Bunhill

THE Daily Telegraph seems to be winning the newspaper travel offer war with its ' pounds 600 off a holiday' promotion. As soon as the posters featuring the offer appeared outside News International's compound at Wapping, Rupert Murdoch's minions brought forward their idea of a 'Sunday Times Travel Card', giving cardholders a 10 per cent discount on any holiday bought before the end of 1995 - an offer originally intended to be launched next May. But the Sunday Times appears to have shot itself in the foot - twice. The first concerned the Travel Bureau, the Lancashire agent that operates the scheme. It apparently offered advertisers editorial coverage in exchange for a 'marketing charge' of something over pounds 20,000. That was soon sorted out. 'You cannot buy editorial in the Sunday Times,' declared the editor, Andrew Neil, feistily.

But more serious is the row with the Association of Independent Tour Operators. According to its (equally feisty) chief executive, Sue Ockwell, 'the Sunday Times is setting up in competition with my members. The offer is deliberately angled towards the big companies. Our members spend at least pounds 1m in advertising in the Sunday Times and now readers will go to any advertisers looking for a discount. It's a small-margin business and some of our members could be wiped out.'

Nor was she placated by a - belated - reply from John Wall of the Travel Bureau about it being fair competition and all that. 'They're talking a small take-up relative to the Sunday Times readership, yet they're talking about 250,000,' she snapped. 'Previously we had a level playing field, and now we're playing on a pitch which is tilted towards the big operators and on which my members, who tend to be smaller and more specialised, can no longer compete.'