What are you looking for? a package holiday or renting a house for a week or 2. If it is the latter we used www.holiday-rentals.co.uk last year. You pay the owner directly. We had a fab 2 weeks in spain

Thanks for your reply. 

We've used that site many times in the past, along with www.ownersdirect.co.uk but this year I fancy staying in a hotel.

We've not booked a holiday before from Switzerland and am not sure the best way to go about it?  Go into a travel agents, book a package on-line or book flights and hotels separately??

We would be grateful for any advice/tips etc.?

A friend of mine used this site, with excellent results:

http://www.homelidays.co.uk/

Personally, I found some great places through the classified section of _The New York Review of Books_.

Have fun!

Charles

If you're looking for Florida try www.gulfcoastvillas.com website.

www.ebookers.ch

Usually i found i always had decent rates with Expedia (especially the .com website in $ m for some weird reason it was sometimes better than the european websites in euros).

Hi,

Two great sites for Hotels are:

http://www.sawdays.co.uk/ and http://www.mrandmrssmith.com/

The later is a bit more boutique-y. Once you've found a place you can always try their website to check for deals.

For flights you can try www.dohop.com. Its good as it includes the budget airlines as well which many other sites exclude.

Personally I always book travel and accom seperately as it just gives one more flexibility.

If you are going long haul then a package might be better as there tends to be an implicit discount on the hotel. You'll probably be connecting via London in that case anyway so can just go to Virgin Holidays etc etc

We did a package with Virgin Holidays and never ever again!   When we arrived in Florida a representative met us with a "good news bad news" scenario and was very flippant about it.  The bad news was that the hotel we had reserved was no longer available.  Why they waited until we had arrived in Florida to tell us I have no idea and they were unable to give us a satisfactory reply either.   They promised us that the alternative hotel they had put us in was an upgrade.  When we got there it was the most dreadful place and not only that but our rooms were in three different parts of the hotel meaning that my husband had to sleep with our son down in the basement ( I say basement as it was practically below street level), and I had to sleep with my daughter.  Granny was elsewhere and to get to her room we had to pass by the greasy smelly kitchens which would have put anyone off their food.  The clientele were very rough, loud and scary.  Anyway, to cut a long story short we got no satisfaction whatsoever from Virgin apart from the offer of a £50 discount on our next booking with them.   Since then we stay in our own luxury villa and have complete peace of mind.  Wonderful.

ok, duly chastised. This is why I've never booked a package holiday....

Sorry - didn't mean to sound rough on you but it's very emotional when you spend a long time checking out locations and accommodation, not to mention the cost involved, to have it ruined when you arrive.    Incidentally, friends of ours also travelled with V. the same year, and got similar treatment.  Virgin's customer service is all verbal, very patronising and no action.  This is the last mail from me on this subject before I bore you all to tears!

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