The early May Bank Holiday in 2020 has been moved … book (or rebook) your flights now

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• Tilly says:

  9 Jun9 June 06:14

  10 days leave for 18 days holiday will only work for family with grown up Kids not for poor sods like us with school going children

  • Andrew says:

    9 Jun9 June 07:00

    Or for people lucky enough not to have any kids.

    • Tilly says:

      9 Jun9 June 07:07

      +1

    • Mike says:

      9 Jun9 June 09:03

      +1

  • John says:

    9 Jun9 June 10:03

    Or people who don’t work Monday-Friday…

  • Russ says:

    9 Jun9 June 10:17

    Have to be fair here. Parent’s know what the score is..

• Anna says:

  9 Jun9 June 06:39

  I can’t believe they’ve only just announced this now and not made it an extra bank holiday like other countries do on such occasions. Not everyone will be able to get a day’s annual leave to replace the Monday bank holiday. People will have booked weddings that day also and will now find that all their guests are now either working or at school that day! We had arranged to go and see the Tutankhamun exhibition at the Saatchi gallery – fortunately our tickets are for the Sunday and our hotel booking was flexible as we’ll now have to come home on the Sunday evening as our son will have to be at school the next day.

  • Rob says:

    9 Jun9 June 10:03

    I agree, this is far too late in the day. It would have been better to keep the Monday one too – which would provided a massive boom to the travel industry!

    • Anna says:

      9 Jun9 June 10:52

      A former colleague of mine now works in the Cayman Islands. They get most of our bank holidays, some of the US ones, and regular “extras” such as one when Prince Charles visited in March. British Overseas Territories do a lot better than we do!

  • John says:

    9 Jun9 June 10:06

    Or they’ll just be “sick”. In school I had a friend who made up excuses to skive off (actually he was attending travel industry events) and he got caught after his fifth grandparent “died”.

    • Russ says:

      9 Jun9 June 10:19

      Other kids went to his funeral 😉

• Deenesh says:

  9 Jun9 June 07:00

  Can’t be many Mon-Fri 9-5’ers left in this modern world of people wanting services 7 days a week. I can only think of 1 person in my circle of friends and family who does so.

  • Andrew says:

    9 Jun9 June 07:27

    I think most people work Monday to Friday.

    • Alex Sm says:

      9 Jun9 June 08:47

      I’m sure employers will show some lenience given the circumstances

    • Rob says:

      9 Jun9 June 10:01

      HFP readers are disproportionately Monday-Friday (although definitely not 9-5, and probably catching up at home over the weekend) and no kids. Miles and points gets a lot trickier when you need four seats on the plane …. that portion of our readership is the part that buys the £1000 Qatar Airways sale deals instead.

      • Anna says:

        9 Jun9 June 10:57

        Or learned the art of combining award bookings with BA holiday packages. Best of both worlds – 2 of us get fantastic redemption value due to travelling in school holidays and the other gets avios and Tier points and an extended period to pay for the holiday.

      • Nick says:

        10 Jun10 June 08:52

        On that point: some articles on how to use points for families would be great. The avios position is straightforward I think, but stuff about which hotel chain allows points bookings for suites or offers that as an upgrade, or hotel schemes with AI resorts, or basically anything else that is relevant would be great. I know family considerations are often included in the articles but a section on how to do points with kids would be good

  • Mike says:

    9 Jun9 June 09:05

    I only work Mon to Fri – I don’t know anyone else that doesn’t………………………………..

    • David says:

      9 Jun9 June 09:21

      My drug dealer often works weekends, but has a good flexible working policy…

      • Tilly says:

        9 Jun9 June 11:44

        🤣

      • Richard says:

        9 Jun9 June 20:02

        Are you a Tory leadership candidate?

    • John says:

      9 Jun9 June 10:07

      I work when the client wants me to (unless I don’t want to).

    • health for points says:

      9 Jun9 June 12:17

      I work in healthcare, does anyone else here work nights, weekends and on-calls?

      • Jill (Kinkell) says:

        9 Jun9 June 13:59

        I used to ….now the only on call I do is to the loo! Blissful NHS retirement.

      • Anna says:

        9 Jun9 June 16:45

        I did, for 26 years in a different public sector role!

      • @mkcol says:

        9 Jun9 June 16:54

        Yes.
        I couldn’t contemplate working Mon-Fri “regular” hours.

  • Tilly says:

    9 Jun9 June 11:43

    I’m Monday to Friday but not 9-5. Work way longer hours than that.

    • David says:

      9 Jun9 June 12:40

      You are lucky! I have to get up in the morning 10 o’clock at night, half an hour before I go to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid etc…

• Anna says:

  9 Jun9 June 07:37

  OT but bank holiday related! I’m not really complaining as I have a great 5 for 4 nights points booking at the Westin Grand Cayman for next Easter (we bought some points each but rates are around $800 per night so it’s still a good deal). The room we’ve booked with points sleeps 3 people (king size bed plus sofa bed), but we’ve still been charged $50 per night for adding our son to the booking. If you book that room for cash, there is no 3rd person charge. I did consider only booking it for two and not declaring junior, but it’s not a big hotel and they would probably spot him at some point. Is this extra charge usual for Marriott redemptions?

  • Louise says:

    9 Jun9 June 08:31

    Anna I was looking at booking a couple of places last night on points and some say extra 50 charge for rollaway bed. When I search with kids no points available rooms come up.
    The hotels I was looking at doesn’t charge for cribs so will be ok as will be nearly 3 and 1

    • Anna says:

      9 Jun9 June 08:38

      Hi Louise – if the charge was for putting a rollaway bed in the room I wouldn’t mind so much, but the room already has a king bed plus a sofa bed, so sleeps up to 2 adults and 2 kids. If I booked the room for 2 adults, there would be no extra charge and we could still use both beds if we wanted to, so I don’t see the justification for the charge!

      • Louise says:

        9 Jun9 June 08:50

        I see, I would be tempted to not say anything then about the third person

        • Novice says:

          9 Jun9 June 09:51

          It might be a per person rate thing… I travel a lot on my own as in solo travel and always get charged nearly double for everything because the hotels usually want money pp…

          I actually think despite the fact thee are more solo travellers now, still we are penalised so much.

          A small charge for a kid should not be be such a problem.

        • Jonathan says:

          9 Jun9 June 10:23

          Disagree, you shouldn’t have to pay for kids. I’m sitting at a Jumeirah property and just got a £9 ice cream free for my 2yo daughter.

      • john says:

        9 Jun9 June 10:36

        I imagine they wouldn’t make the sofa bed up as a bed if you don’t declare the 3rd person requiring this by default. I guess you could obviously request it specifically though..

        • Novice says:

          9 Jun9 June 10:57

          It’s probably because the hotel thinks they could have made money if you booked two rooms so since you booked one and decided to use sofa bed, they just want to make some money rather than nothing.

          That’s what they do for solos, they mean they could have charged two pp so charge the one person ss

      • Anna says:

        9 Jun9 June 11:02

        Novice – if the kid was getting an extra bed or breakfast, I would have no issue paying up. The only cost he’ll be incurring is his water usage which to be honest isn’t that much these days 😂

        • Anna says:

          9 Jun9 June 11:04

          There also a $65 “resort fee” 🤦‍♀️ per day, so I consider his use of the sun loungers covered as well!

        • Novice says:

          9 Jun9 June 16:10

          I understand what you are saying and in a fair world, you would be right.

          But as I tried to explain earlier, I don’t think hotels care about anything other than the fact that they don’t want anyone to benefit without paying something for a benefit…

          Maybe I am not explaining my theory properly… I am just theorising

  • Lottie says:

    9 Jun9 June 09:31

    HI Anna I have had the same issue with 2 Marriott’s I have booked. In both cases I booked for two people then e mailed the hotel afterwards, as I didn’t want to pay the extra, and told them that my 6 year old would be joining us. They didn’t charge for the child in either case.

    • Anna says:

      9 Jun9 June 10:58

      Ooh good thinking Lottie! I’ll remember that for next time.

  • Crafty says:

    9 Jun9 June 16:52

    Yes it is, so I always book only for 2 adults. I’m always slightly nervous at check in (I dont tell my partner!) but don’t think we’ve ever had a problem. And on many of these occasions we’ve successfully requested a cot!

• flyingbee says:

  9 Jun9 June 09:15

  For those planning a May bank holiday weekend in France:

  8th May is always a public holiday in France for VE Day so hotels in France might already have adjusted their rates for a 3 day weekend since it falls on a Friday in 2020.

  In May 2020, Friday 1st and Thursday 21st are also public holidays in France.
  Take note of the one Thursday 21st (Ascension). For this holiday weekend many people make the bridge from Thursday and take a day off work on Friday, many schools are shut, and people go away for a 4 day weekend. In 2020 this coincides with the UK’s late May bank holiday on Monday 25th.

• Following on behind says:

  9 Jun9 June 09:48

  Boom – just booked a trip to San Sebastian. £1400 all in for the fake bank holiday weekend, £700 for the flights and hotel for the real one. Yay!

  • Anna says:

    9 Jun9 June 11:08

    Well done!

• Ant says:

  9 Jun9 June 09:53

  OT: IHG accelerate – my offer incl “Stay at 2 Holiday Inn® hotel(s)—including Holiday Inn Resort® and Holiday Inn Club Vacations®—and earn 8,000 bonus points”. If i book 2 rooms for the same nights at the same Holiday Inn will this trigger? thanks

  • David says:

    9 Jun9 June 10:07

    No – they will transfer the balance from the second room across to the first room when you’re paying, so IHG will only see it as one stay.

  • John says:

    9 Jun9 June 10:08

    No as it means 2 different HIs

• Graham says:

  9 Jun9 June 10:11

  OT – best places to check for car hire?

  10 nights in Orlando Nov 10 – 20. BA’s deal is not too shabby for a medium size but wondered if there’s anywhere else worth checking?

  • David says:

    9 Jun9 June 10:27

    Kayak is the easy one, Autoslash is slightly more complex (and very American)

    • Graham says:

      9 Jun9 June 10:35

      Never heard of Autoslash, I will go investigate. Thanks, David.

      • Simon says:

        10 Jun10 June 09:36

        Auto slash is only any good if you have car rental cover like that which comes with the platinum amex covering total loss. Third party car rental excess cover won’t be enough.

        • HJ says:

          10 Jun10 June 17:49

          I found autoslash decent, especially for the US. Although I had to set up a VPN to get the American Rate they offered. Simon, do American car rental companies not offer the price inclusive of insurance and so, wouldn’t third party car rental excess insurance be fine?

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