Anyone flown from Bristol with Thomson (Tui)
 

Had a nightmare of a travel day on Sunday resulting in a slightly late landing flight, 2 missed national express coaches, a cancelled taxi and lost hand luggage.

At the moment it has sligthly put me off travelling from Gatwick again so looking at flying with Thomson from Bristol.

Has anyone else from the South West had experience of flying from Bristol and have you found it easier?

Looking at travelling the end of September but prices are around the £620 mark so im going to wait it out a bit and see if prices drop around January.

We did years ago, we drove up from Plymouth. It was a really good flight. Would definitely do it again x

We flew from Bristol in May on the 2nd flight out there, and back 2 weeks later. Coming from Exeter, to be honest, it was highly convenient. And the Dreamliner is a great aircraft.

We flew Premium Club so got access to the Aspire Plus lounge, fasttrack security etc... and the flight out was brilliant. Coming back wasn't as great as the aircraft had a technical issue. We were pushing back and the pilot identified the issue so returned to the terminal. We were offloaded while they investigated and tried to fix, but in the end were put up in a hotel and a replacement part was flown over on another Thomson flight the following day, so we left about 24 hours late. I suppose that could happen flying to anywhere though.

It was a bit of a pain, but to be fair to Thomson they managed to arrange hotel rooms for everyone and we were only waiting around for a couple of hours - mostly for the bus to make several trips to the hotel from Sanford. I claimed the EU261 compensation and Thomson paid it out without any fuss at all (just a c.60 day wait).

We've booked to go back next September from Bristol. This year the flights were on Sundays, next year they're Friday flights.

My experience around flight prices is that they start low (on release day a return in Premium Club was £550), then increase, but don't come back down until quite close to departure date. If they're still available a week or two before then they can be as low as £300 return - which for a regional airport is a decent price. But I couldn't hold my nerve that long!

You'll get a better combined price in certain circumstances by booking a package. We booked Lake Buena Vista Resort for Sept and got a good deal on flight + hotel combined. Far cheaper than me pricing up BRS Thomson flights + hotel separately.

Agree with lmartin. Whilst most airlines hike prices on release and slowly let them drop, Thomson (TUI) tend to release cheap and then rise - with stonking discounts about 2 weeks from flying if seats are left.

If you want to fly with them I wouldn't be suggesting you wait to see what happens to the price as it is 90% certain to rise (I wouldn't say this about any of the proper scheduled airlines though, just the bucket and spade charters like Thomson)

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Found a good deal staying in 2 x rooms at Pop Century with Direct flights from Bristol coming in at 940pp...dont think thats bad at all.

I must say the idea of a flight from Bristol is attractive. But it's not flexible enough for me as I like to fly for unusal holiday durations such as 23 nights etc and also I like to fly on a Saturday.
But I am just weird!:erm:

It does seem that the early bird catches the worm with their prices.

Are these flights still just for the summer next year?

We are looking at booking for may but the price is currently £665 plus £70 luggage which is a bit pricy. We were put off with flying into Orlando Int, as had a terrible immigration last month.

I was hoping the price would come down but i cannot afford to wait and hope their are seats left 2 weeks before.

We have flown with TUI(Thomson) from Birmingham before and while we didnt really rate the service that great (You had to pay for drinks and 2 of the 4 in flight screens we had booked were broken both ways, on the return the air hostess admitted they had been broken for about a month). We were willing to give them another try.

:wavey:: Have done the dreaded drive from Exeter to Lgw & stayed overnight & did twilight check in for 8visits but this recent one we took the train which was so much nicer for the journey back. We are looking at Bristol for next summer but the flexibility just isn't there. We want 17/8 for 2wks but it's showing nothing already :omg: so looks like another drag up to LGW :(