FLYING TO TOBAGO WITH EXCEL

Gill M · Post by **Gill M** » Sun Jun 18, 2006 4:41 pm

I have noticed that Excel Airways appears to be quite a bit cheaper than Virgin BUT I can't find where I can book on line for over 4 weeks and we are going for two months.

Also, I can't seem to get their Premium Economy up on line.

How do Excel and Virgin compare on quality and reliability?

Many thanks

Gill

Post by **Steve Wooler** » Sun Jun 18, 2006 4:49 pm

Hi Gill

Welcome aboard!

Golden Caribbean, the charter operators of the Excel service to Tobago, only normally do flights of a maximum of 4 weeks. You could try telephoning them to see if they will do you a longer return. Contact details are given in our Air Travel section (Tobago/Getting There menu).

The Excel Premium Economy seating is only available during the summer (low season) months. For the high season, they are now re-configuring the aircraft to make extra seating available for the Excel One class.

Quality and reliability - that's a difficult one. Remember that Excel are a charter outfit offering services at a fraction of the price of the big boys. However, they only have one aircraft flying this route. If anything goes wrong or it gets behind schedule, possibly for reasons outside their control, inevitably it will affect the service. They simply don't have the resources of the big boys. All I can say is that I have used them for the last 10 years or so (back to when the aircraft were operated by Monarch, rather than Excel) and I have always found them to be every bit as reliable as the big boys. Its all a matter of luck. BA are an excellent airline, but I've walked off one flight (don't worry - we had landed at an intermediary stop) and on a world tour involving more than 3 dozen flights, BA lost my bags on the only leg that they handled. Bad luck!

Gill M · Post by **Gill M** » Sun Jun 18, 2006 4:59 pm

Thanks for the info Steve - no wonder I couldn't find anything on the Golden Caribbean site. I will phone Excel/Golden Caribbean tomorrow morning to see what they have to offer.

We've travelled to the Caribbean with both Virgin and BA and both have their pluses and minuses - luckily we haven't lost our luggage - yet!!

Gill M

David Watkins · Post by **David Watkins** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 9:42 am

Gill,I have been down this route with Excel/GC.,as I normally go out for 3 months,their solution is for one to by two return tickets and only use half of each one,unfortunately they do not refund the unused half!!! This works out only marginally cheaper than Virgin.It is something to do with rules and regs of charter flights.
Regards,David(counting down

)

Gill M · Post by **Gill M** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 1:41 pm

Well, I had a mail back from Aisha at Golden Caribbean who advised me that they are only doing Economy and First Class plus they could only offer 5 weeks travel. She did suggest buying the two tickets but said that it would be quite expensive.

Anyway, we did have a few Virgin Frequent Flyer points - not even enough to cross the Channel let alone the Atlantic but I phoned Virgin this morning and was delighted to be advised that if we bought 3000 extra FF points for £45 + £15 admin fees, and we used the Companion Fare scheme, we could get Premium Economy for about 50% less

and yes, I have just printed off the E Tickets!

Just seven months and six days to go - can't wait.

Gill

Gill M · Post by **Gill M** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 1:49 pm

Oh, I forgot to say that it's a direct flight too - even better!

Gill