Cut-price Christmas breaks: Are any left at this late stage?

Costa little: Tenerife is good value this Christmas (Getty)

Q. Have you come across any reasonably priced last-minute holidays? Winter warmth is what we are looking for! My wife is a teacher, which restricts us to her school holiday period, 20 December-5 January 2015. We would consider just about anything, but somewhere that has the least amount of Brits would be good. Price range: £250-£500pp. Stuart Blackburn, Darlington

A. Unusually, there are still plenty of bargains around for Christmas getaways – at prices that are at off-season levels rather than the usual peaks you would expect. The fact that 25 December falls on a Thursday seems to have smoothed the demand.

From your local major airport, Newcastle, Thomson has some packages at excellent prices. For example you could travel to the Hotel Catalonia Punta del Rey at Las Caletillas on Tenerife's east coast on Sunday 21 December for £429 per person. It is a remarkable price for a week's all-inclusive Christmas holiday in the Canaries. Besides all your meals and drinks, that price includes daytime flights, transfers and 15kg of baggage each. The weather is likely to be mixed, but the location is excellent for exploration. There is easy access to the island's fascinating capital, Santa Cruz, and the town of La Laguna – a Unesco World Heritage Site with exquisite colonial architecture.

If you don't mind travelling a bit further for your flights, Thomas Cook has some good deals out of Manchester. A one-week all-inclusive holiday in Antalya, Turkey, is on sale for departure on 23 December for £402.

Brit-free bargains at low during the school holiday are rare. The reason £400 deals are around is because there is a mass-market operation sending UK holidaymakers to these destinations, with resulting and economies of scale. No scale, no bargains.