Leonardo Laura Beach & Splash Resort

We here this year from 8th to 15th August.  I paid 4500 GBP for 4 of us.

This was our first "all inclusive" experience.  Always shied away from this, as it just seems like it is for inexperience or lazy travellers. 

But when we did a rough comparison and the Flight + Hotel was the same as the Firstchoice price, so effectively we get airport transfer and food for free.

I want to see if I could get a better price then by booking 1 whole year in advance (not likely to be able to forward plan that far, as I only managed to talk my wife into this trip just 3 days in advance - but anyway)

Even 1 year in advance the price is more or less the same. The flights were best part of £500 each; I wonder if booking direct with the airline would be better....

11 Aug 2019..  Cannot buy Easyjet tickets so far in advance.  April to August is 6 months.  So will check in 6 months time so see.

3 Jan 2020.. So now I check the easyJet website again.  I can now book in August 2020.

The flight times are a bit different???    I can now depart 15:20, yet be in Paphos at 21:55, and the flight coming back will get me into LGW at just 01:30 (not 4am like last time) - but better yet the flight is only £252.98

 Easyjet give a small discount for kids.. so my basket looks like this:

At approximately £250 per person, this is half the price of what I would have paid with firstchoice booking 12 months ahead.  I better check out their pricing and book direct pricing now.

So I gone back to the Firstchoice.co.uk site... There is now no option for the easyJet flights - it has to be TUI now (still an early start from LGW) and the price is over 1 thousand more.  I assume that since those flights no longer exist, this is the siutation where you can an email from the package company saying.. "You're flights have changed..."

Final check.. Let me go to the Laura Leonardo Hotel's own website and see what they have to say about these dates.

First I tried https://www.leonardo-hotels.com/  But this gave no availability for those dates.

A lot of people might fall at that hurdle, but not me.  With a bit of sniffing around (using Google) I got some prices and availability.   I simply searched Google for the hotel name, then used the pricing link, and it took me to https://laurabeachhotel.reserve-online.net which looked like a booking system specifically branded by the hotel itself (with the official hotel logo etc).  

Looks like it is popular on this site, as some room types were sold out on this system (or maybe just blocked).  The price for 2 rooms was 2475 x 2 = £4950  (it does say I can take 396 off if I 'sign up').

So let's do the comparison now...

Conculsion:  The difference to booking 12 month ealier to now 6months is abour 23.5%  - a fair bit.   This might have been influenced by the collapse of Thomas Cook and by brexit worries.

January is a busy time for bookings, so the prices might be hiked and come lower again.

I will need to check the price 3 days prior again.... I've put it in my calendar.

Just for fun I looked at the same days in August 2021...(some 18months in advance) looks now similar to the 12 month prior price. 

August 2020

COVID-19 is here.  Travel world in chaos.

Can't book the 8th August, but the week commencing 15th is available.  And look at the price.

I paid about £4500 for exactly the same last year.   Shame we going to Cornwall....