TRANSATLANTIC DEALS:IT SOUNDS LIKE the holiday bargain of a lifetime – transatlantic flights, six nights in a five-star hotel and a week's car rental, all for €467.
There’s only one catch – the holiday destination is Ireland and the offer is available only to US-based travellers flying here with Aer Lingus.
For prices starting at $599, the airline’s “Six Night Ireland Deluxe Resort Package” includes six nights in a two-room villa at the five-star Heritage Golf and Spa Resort in Killenard, Co Laois, based on four people travelling together.
The package, which involves a massive $4,000 saving on normal prices, also includes roundtrip economy tickets from New York JFK to Dublin and back, as well as the rental of a full-size car for the week (manual only, sorry, not automatic).
The offer is available from New York and Boston throughout the winter, from the start of October to March 10th, just before the St Patrick’s Week festivities kick off.
Prices from Chicago start from $669, and even in August you can book the package from New York for as little as $899 (the package has already sold out in September). Rates do not include taxes and other charges.
Other tours featured on aerlingusvacationstore.com offer equally jawdropping prices. How about $699 for a six-night tour of Ireland’s castles, including two nights each in Fitzpatricks Castle Hotel in Dublin, Kilronan Hotel in Roscommon and Bunratty Castle Hotel in Co Clare? Or $599 for the Irish Escape tour, which includes stays in the Burlington in Dublin, the Newpark in Kilkenny and the Killarney Towers in Co Kerry?
We asked Aer Lingus how it is able to offer such bargain-basement prices but we were left little the wiser.
“By negotiating very low rates with hoteliers and other service providers in Ireland, we are able to offer a wide variety of special packages at low prices,” a spokeswoman said. The US packages are managed by Global Consolidated Services, a US tour operator.
What the deal demonstrates is that parts of the tourism industry will do almost anything to get the punters in. The Heritage Hotel in Killenard went into receivership last month, while the Burlington is owned by a company controlled by the Nama-bound Bernard McNamara.
Only this week, yet another report laid bare the dire plight of the hotel industry – 10,000 excess beds, occupancy rates under 60 per cent, and rooms available at 1999 rates.
According to the survey by Horwath Bastow Charleton, at least 300 of our 900 hotels have solvency issues and 30 are already being run by administrators.
Unfortunately for most of our readers, similar value is not on offer to travellers from Irish airports, though the price of a seat from Dublin to New York in November is a modest enough €144 before taxes and charges.
