A single dad is furious, claiming a major holiday company has charged him hundreds of pounds more to take his kids away on holiday.
Will says he shocked to discover that a trip away with his two kids would cost more than if he was paying for the same room for two adults and one child.
The single dad was looking for a break with his two kids, aged eight and five, and found what seemed to be the perfect holiday with Jet2.
Only, when he clicked through the website and entered their ages, the price for the all inclusive break shot up - by £900.
After many calls to the company and trying different options on the website, Will realised what he thought had been a bug in the booking system wasn't, and that the prices being shown were correct.
Despite his daughters taking up less room than the average adult and almost certainly eating less, he'd have to fork out hundreds more for the same sunny getaway.
Will claims he even found one holiday on the Jet2 website which cost £2,500 more per week for an adult with two kids than two adults and a child, due to the extra cost of a 'single parent suite'.
The dad has called out the pricing model two years after a group launched a protest against unfair charges for single parents which highlighted how attractions including Flamingo Land and Leeds Castle offer very little or no discount for families of three compared to families of four.
"I’m not suggesting they should be offering special rates to single parent families, I’m simply suggesting that a three person family is a three person family - they use the same seats on a plane as well as a transfer and stay in the same room, so they should be the same price," Will told the Mirror.
"You could in theory argue that a child should be cheaper, especially on an all inclusive because they will eat less and wont drink alcohol, but I’m not even doing that."
Will had been keen to book a trip in for his girls over the summer holidays, opting for a break on the coast in budget holiday spot Bulgaria.
He spent hours looking at different options when he first noticed price differences offered for two adults and a kid compared to a single parent with two children.
When the Mirror looked at similar holidays on the Jet2 website, it was easy to find very similar price differences.
While some appear to be charging more for the same holiday in the same room, others automatically suggest customers book a junior suite rather than a cheaper double room.
"A two parent family can have a double room but they force the one parent family to have a junior suite costing an additional £2,500," Will said of one break he found.
"The double room is not an option for the single parent family. I assume they have decided the sleeping arrangements might not work, but I believe I should be able to make that decision for myself, it’s not for Jet2 to decide which beds my family members sleep in."
Will said he called Jet2 to try and have one of his daughters reclassified as an adult, but a customer service worker was unable to help.
When he was sent an £80 voucher to use with the booking following the call, he couldn't get it to work as it required two adults to be on the booking, he claimed.
"I don’t believe that Jet2 are purposely doing this, I believe there’s a glitch in their matrix but everybody I’ve spoken to there is either unable or unwilling to do anything about it and single parents who aren’t quite as vigilant as myself will be paying more than they should without realising," Will said.
"I did eventually book with Jet2 as I didn’t really have a choice, prices were going up. I ended up paying £689 more than I would have if I could have booked the holiday I initially wanted.
"That’s partly because prices went up as I was arguing with Jet2 but the package I booked was still more expensive for me than it would have been for a two parent family."
A Jet2 spokesperson said: “We do everything we can to cater for single parents travelling with children, including offering £60 off their booking through a promotion code and giving them a range of family-focused hotels to choose from. Infants under two also travel for free.
“The cost of the Jet2.com flight element is the same for single parents, however the allocation of single parent rooms from hoteliers does mean there can be a difference in the overall price, which is common in the industry. We are working with hoteliers on this and hope to announce further details in the future.
“Because our allocation of single parent rooms within this hotel had been fully booked at the time he was trying to make his original booking, Mr Johnson may have seen a different price due to unavailability. However we are pleased to confirm that he has booked one of our allocated single parent rooms in the hotel on another date.”
