Should I buy a ‘mystery holiday’ as a wedding gift?

Simon Calder answers your questions about giving the gift of travel, rail strikes and claiming compensation

Long-haul getaways may be more accessible than you think (iStock)

Q A friend has drawn my attention to “mystery holidays” – where you buy a voucher that entitles you to a holiday, you just don’t know where. Is it a good way to get a cheap break? It could make an excellent wedding present.

Kate M

A One offer I have seen looks very tempting. “Win holidays to New York, Dubai, Barbados and more for just £99pp! Holidays include return flights and accommodation.” But I won’t be booking any time soon.

Here’s how it typically works. You pay for a two-night break for two, costing £198, or a three-night break for two at £258 (prices are quoted per person, but for solo travellers there’s an additional single supplement of an unspecified nature, so best avoided). This entitles you to return flights and accommodation, with around 60 hours at the destination.

You will be assigned a list of dates, which are all outside the peak summer season and mostly strewn through the winter. When you buy your voucher, you are effectively saying “I will go whenever you decide” – even if that coincides with the wedding you’ve been invited to.

The exciting part: where will you end up? There is a one-in-1,000 chance that you will get a trip to Dubai, New York or Barbados. The same odds apply to a handful of other attractive options including Reykjavik, Ibiza and Cyprus. But the vast majority involve cheap flights (without a baggage allowance) to the usual no-frills suspects: Milan, Berlin, Barcelona, Nice, Prague and Krakow (in fact this last Polish city is the most likely destination, with a 2.9 per cent chance).

All of these are great cities but there is nothing particularly mysterious about putting together cheap off-season flights and some cut-price accommodation. I’m not sure you will make any significant savings compared with putting a trip together yourself, which would also allow you to choose exactly the date and destination you want.

In addition, part of the joy of a holiday is the delicious anticipation you feel when you know you’ll be in Barcelona in a couple of weeks. Yet if that could equally be Brussels or Bratislava, you can’t properly relish the trip in advance. If you are sanguine about possibly losing the cash, you might think it a novel idea. But please don’t think about giving such vouchers as a present to anyone – you could be consigning them to disappointment.

Budapest is an unexpected stopover for a family flying from Johannesburg to Heathrow (iStock)

Q My family and I were on British Airways flight BA56 from Johannesburg to London Heathrow on Sunday night. After 11 hours we were told that in 40 minutes we would be landing back in Johannesburg. This was the first we knew. My husband managed to secure us a 2pm flight with Qatar Airways to Heathrow via Doha. Unfortunately, this was two-and-a-half hours late due to a warning light. When we arrived in Doha we were told we had missed the 1.40am flight – and were booked on a flight seven hours later to Budapest with a final connection to Heathrow. Having originally left Johannesburg at 7pm on Sunday, we eventually touched down at Heathrow at 4.15pm on Tuesday, having done four flights and spent 29 hours in the air. Can you see grounds for claiming compensation?

Annabelle S

A It has been a miserable week for many travellers from Johannesburg to Heathrow triggered by the closure of airspace over Niger late on Sunday night. That sudden order forced your Airbus A380 flight to turn back. There was, understandably, not enough contingency fuel for the diversion required. Unfortunately, airports that can handle the SuperJumbo are thin on the ground in Africa and so there was nowhere that the jet could easily refuel and continue the journey.

You did well to source an alternative flight, albeit with a change, so swiftly. Had it been on an EU or UK airline, you would be in line for £520 in compensation. But since Qatar is a non-EU/UK airline flying from a location outside Europe, there is no obligation for the carrier to pay any compensation. It sounds an especially dismal journey with the added extra stop in the Hungarian capital – presumably the only routing with any space for you at such a busy time of year. You can claim for expenses on food and drink incurred between the return to Johannesburg and your eventual arrival at Heathrow, and I daresay a politely worded request for some recognition for the ordeal might result in some Avios frequent-flyer points being offered. But I don’t suppose that will be much compensation for you.

The odds are high that you will be able to get to and from the airport without a problem (PA)

Q Is there any word on rail strikes in September? I am heading off overseas. I can buy a cheap flight now, but I need to know if train strikes will totally mess up my transport to the airport.

Name supplied

A Fourteen months on from the start of the first national rail strikes since the 1980s, the disputes between the main rail unions and English train operators over pay, jobs and working conditions appear as intractable as ever. Today is another day of industrial action by train drivers belonging to Aslef, which continues until Saturday 12 August. They are refusing to work overtime on their days off, as they are perfectly entitled to do. As a result, hundreds of trains are being cancelled each day: train operators generally rely on some rest-day working by drivers to run their promised schedules.

If Aslef overtime bans continue, there should be little effect on links to major UK airports – except that the Gatwick Express will be cancelled (with alternative Southern services operating) and there may be some intermittent cancellations to/from Manchester airport on Northern and TransPennine Express. Were train drivers to walk out again, though, that would have a serious impact on most UK rail-airport links.

Meanwhile, I calculate the main rail union, the RMT, has staged 33 days of walkouts since national strikes began on 21 June. The RMT’s general secretary, Mick Lynch, has stressed repeatedly that the dispute will continue “for as long as it takes”. Most recently he said: “Our members remain steadfast in their industrial action and will not be cowed into submission by anyone.”

A rational traveller, therefore, will not want to commit to any journey more than two weeks ahead: unions must give 14 days’ notice of industrial action. However, if you are seeing a good deal on a flight I would grab the ticket. The odds are high that you will be able to get to and from the airport without a problem: the RMT has been striking on an average of one day every two weeks. Lately, the preferred days of the week for walkouts have been Thursday and Saturday, aimed at hitting peak times for commuters and leisure travellers respectively. On other days of the week, the chances are very good that your journey will be unaffected. But if you wish to be sure, I recommend you book a National Express coach to the airport instead.

Sky high prices: Air Canada’s premium economy offering is quite spendy (Getty)

Q Can you throw any light on the cost of a flight upgrade? A friend and I have booked a Canadian rail adventure next summer, flying between London Heathrow and Vancouver. As this is a long flight we thought it would be good to go premium economy. Our travel agent reported back to us that the price to upgrade was £1,860 each. I was amazed at this increase on the fare we had already paid – and looking at Air Canada’s website the price difference looks around £600. Is what I am being told fair and correct? We cannot afford over £1,800 to upgrade to premium economy.

Rosalind P

A I have checked the prices for next summer on the route from London to the west coast of Canada, and I will have an answer that is roughly halfway between your figure and that of your travel agent: the fare difference I can see is around £1,200 per person return.

That is, in my book, an extremely large sum to pay for a bit of extra comfort on a couple of flights below 10 hours. It represents £1 per minute for the time you will spend on board – which is not the sort of figure I would contemplate. in particular, going outbound during the day, the extra benefit of premium economy is modest.

Coming home, I can see the appeal of wider seats and more legroom. But I still would not pay £600 for a slightly more comfortable night flight.

May I urge you to consider doing what I would do? Simply ask at the check-in desk at each airport whether there is space available, and at what price. I would consider £200 a reasonable figure for the outbound (daytime) flight, and £300 for the return home; you can, of course, come up with your own figures for what constitutes reasonable value.

Even if you prefer not to try your luck on the day, may I point out that the travel firm will not necessarily be profiteering? The agent will have found tickets for you that have their own conditions attached, which may include an astronomical upgrade fee.

Email your question to s@hols.tv or tweet @simoncalder