Does anybody have any experience with 'Premiere Classe' hotels in France?

Good point. I just tend to use them as waystations while trying to get
somewhere so I'm not overly bothered by those special offers.

Indeed, which is why we're staying at some logis de france for the
'real' holiday. Got to phone them tomorrow though as I again screwed up
the booking...

 

darsy?

 

I'm with you on that, at least as long as it's coming out of my own
pocket. I'd rather spend 50 on the room in a nice little hotel with a
good restaurant but if it's only for a weekend, why not.

Eurotunnel is superb for the short break or 1 day tickets. BTW, is it
ten trips or ten crossings? A lot of the other ferry companies offer
tickets for 10 crossings, which would just about be doable for me.

That said, my last Eurotunnel ticket for the upcoming trip cost me the
princely sum of 2 quid[1] and it looks like the one for October will run
at just about the same money.

[1] And 50 quid in Tesco vouchers, admittely.

 

That is a bit much unless you're going over there all the time.

Fortunately, most of these vouchers don't come from me buying junk food
at Tescos. I've had one of their own-brand credit cards for quite a
while and instead of cash back, I get clubcard points on that. Works
very well if you want to use the Eurotunnel on a regular basis.

 

<waves>

The frequent traveller deal is 10 single trips for £39 each, but you
have to travel 'off peak' (late afternoon onwards going out and up until
about lunchtime coming back, or pay a supplement of usually about £30).

They also seem to have a flat rate of an extra £39 per trip for a
trailer. When I was using the ferries they used to sting me an extra
£100 for just a bike trailer.

I'm sure I could get better deals on a ferry if I booked sufficiently
far in advance, but ICBA. This way, I can usually book a few weeks ahead
and add a trailer if I want to which ever crossing I decide to use it
on.

I also like the lack of hanging around. It does go pear shaped
occasionally, but I've only been delayed more than a couple of hours on
one crossings out of a dozen so far. If you time it just right you can
often nip on to the train before the one you are actually booked on.
Record so far is just under an hour from leaving the motorway one side
of the channel to getting back on the other side. Though TBF I have
usually managed this on a Coquelles to Folkestone crossing on a Sunday
morning.


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+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Voxan Roadster Gilera Nordwest * 2 Yamaha WR250Z |
| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 Morini 350 "Forgotten Error" |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+

 

in the early days of Quidco, hotels.co.uk were giving a £10 rebate per
booking. Shame they don't do that now as you could get one of those Premier
Class rooms for £19 a night.

The cashback from lastminute.com is only 1% less than hotels.co.uk and pays
reliably. In fact it seems that they have just paid me for the holiday I
booked about 8 weeks ago.

 

If you do mainly short stay trips you can probably get much better
deals. Ours are always a minimum of a week and usually during school
holidays. I also don't enjoy an all in one go journey to the 'chateau'
much, although I do occasionally do it through the night going out, so I
am usually travelling off peak anyway and have a night at the Etap in
Coquelles. It would help if SWMBO could share the driving. She has no
worries about bimbling around in the sleepy Limousin, but finds the
French uncompromising strategy for joining two lane autoroutes a bit
hairy in busy traffic. Still, in the early hours, on the usually
deserted Abbeville to Rouen section, or the good old A20 south of
Vierzon, I might get her to take a stint in October.



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+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Voxan Roadster Gilera Nordwest * 2 Yamaha WR250Z |
| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 Morini 350 "Forgotten Error" |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+

 

And then some. Bloody awful, really.