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Premier Iberian Golfing Holidays offers a great choice of destinations including most of coastal Spain, the Algarve, Lisbon, Madeira, the Canary Islands and Mallorca. Premier Iberian provide the choice of over 100 accommodation venues ranging from self-catering apartments and villas to 4 and 5 star hotels with prices to suit all budgets and all carefully vetted by them.

Premier Iberian Ltd are fully protected in compliance with the Package Travel, Package Holidays and Package Tours regulations 1992.

Packages including flights from the UK are ATOL protected, since Premier Iberian Ltd hold an ATOL (Air Travel Organisers Licence) granted by the Civil Aviation Authority.

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This is a family run company, with Gordon and Val Clark at the head. Their son Stephen is a mechanic and their daughter Kerry commutes from Barnsley to Chesterfield, to run the Chesterfield office. Their daughter in law also works at one of their other offices.

All the coaches that I have been on have seatbelts and air-conditioning, with access at the front (near the drivers seat) and near the toilet. The latter is not used routinely but can be used as an exit or access point in the case of an emergency or if the driver specifically states it is to be used. For example, when we stopped at a viewpoint in Scotland to look at Loch Ness, the driver (Neil) recommended we used the back door and went round to open it for us.

Most of the coaches that I have been on have a TV screen – but I have yet to see anything played on them. All of the coaches have a radio/tape and sometimes the driver puts this on for the passengers benefit.

All of the holidays include excursions to local towns and villages or places of interest. Some of the day trips and weekend trips (or special offers) include entry to places of interest. If the day trip visits a place, but does not include the entrance fee, the booklet states this quite clearly. In my opinion, this is a very big plus point.

All their holidays are fully bonded in accordance with the Package travel, Package Tours Regulations 1992 you are fully insured for all monies paid if Gee Vee Travel should go under. This is highly unlikely as they are very popular. My mother went in last week to pay her balance for our “Turkey and Tinsel” holiday to Weymouth and they were almost queuing out the door!

Insurance can be provided (for a fee) and a deposit of £20 per person is required.

The coach operators listing site on www.go-by-coach.co.uk states that there is a fleet of 15 coaches. The coaches are used for both day trips and weeklong holidays, in this country and abroad. I have never used this company for a holiday abroad so cannot comment on how comfortable a journey is that long, but I would certainly recommend this company very highly. Taxi fares to and from your house are included in the price (holidays of 5 days or more only), provided you live within a certain distance of the pick up place. If you live further than this set distance, some money is knocked off (I believe £5 per person) the price of the holiday.

Most of the coaches are driven by a single driver and pick up at Barnsley, Sheffield City Centre, Chesterfield Bus Station and Hillsborough, nr Sheffield.

All coaches operate a non-smoking policy and most have a drinks machine on board (including soup) for 50p a cup. There is a toilet on board, but there are regular stops along the way down to the hotels, etc.

This, of course, varies according to what you have chosen to go on, but starts from as little as £8.50 for a day trip to Liverpool. I often go on the “Early Bird” tours, which are from January to May, and start from as little as £92 (Bideford) per person, for a week (some are for 10 to 14 days here and abroad) in the various hotels in the United Kingdom. Some of the Early Bird deals are for holidays abroad – this year’s list includes Amsterdam (Thursday to Monday £219) and Paris (Friday to Sunday £110).

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SUPERBREAK is a widely known company used by independent travellers and travel agents to book short breaks. They specialise in 2 to 5* hotels and carry over 500,000 travellers a year.
When I first picked up a Superbreak brochure in the shops I thought the hotels looked a little pricey and thought you could probably get cheaper deals elsewhere but was I wrong to jump to this conclusion? I searched their very comprehensive website a couple of times when I have been booking short breaks and to be honest I have found cheaper deals elsewhere but not this time.

Superbreak is the perfect company to go to if you need to sort some accommodation out, as it is quick and easy to get a quote to compare to others. They sell rooms anywhere in the world. They mainly deal with the UK but have contracts with hotels in popular worldwide destinations such as USA/ Canada, Portugal, Caribbean, Dubai, Spain, France, Germany and Malta to name a few.
They also sell a good variety of theme park breaks, theatre breaks, event breaks, singles holidays, golf breaks and airport hotels. So basically any reason for accommodation is catered for here. If you are looking for a general hotel and not sure were they place all the hotels in a sub heading area for you to find under family, romance, country and luxury.
Superbreak also organises group travel online which is quite good, as most online sites cannot cope with the pricing etc but Superbreak seem to have covered their full list of services online.

The website is a lot better than the brochure that they have for the main reason it is a lot more up to date with prices and offers and can all be booked and checked online without the hassle of going to your local travel agent or calling up to book.
However if you wish to receive a brochure you can pick one up from your local travel agency or you can order a copy online.
The website also offers other good services gift voucher sales which are good for people who love to travel as they can be brought for gifts in £10, £25 and £50 denominations.
As Superbreak does not offer transport to the hotels they have links to other websites to assist travellers such as car hire and rail fares.
If you have transport but unsure how to get to your hotel you can click on the map search link and get directions to your hotel which is a great tool for travelling to areas you have never visited before.

The booking procedure is very simple and varies for each type of break you are looking for but all tend to go the same way. You enter the date you wish to travel, amount of guests, the destination or attraction you wish to visit and the date. You are then given a list of available breaks and prices. Once you have spotted the one you want you can click on the hotel details to clarify that the break is exactly what you want then you click to confirm the booking. Once this has been done you will have a list detailing all the extras you can buy on top of the break such as excursions, meals, insurance or upgrades depending on what the hotels offer. Then you are all done all you need to do now is complete payment with either a credit or debit card and don’t worry paying online is not a risk. Superbreak has a secure server to protect all card and personal details that is authenticated and certified by thawte.com. Superbreak also does not charge a credit card surcharge, which is great and also very rare these days.
All prices are per person and the board basis varied for each hotel. It is not possible to book anything without accommodation on this website unlike other competitors websites.
If you need a little human advice and some recommendations or if your just not comfortable booking over the internet you can use the booking line which they charge at national rate or you can pop into your local travel agency.

Once you have confirmed your holiday with a payment you can expect to get an instant confirmation in your inbox advising how much you have paid, what you have paid for, the hotel contact details and details of check in.
If that was no enough I got confirmation on my door mat the very next day ok I booked at am 11am on the Monday but got the confirmation through the post on the Tuesday. Talk about a rocket that confirmation definitely did not mess around coming. I was very surprised at their haste and thought what good customer service I had received.
The confirmation is sent in a Superbreaks cardboard wallet, which I thought, was a nice touch and the confirmation showed a map of the location of the hotel and a break down of exactly what I booked so not to cause confusion at the hotel.

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3 million holidays, and the only ones we hear about are those that the TV Companies like to call “Holidays from Hell.” I don’t know how many “genuine” cases of hell holidays there are, but I bet it is minute when put alongside the holidaymakers who are totally satisfied with their holiday.

So why do I place Airtours above other companies? Let’s make a few comparisons. I don’t really want to name another company but for the sake of argument, lets just say it begins with a “T”, as I have used them also.

The first thing when deciding on a holiday is where you want to go. There is no contest here, as all companies appear to have a very similar selection. Next we look at the price. I find that Airtours comes out best, and it would be easy to say that the locations/hotels etc are downmarket, but this just simply is not the case, as a comparison between the two brochures will soon show.

The holiday itself is the next test. The flights are very similar, meals basically the same, in-flight entertainment similar, and the staff identical.

At the resort, a difference rears its head immediately, and that is at the welcome meeting. All companies have it, and although they tell you it is to help you enjoy your holiday, truthfully it is a ploy to get more money out of you by offering inflated priced trips, parties, or car hire. Airtours are no different in holding these welcome meetings, but I have found that they merely advise on the trips etc and hand round leaflets explaining them. The opposition however must have been thoroughly briefed in their sales skills, as they use every trick in the book to get you to part with your loot. Should you decide that it would be better not to attend the welcome meeting at all, matters have been made worse as they now “visit” you in your room/chalet and make an even more thorough job of it. I normally don’t attend these meetings and the Airtours reps, have always left me to enjoy my holiday in peace.

It has been my good fortune, not to have needed any assistance from a rep on holiday, but I have seen the Airtours reps in action at first hand.
Our neighbours in Fuerteventura were broken into and basically had everything stolen. The Airtours reps took over and had everything under control in a very short space of time. They competently handled the police, and showed sensitivity with the holidaymakers, ensuring that everything was sorted out.

To those who still slag off Airtours, or any other holiday company for that matter, I say this: when you are on holiday, ask at the hotel/complex for a quote to stay there at the same time of year. On return to the UK check the flight costs for the holiday. I will be surprised if you can beat the price charged by Airtours. Remember also that you forfeit the service of a rep, and will have to allow for transfer costs between airport and hotel.

As you will by now have gathered, I thoroughly recommend Airtours, but whoever it is you decide to use, have a really super holiday.

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