Holiday savings for 2009. The Summer of 2009 is a joyous time for the UK holiday industry and they will try to rip you off at every turn. Surely no other nationality in the world would suffer the cons, rip offs and just plain greed with the high prices the British tour operators charge than we do. Case in Point: We normally take a couple of weeks in the Vendee on the Western coast of France. This year our usual operator was offering a 2 week package there to stay in one of their nice mobile homes. The package included return Dover/Calais ferry and cost circa £650 for the last week of June and 1st week of July.

Not bad I thought, but my wife has been ill and doesn't want to make the long journey this year so I sent off for a couple of brochures for identical holidays in Devon. The price? £670 for 1 week in June. Since then of course the French operators have reduced their prices and have sent round brochures to past clients offering them 2 weeks + return Poole/Cherbourg or Caen ferry for £530 for the same 2 weeks they first quoted for. Rip off Britain strikes again. I'm as patriotic as the next man but I am not paying over the odds to take a holiday in the UK just for the sake of it.

Here we have attempted to help you make some savings on your holiday to the Eurozone, France, Spain wherever, and though these small savings may help the self drive holidaymakers more than anyone there is a little something here for everyone worried about the expense of a foreign holiday in 2009, but before we go any further we have a similar page to this for holiday savings on our sister site. To put you in the picture, my name is Arthur and I am the editor of this website, but I am not a financial guru and anything written on this page is just me trying to be helpful rather than giving you financial advice. I have to add something like that in just in case some plonker tries to sue me if their holiday costs more than it should do. If you have anything constructive to add to this page then please let me know by email to camp@campingmobilehomesholidays.co.uk and I will add it asap, so please keep it clean enough for family reading. We also have a page full of Good Holiday Tips which is written in a light hearted manner but which is full of important tips and points out some of the pitfalls for the unwary traveller to Europe.

When something goes awry we naturally tend to think of who to pin it on, a scapegoat if you like, but the universally bad financial crashes of late 2008 and early 2009 look as if they may continue until later this year and possibly into 2010 - a daunting thought indeed. To be fair, we cannot just blame one single entity, country or person for the massive recent banking losses and businesses which have folded though most certainly the sub prime mortgage problem in America did nothing positive to help the world's economic situation, and further to that our country has a PM who is a duplicious cretin and a Chancellor who is inept to say the least, so those two and the US have pretty well stuffed our chances of having a cheap holiday, and that is precisely why you are here on this page. The points mentioned below are not in any order of importance but we hope that you will find something useful here..

OK, let's get started, and (apart from having a holiday at home this year) the first thing you should do when you see the holiday of your dreams for 2009 is:-

1) Make absolutely certain that your holiday is protected if the tour company goes belly up, as some will surely do this year. Book using your credit card if at all possible and this will give you protection in the worst scenario.

2) I hate to say this because this site is all about camping and mobile homes in the Eurozone, and France especially, but you could look outside the Europe to make the first savings on your holiday: somewhere like Iceland, Turkey, S Africa, N Cyprus etc.

3) Haggle the price down. I personally never pay the asking price for anything valued at more than a tenner and it is a constant embarrassment to my wife and family when I haggle, but it nearly always gets results! Remember that in most cases you won't be dealing with a decision maker so don't keep your manner cool, nice and polite but firm. Suggest that you should have XXX discount rather than being demanding which will put them off. Ask to speak to the manager/ess and make the offer to him/her. Suggest that they are better off making a little profit than none at all. If you are unable to get any discount at all then leave the premises and ask them to contact you when they have reconsidered. You may or may not receive a 'phone call from them but it has worked for me in the past. Make them aware before you leave their premises that you know that they and all the other travel agents are selling the self same holidays. Somebody somewhere is going to give in and allow you to make some substantial savings. Yes they are!

4) If you are booking a holiday which includes flight/accommodation/car hire then a package deal may well be the best value for you - still haggle though.

5) Booking your holiday. In the past it has benefitted many families to book very early, especially if there are child places to be had, though I always found that the last one had been taken the minute before I called. Nowadays I think there is just as good a reason to book late and get a better discount. The longer you leave it the less it will cost you until it's a bums on seats booking that will cost very little.

6) I was asking a friend what she thought were the best ways to make holiday savings and she suggested using review websites. Personally I think they are a scam but it's only a suggestion anyway.

7) If you are travelling to Europe via a cross channel ferry I think they will have plenty of room this year, so if haggling doesn't get you a cheap crossing then try booking an unsociable time crossing like night time and you will find that it's far, far cheaper, but my belief is that as the year progresses there will be money saving offers on lots of crossings anyway. Until recently cross channel ferry operators have had things pretty much their way but there are masses of cheap flights and train journeys to Europe nowadays and competition brings down prices.

8) If you are going to France then I sincerely believe that you need a car when you get there, but does it have to be your car or would a cheap flight and a hire car work out cheaper?

9) The car. Plenty to go at here! Get it serviced for starters, and that way it will use less fuel. You know how many MPG your car gives so drive at a speed which will give you the maximum - eg, 60 - 70 mph on a dual carriageway may save you 10 MPG against flogging a loaded car at 80 mph.

Fuel savings can be made easily here - or more to the point, you can save yourself wastage. Apparently driving with a window open can reduce your mph by 25% which to my mind is one helluvalot. Contra that against having the windows closed and the Air Con on which will reduce mph by approx 10%. If you drive with the Air Con on and a window open then be prepared to stop at every filling station between here and Paris.

Roof racks with suitcases etc on are an absolute no no in terms of fuel savings. A loaded roof rack will reduce fuel efficiency by roughly 30%. If you have to put anything on the roof at all then use a roof box. Beg, borrow or steal one because that will only reduce your fuel efficiency by about 10 to 15%.

10) Assuming that you are taking your car on a self drive holiday then you can make savings by taking a box or boxes of food with you - remember that what was cheap over there last year is now expensive and at least when you are shopping at home you know where the bargains are to be found, so fix a box or two of goodies in the car or pop them into a roof box and you will certainly save by doing so.

11) Everyone has a mobile phone, even me, but in my case I don't know where it is or it's number. You have a mobile, so does your spouse and so do your kids. Text from most parts of Europe and it costs a small fortune, but make a call from there and the cost is astronomical, and do you seriously think that your kids are going to do without their mobiles while you're on holidays, even when it's £1 per minute and more? No way! Make savings here by contacting your operator here to see if you are eligible for special rates or pre-paid offers, or get a Sim card for the country you are visiting so that outgoing calls are cheaper.

12) Holiday insurance.  Do not buy holiday insurance from a travel agent because you will undoubtedly be ripped off. In fact if you go on holidays abroad more than once a year then get an annual policy as opposed to a single trip policy as this will cost you less. Get your holiday insurance online or through your broker as both of these will be very competitive.

13) Foreign currency: You can make easy savings here if you shop around for the best deal. If you are lucky enough to be near a branch of the Co-Op Travel group then they are well worth a try. They have given us the best deals by far year on year and they always have the currency in stock. Some travel agents will rip you off (again) on the amount they will offer you per £ Sterling, but what doesn't make a lot of difference for a tenner will make a heck of a lot of difference when you change several hundred pounds. Make sure that the agent will (as Co-Op travel does) offer you the same amount back for any unspent money (notes only) as they did when you bought it. Don't change money at your bank or the Post Office (though this is usually better than a bank) but look around for a branch of Co-Op Travel (No they don't pay me for printing this).

14) Credit/debit card charges: Are you aware that most credit card providers make up to £2.75% commission when you use a card abroad? That makes it £5.50 on £200 which I think is another rip off so if you must use a credit or debit card abroad frequently then you can make some savings by getting special cards with either the Post Office or Nationwide.

15) Baggage when flying: Personally I don't fly, not because I'm afraid of it but because I have so many bits of metal in me that getting through the radar at customs is nigh on impossible, and the damn thing starts to shriek if I even get near to it. That apart, you can make substantial savings by travelling light with some of these cheap no frills airlines such as Ryanair. Paying in advance online will cost you far less than paying the extra at the airport.

16) You are thinking of going on a tent camping holiday and it sounds reasonably cheap. Cast around and you will find that may not be the case and it only seems cheap compared to some other types of holidays. We have found that one holiday company which specialises in tent camping holidays was charging more per week than we were paying to stay in a nice big and well appointed mobile home. This is not an advertising page but if you want details of those tweo companies then please just mail me.

17) Mobile home holidays. These are my favourite all time holidays, especially if you are going self drive. Cast around online and see what bargains are to be found but unlike previous years I don't think many of them will be overbooked in 2009 because I well remember that several companies were offering a saving of 50% for all mobile home hols in July 2008. Haggle.

With mobile homes and camping holidays you will find that some companies include what I term as "extras" in the nicest possible way, to the price of the holiday, but these extras have to be paid for by the holidaymakers and very often you pay up like a lamb for something you don't want or need. I mean, do you need your mobile home to be near a golf course? Do you need your holiday company to offer a kiddies club especially if you don't have children? Do you want/need the dubious "entertainment" which is on offer? There are quite a few things like these examples that you may not want but will have to pay for and it's no good asking that they are removed from your bill because that isn't going to happen. The answer is to make savings on your holiday by avoiding holiday companies which offer anything you don't want. If I may add a rider to that: Please don't think that companies offering these services are ripping you off. To be honest some of them are seriously good holiday companies but they often charge for the things mentioned here which you may well not need.

17) Camping, but this time you take your own gear. There can't be a cheaper holiday than this unless you get a freebie. You must make substantial savings on your holiday even if you have to buy camping gear just for that hol, and remember that once you've bought it it can be used year after year

 That's it. Have a super holiday!