Most holidays I offer can be booked with or without flights.
It usually works out cheaper to buy your own flights and your yacht can be held on option for you while you do this. What’s more, if you’re booking your yacht with me I’ll find you the best direct flights I can and let you know where to book them.
Booking flights yourself really is easy but if you prefer, I can often offer a package with flights from the UK and your chosen yacht. This usually costs more than if you book flights yourself but will give you ATOL cover.
To book flights yourself, all you will need is a credit or debit card (it’s usually slightly cheaper with a debit card) and the full names of everyone travelling, as written on their passports. This is important – if your passport name doesn’t match the booking name, the airline will insist on you changing the ticket and may charge heavily to do this. So if you’ve just got married (or divorced) and haven’t yet charged your passport, make sure to use the right name.
If you’re worried about hidden charges or fear that you might forget to say tick a box to book extra luggage or a meal, have a dry run using dummy names, making sure you stop at the point they ask for you payment details. This is what most travel agents do – it’s much quicker than digging around the website trying to determine what extra charges might apply.
When possible, I would recommend taking a direct flight over two or more indirect ones. There a much greater chance of your luggage going astray if you have to switch planes. Worse still, unless the flights are operated by the same airline group, if you miss your second flight because of a delay to the first you will probably have to buy new tickets for your second leg, assuming there are seats available.
So if you have to use indirect flights, try to book both with the same airline group, and if this isn’t possible, allow plenty of time between flights to be sure you make your connection.
These days, most flights use e-tickets rather than the traditional paper tickets of old. So once you’ve finished your booking, you’ll be able to print out the booking confirmation (and often even your boarding cards) at home. No more worrying about them getting lost in the post.
Transfers
Getting from the arrival airport to your yacht isn’t difficult. If you’re doing it yourself I’ll give you instructions.
You have four options with transfers:
- If you’ve bought a flight inclusive package they’re usually included.
- Most yacht suppliers will organise transfers for you. This means there will be someone there to meet you, even if the plane is delayed.
- There are countless companies that provide private transfers for the trade and general public. You can book on line, often for less than the yacht supplier would charge and there should be someone there to meet you, even if you plane is delayed. The difficulty is knowing which companies are reliable and which aren’t – you might want to read around on sites like Trip Adviser, or I can sometimes give you some pointers.
- Use public transport. This can work out much cheaper (though it might not be so luxurious) and often isn’t as hard as you think. Some planning is useful though – you could find the only option is a taxi, or if you’re a large party or have luggage aplenty, several taxis. This might work out much more expensive than pre-booking a private transfer.