1.The six groups, and where each one comes from
Every figure in the budget belongs to one of six groups, and each group answers to a different kind of source.
| Group | Where the number comes from |
|---|---|
| Hotels | The nightly rate of the room chosen for each stop, times the nights there. A live provider quote where one exists for those dates and that party, otherwise the catalogue's own rate for the place. |
| Flights | A provider quote for a dated airport-to-airport corridor where a provider can answer one. Otherwise an estimate from the distance, with a surcharge for each connection. |
| Car and fuel | A daily rental rate for the days you actually drive, plus fuel worked out from the route's own miles at an assumed consumption and pump price. |
| Food | A per-person daily allowance for the length of the trip, with children costed at sixty per cent of an adult. |
| Things to do | The per-person price the catalogue holds for each activity that is actually on the plan. |
| Everything else | A park pass where the route needs one, and a single allowance covering parking, tolls and roadside costs. |
2.A provider price and an estimate are marked differently
A live provider can only answer a fully specified question: this hotel, these dates, this party. Or this airport to that airport, on this day. Where your trip is that specific, the price is the provider's and it says so.
Where it is not, the figure is computed from the route and labelled as an estimate. Each offer carries a confidence, and the confidence means what it says rather than being a decoration.
A provider that is slow, partial or down costs you sharper prices rather than the trip. Searches carry a deadline, and anything that has not answered by the time it expires is filled in with an estimate instead.
3.The car is the line people misread
A rental is not charged from day one. The first three days are treated as covered by getting there, so a four-day trip shows no car at all and a two-week road trip shows eleven days of one.
It is a rough rule, and it is the honest shape of how a rental gets used on a route that starts with a flight. If you are hiring a car at the airport on the first morning, the car line is low and you should treat it as such.
4.Currency
The currency is chosen for where you are: dollars in the United States, pounds in the United Kingdom, euros everywhere else. If your account sets one, that wins.
Live quotes are requested from providers in that currency rather than converted afterwards, because a converted quote is a number nobody has agreed to honour. Where a conversion is genuinely unavoidable, live European Central Bank reference rates are used when they are reachable, and a pinned indicative table when they are not. An offer that comes back in a currency the trip is not priced in is dropped rather than converted.
5.Per person, and for the party
Every total has a per-person figure beside it, derived from the party you set. Children are costed at sixty per cent for food and beds, because they eat less and often share one.
Flights are priced per person and multiplied out. The car, the fuel, the park pass and the allowance are costs of the trip rather than of each traveller, so they are not.
6.When the number moves
The budget is recomputed every time the trip is read, which is why it never lags behind an edit. Add a night and the hotels and the food move. Reorder the stops and the drive, the car days and the fuel move with them. Swap a hotel and the difference is visible before you commit to it.
Set a ceiling and a route that breaks it comes back marked as over rather than quietly removed, so you can see by how much and decide what to give up. Usually it is one night, in one city.
7.What this estimate is not
It is a planning number. It is not a quote, not a hold, and not a price anybody has agreed to give you.
Providers change prices and availability constantly, and a trip booked over six weeks is priced six times. Use the estimate to decide whether a route is affordable and which of three routes to take. Use the booking page to find out what it costs.