Like most webmasters, I am always looking for services that might be of use to visitors and that might in return throw the occasional peanut my way. With this in mind and with an eye to bargain basement prices I wanted to find the best supplier for cheap and cheerful flights to Tenerife for the visitors to my destination website, eTenerife.com

So my flight path this morning has been testing out various flight price comparison websites like Wegolo and Terminal A. There are quite a few of these sites and their job is to take your preferred dates and travelling party and run through all the airlines’ prices and schedules before finally coming up with offers ranged by price or convenience (as in direct or stopovers, etc).

While I do use these sites myself to do comparative research before booking flights, I’d have to say you need to go a step further and look into the specific airline’s small print for added charges and fees.

Just as an example, lets pretend that myself and another adult are travelling with two kids to Tenerife in August.

On Wegolo the cheapest outbound for the the family including taxes and surcharges on 4th of August is: €488.04. How did that breakdown?

(What? Why are the kids prices so high?)

The return journey is similar. The cheapest option is €472.12 and the costs were:

Again prices for the kids are just incomprehensible. The airline in both the inbound and outbound flights in these cases is Ryanair, which is currently in the news while the media try and figure out if boss, Michael O’Leary, is kidding about forcing paying passengers to spend a penny if they need to spend a penny on one of his flights.

Oddly enough all you need to do is take a look at the standard fee schedule for Ryanair and Mr O’Leary’s claim that the only reason he is not already charging customers is that Boeing don’t yet offer pay slot mechanisms on their toilet doors as a standard option doesn’t seem so far-fetched. Or so funny.

Keep it up Mr. O’Leary and no family will be able to afford to fly anywhere.