World Cup Frenzy Spurs Unprecedented Prices
Abi BrayEnglish World Cup fans pay top price for remaining seats on flights.
England supporters still wanting to fly over to South Africa are sure to face a very large travel bill, it emerged this week.
All supporters based in the UK who haven’t yet made any travel arrangements for the World Cup event will have to dish out top prices for air transfer to South Africa.
Big money is also expected for hotels as well as car services in host cities because most of them have already been reserved.
In the remaining draw which was held in Cape Town, England ended up in the easiest group of the 2010 World Cup when they were picked to play against the USA, Algeria and Slovenia.
But the idea of witnessing a three-match walk-over ignited a late stampede so supporters were in for a real shock. Flights to Johannesburg from London on commercial carrier British Airways on the best travel day, or two days before the starts of the World Cup on June 11, reached a whopping £3,000 since the only remaining seats could be found on club-class. Rival airline for the air link, South African Airways, had advertised prices around £500 earlier in 2009, but have now crept up to first £1,000 and subsequently to £1,499.
South Africa accommodation is also peaking. Hotels in the country are said to be asking as much as £400 per night for the few rooms still available, which represents a stunning ten fold the normal room rate.
As for car rental companies, overloaded by unprecedented demand from various squad supporters wanting to access different stadiums for matches by car, are said to be charging £110 per day compared to the normal daily rate of £25.
According to travel writer Simon Calder, prices started to jump as soon as England had officially qualified for the competition.
/images/rssicon.jpg "Subscribe to RSS feed")
Subscribe for free and recieve the latest Self-Catering-Breaks news and stories
Filed under Holiday News, Travel News, World News