A friend of mine recently booked a holiday to Thailand, she was attracted to the idea of blue sky, white sand and turquoise sea. So without researching the destination properly she booked her holiday. She had not seen the new coverage about the riots in Bangkok, she had no idea about the political upheaval or the curfews that were currently in place. As soon as she told us where she was going me and my friends looked horrified so she quickly asked what was wrong, we then directed her to all the stories online about the problems in Thailand, she still went on the holiday and had an amazing time. The main point to learn from my friend is that you need to research your holiday destination before you go.

Last weekend one of my best friends came back from Borneo, she had been over there for 4 weeks as an extended holiday. But this wasn’t your usual holiday; she went over there to help the endangered orangutans by building walk ways, cleaning the enclosures and feeding the animals too. This was the type of holiday where you experience the amazing culture of Borneo whilst making a difference to an endangered species. Borneo is located just north of Australia and is the third largest island in the world. After seeing my best friends photos of the jungle, the orangutans and how she helped make their struggling existence a better place it certainly does look like a more exciting holiday than just sitting on the beach in Spain!

Looks like it’s going to be another bad for iconic airline British Airways as in the news today is a survey story, by insurance company LV, which has revealed that one in 3 British Airways passengers have had their luggage lost, damaged, or delayed within the past five years. According to the survey it is the major airlines that have the worse reputation, with Virgin Atlantic being the second worse performing airline and Emirates being the third worse. Having had my bag lost only once, I know the sinking feeling that a passenger gets when you wait at the carousel and everyone around you collects their bags and you are the only one left with no bag. My only advice is to ensure that you pack few spare clothes in your hand luggage, such as swimwear so that if your bag does go missing at least you can still hit the pool.

There is an article in the news today about how Ryanair are raising the price of taking luggage on to their flights, just in time for the summer holidays. Although Ryanair prides itself as a budget airline with the amount of add-ons continuously rising, a £20 flight can soon escalate to over £100. Many years ago whilst I was at university I flew Ryanair, from Blackpool Airport to Dublin, for £25 and that was the total cost. Now if you want to check in a bag into the hold over the summer holidays (which the vast majority of travellers will do), the price is going to be increasing from £15 to £20, which if you are a family of 4 is a total cost of £80 just for bags. There were also rumours that Ryanair Chief Executive Michael O’Leary, wants to start charging people for using the toilet onboard his planes but this is yet to be confirmed.

I recently went to New York with Continental Airlines and I cannot emphasise enough how important it is to shop around for a good deal and to also book well in advance. I managed to get a return flight to Newark, New York non-stop from Manchester, England for £315. I managed this deal as I booked at least 6 months in advance and I monitored all the websites of all the major airlines that I knew flew from Manchester to New York. Then as soon as one of the airlines reduced their prices, all of the major airlines followed so I was able to get the best price, at the best times of day and the most direct flights too.  It might involve a bit of time and effort but when you consider that I saved over £300, it was totally worth it.