Change from J2

[Rosie34]

After the shock of the £200 rise (£483) in our fares for next May and the fact that the flight is now half an hour earlier which means an even sillier 'get up' time, I have now booked our next October flights with Monarch who started flying from LBA just after I had booked the expensive J2 flights. So for a couple of pounds more (£386) than J2 we get our flights, reserved seats, checked in bags both ways, 23 kg baggage allowance and a later flight (well only half an hour but at that time in the morning......) Still dont know why J2 hiked up the prices so much for next May

I also noticed when checking the J2 flights that the Palma route no longer qualifies for Loyalty points - too many people using perhaps

 

[joelise80]

It will be interesting to see how Monarch compares to Jet2 for you Rosie as we tried earlier them this year and thought that Monarch were appalling. Although we did not actually fly with Monarch as they had leased the route out, that said the queues with Monarch in the airports were terrible and we stood looking longingly at Jet2 check in wondering what the hell we had done
We have booked next May with Jet2 but have swopped to East Midlands for a slightly later flight time as the distance is about the same to there or Leeds for us.
The prices were around the same for both airlines from both airports so we decided to stick with what we know

 

[pescador2009]

Used to fly with Monarch each year, albeit some time ago (20 yrs + at a guess). The planes were always immaculate, as were the stewards / hostesses and they were always very good with children, providing colouring books, soft drinks, etc. Alas the service from our nearest airport ceased and we moved on to other airlines, latterly J2.com with whom we have always had decent flights. I too have noticed the rapid increase in J2.com flight / add-on costs, particularly so as we are obliged to travel in school holidays (not my fault... the O.H.). Never tried Ryanair as yet, but is an option from 'up north' these days along with the said 'Monarch'. Hope everyone has a decent service to Palma, whoever they choose.

 

[Tonsyl]

Joelise, we found that by checking in online and pre booking our seats we were able to "by pass" the queue and just go to the Monarch bag drop desk. I think it took no more than 5 minutes which suited me as I hate, with a passion, standing in lines at check in.

 

[joelise80]

We did that Tony, but unfortunately for us there was only 1 queue for 2 desks at East Midlands going out and the bag drop queue at Palma must have had a couple of 100 people in it so we joined a normal queue. There were no way enough desks open at either end of the journey and we could see that Jet2 had no queues on the way out