Surfing the net for a holiday bargain may never be as fulfilling again for a British family which snapped up the ultimate cheap deal thanks to an error on a travel firm's website.
Dalite Dryer and her husband Nick could not believe their luck when they discovered return flights to Florida advertised on the First Choice holiday website at £15 each, at least £450 less than the normal fare.
The couple from Woolton, Liverpool, had been planning a summer trip across the Atlantic to visit Mrs Dryer's father and had begun searching for the best flight deal.
Discovering the First Choice offer, which also included a £10 discount on each ticket because they were booking online, the Dryers wasted no time in booking seats for themselves and their daughters Talia, four, and Yaell, three, at a total cost of £60.
The family then rang Mr Dryer's parents, Martin and Maureen, in London and persuaded them to take advantage of the offer too.
"Our initial reaction was that it was a promotion to get people flying to America again in the wake of September 11. Then we thought it might be just the cost of the airport tax and the cost of the actual flight had not been added," Mr Dryer said yesterday.
"We decided to put the credit card details in anyway and it came back as confirmed, so we rang my parents in London and said 'we think we have found something amazing and do you want to come?' They said yes, as you would for £30, and so we went back online and booked them flights too," he added.
The family put off booking hotels and hiring cars for several months because they were worried their flights might be cancelled if First Choice realised there had been a mistake.
"We did not know what to think. I was convinced that at any time the company would ring and say there had been a mistake. We waited for a couple of months before booking hotels and car hire just in case.
"They never did ring and two weeks before we flew, the tickets arrived. We worried even when we were checking in and going through the gate that someone might stop us but they didn't and we were on the plane and away as planned on July 8," Mr Dryer said.
First Choice yesterday admitted a mistake had been made by someone loading information on to the website.
The family paid £15 each for the flight instead of a much higher fare. The exact amount they should have paid was not available, but the price of a ticket on the same date next year was £522 per person, a spokeswoman confirmed.
"It was human error. But all we are saying is that we are glad the family enjoyed their holiday," she added.
Others, however, have been less fortunate in their dealings with holidays and the internet.
Emma Nunn, of Sidcup, Kent, and Raoul Christian, of Charlton, south east London, both 19, bought their tickets for "Sydney" over the internet for £740 each, expecting to travel to Australia.
Instead, the pair spent their holiday in Sydney, Nova Scotia, a small industrial town on the north eastern seaboard of Canada known locally as the Steel City.
Problems with flight bookings made on the internet have also contributed to the rise in the number of consumer complaints, according to the aviation industry consumer watchdog, the Air Transport Users Council.
Ian Hamer, chairman of the council, said: "We are handling increasing numbers of telephone inquiries about reservation errors, most of which appear to have arisen from direct bookings with airlines either over the phone or via the internet."
· The UK is the biggest online travel market in Europe, with almost six million people visiting travel sites in January 2002. Germany is next with 5.1 million, followed by France with 2.6 million.
· Internet analyst Jupiter estimates that the European market for online travel will be worth more than £12bn by 2006, and that online traffic to travel sites grew by 75% in some European countries last year.
· There has been a significant shift in the way we are buying our holidays, with a switch towards direct sales through call centres and the internet. In 1992 75% of sales were through shops, in 2000 the figure had fallen to 62% and by the end of this summer the figure is expected to have dropped by another 10%.
· Travel continues to be one of the most popular categories among UK internet users attracting more than 30% of the 15.2 million online population.
· Travel sites are most popular with those who earn more than £45,000 per annum.
· Online travel companies have increased prices of package holidays and flights by 10% over the past year as the industry tries to begin making profits, according to the most recent annual survey by credit card provider Goldfish.
· A Holiday Which? survey of members in 2000 showed that at least 8% of them had booked some or all of a holiday online, and nearly all said that they would do it again.
