Real price: what we count into it, and why

The catalogue price is bait - the lowest number that still sells the offer. The cheapest room, the cheapest date in the range, no transfer, no extra meals. What you actually end up paying almost never matches the number in the headline.

What the catalogue price leaves out

When departure isn't from your home airport, getting there costs something - by car that's fuel there and back plus parking for every night you're away (and a surcharge when the airport is across a border), by train it's a per-person fare that grows with family size. A distant, seemingly "cheaper" airport can quietly end up costing more once you add that.

The second piece is board - what's on your plate. All Inclusive already covers meals; but breakfast-only or self-catering leaves most meals to pay for out of pocket, for the whole family, every day of the stay. Add that up over a week and it's a real number, not a footnote.

The third piece applies mostly to DIY flights: a low-cost fare's sticker price is often hand-luggage only. Checked bags for the whole family show up only at checkout - a package usually already has them built in.

The real price is the one that decides

Put it together and you get the real price: catalogue + airport transfer + extra food (+ bags for DIY flights) - the net cost for your exact travelling party and your home airport, not for an average traveller.

An illustrative example: the catalogue lists a week-long stay at ~19,900 CZK/pp with breakfast only, departing from an airport 300 km from home. Add the drive (fuel + parking) and the extra meals beyond breakfast for the whole family for a week, and the real price can easily land around ~24,000 CZK/pp. Another offer with All Inclusive and a home-airport departure, a few hundred crowns pricier in the catalogue, can end up cheaper.

What this maths looks like on real destinations is shown in Egypt or Turkey? Where all-inclusive works out better this year.

The same listed offer can work out completely differently for two families: a couple flying from their home airport with All Inclusive pays close to the catalogue figure; a family of four driving hundreds of kilometres to a breakfast-only hotel can end up paying noticeably more than the ad promised.

The catalogue price is bait. The real price is the net cost for your profile - and it's what we rank offers by, not the most attractive number.

That's exactly why we don't rank offers by the lowest catalogue number. We rank by real value per night and per person against a target for that destination, combined with rating, board and location - so the "cheapest" listing isn't automatically the cheapest holiday you'll actually pay for, and a slightly pricier catalogue offer can turn out to be the real bargain. How the real price and the history become a verdict is described on How Voyscout works.

The number that should decide your booking is that real number for your own trip - not the catchy line in the catalogue.