't a problem), and near enough the same price.
A friend also booked a holiday through them, paying extra to have it confirmed immediately. Two weeks before departure, they were told that they couldn't go, and had to arrange something else, again at short notice. ;)

[Fuwhead]

I could not even get though on the telephone to make a booking!!!

[bird on the wire]

Yep their phone system makes life extremely difficult.However, we booked to Kenya at the last minute and (when we could get hold of them)they were extremely helpful.
First accomodation was lousy tho and it took us a whole day to sort it out(that phone system again), so it's not quite like having a rep on your doorstep, but they moved us to a splendid place and we had a great time.
At a week's all inclusive for £430 you can put up with a little hassle

------------------
they bought their tickets - they knew what they were getting into