What’s the best destination for a last-minute luxury getaway?

Q Urgent: how can I find a week’s break to a five star all-inclusive, somewhere warm, leaving in the next couple of days? Ideally a sort-of spa with yoga/pilates, massages, warm water to swim in, walks, good healthy food and alcohol. I’ve been doing searches on the internet and getting a load of inappropriate suggestions back, eg a search for “last minute getaway 5* all inclusive” and dates coming back for November. Can you recommend anything, ideally from East Midlands airport?

Tracey F

A I recommend you talk to a good travel agent who will deploy their expertise to find the right solution for you. But since you ask, my recommendations are very straightforward. At this time of year, the solution to your needs is likely to be found in the Atlantic islands (the Canaries plus Madeira and Porto Santo), the Mediterranean, Morocco’s Atlantic coast or Egypt’s Red Sea shores. I reckon you have more chance of indulgence and walks in the first two.

The clear winner is a Tui departure to Paphos in Cyprus on Wednesday 8 February, for £777 for a week; most other options I have checked cost an additional £500-plus. The hotel is the four-star Atlantica Oasis hotel just east of Limassol (but within half an hour’s walk of the old town. Meals and alcoholic drinks are included. It has indoor and outdoor pools, a sauna and steam room, and a spa which offers massages.

I am confident you will be able to find nearby locations providing pilates and yoga – this is a big tourism centre. The seafront is perfectly pleasant for walking. A few miles inland you can find challenging hikes – with the island’s highest point, 1,952m-tall Mount Olympus, just 20 miles away in the Troodos Mountains.

The price includes flights on easyJet, as well as a 23kg baggage allowance. The catch is the flights are to and from Luton, about 85 miles further south than you wanted. The outbound flight is at 7am, which probably means a hotel at Luton airport the night before, especially if you are travelling down by train. But the inbound is civilised (arriving at 5pm). And the prospect of early February in the Cypriot sunshine is enticing.

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Q I have a holiday booked to Peru at the end of May. I realise there are protests at the moment and therefore may put the holiday on hold. But my main concern is that the travel company have asked to receive the final payment by bank transfer or cheque. They are Atol protected, but is my money still protected if I pay the final amount this way rather than by credit card?

Hazel R

A I sympathise with you and everyone else who has a trip to Peru planned. From a tourism point of view, it has long been the most alluring nation in South America, in particular for the ancient Inca citadel of Machu Picchu, the Sacred Valley in the Andes and the city of Cuzco. Until late last year the nation was effectively closed to overseas visitors due to Covid restrictions – and now political unrest in the country has made a visit there look very uncertain.

The Foreign Office warns: "Protests may cause travel disruption, including with road blockades, suspension of train services (including trains to/from Machu Picchu) and airport closures in different parts of the country.” Much could change in the three months before your trip, and at this stage all you can do is hope that the conflict is resolved so that international tourism can resume at scale.

But your specific question is about: how safe is your money? If you paid the initial deposit by credit card then under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act the whole amount is covered –whether you pay the balance by bank transfer, cheque or hard cash. In the event that the company fails, you would simply ask for your money back. This can happen very quickly: after the Flybe collapse nine days ago, many passengers were refunded by their banks in 24 hours.

If you paid by some other means for the trip deposit and the holiday firm fails, then you can rely on Atol protection to provide your money back – though it can take significantly longer.

In general, though, tour operator failure is rare and I imagine what will actually happen is that, a week or two before departure, the firm will make a final decision on whether it can deliver the holiday you booked or to issue a full refund.

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Q You are always writing about airlines behaving badly towards their passengers. Why isn’t there an aviation ombudsman?

Name supplied

A The more complaints I get about airlines failing to treat customers respectfully and reasonably, the more I ponder about this very subject. After all, the financial services industry is broadly similar in structure to the aviation industry, with millions of passengers buying a vast range of services from suppliers great and small. There is a well-funded and effective financial ombudsman – so why not just create one for aviation?

The first issue is practical. Every business that is covered by the Financial Ombudsman Service pays an annual levy. As you may have noticed, financial services tend to be very profitable. Travel does not. British Airways, easyJet and Ryanair are back in rude health and could be expected to make contributions. But smaller carriers and new entrants would see a levy to pay for customers to make complaints against them as yet another hazard as they try to navigate the precarious flight path between success and failure.

The next concern is: does travel really need an independent adjudicator? I get dozens of complaints every day (about poor travel experiences as well as my writing). Lost luggage and perennial disputes about compensation for delayed or cancelled flights are the main subjects. Enhancing air passengers’ rights rules with stipulated payments by airlines for the disruption caused by misrouted bags would help. And while the powers-that-be are at it, they should overhaul compensation arrangements for those delayed and cancelled flights. At present, it is a bizarre lottery. If your flight arrives 2 hours 59 minutes late, you get nothing, but 60 seconds later you are entitled to £350 – even if you paid only one-tenth of that amount. Unsurprisingly, the airlines do all they can to wriggle out of claims.

The system needs comprehensive reform to make it a “no-fault” scheme that is proportionate to the fare paid and the length of the delay. Add in tougher Civil Aviation Authority powers to force airlines to adhere to the rules, and I believe the need for an air travel ombudsman would sharply reduce. The government should tackle the causes, not the symptoms, of passenger unhappiness.

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