Lettie Goes Travelling

I always try and schedule a long weekend break in February or March — just to get some sunshine, even if it’s not quite bikini weather

This year I decided to return to Gibraltar, somewhere I last visited as a child

At that point, the apes were the only thing I could remember… but I knew The Rock had more to offer

When I started looking at flights and realised it was cheaper to fly to Gibraltar than get a return train to Cardiff… it felt like a no brainer

Flights locked in

Then came the hotel

I have a favourite app — I think we all have that one go-to site, don’t we?

Gibraltar is a small place, so there wasn’t a huge amount of choice

I found a hotel, room only

Pay on arrival

Free cancellation up to the day before

Tick, tick, tick

But something niggled

It wasn’t quite where I wanted to be

Slightly out of the centre

I must have gone back to that app half a dozen times

So I decided to do something different

I reached out to an agent

Now I’ve always assumed it would be more expensive using an agent…

But it costs nothing to ask the question

So I gave them my dates, a couple of priorities, and left them to it

24 hours later they came back with a couple of options

One wasn’t right

But the other…

It was actually the hotel I’d stayed in as a child

And it was cheaper than I was being quoted on my app

(Even with my Genius Member discount 😊)

I asked a couple of questions

Turns out it was B&B as well

So an even better deal

I booked it

Confirmation came through within the hour

A couple of days later they got back in touch

There’d been an error in the pricing…

Here we go…

They’d over-quoted me

It was now another £25 cheaper

Bargain 🍾

Check-in was easy

Room was great

Breakfast was excellent

But it wasn’t until I was sitting at the airport waiting to come home

that it really landed

The saving I’d made by using an agent

had covered the cost of my three evening meals

and entry to the Gibraltar Nature Reserve

Now that’s the sort of travel maths I love ❤️✈️

I’ll definitely be doing it again!