Steal deals from travel operators on trips abroad

CHENNAI: If you couldn't go atop Mount Titlis in the Swiss Alps with your family this year because shelling 6 lakh in one go to Europe was too pricey, sweat not.
You can still make it to your dream destination next summer if you do some holiday planning. All it requires is some fund allocation month on month, over the next year.
Historically, Indians have used their bonus payouts to fund vacations, especially trips abroad.With one international trip, a domestic holiday and a few weekend breaks taken every year by many households, novel financing packages are being served on the platter by travel firms.
For instance, Mumbai-based personal financial advisory Transcend Consulting has gone in for a travel corpus approach for 400 families in India. "The whole idea is to first create a fund for three to five years. This is a long-term approach to holiday planning where holiday breaks are assured for life from the fund income," director of Transcend, Kartik Jhaveri, said.
Giving insights into fund management, Jhaveri said if a family is planning to go for a vacation to Fiji six years down the line, they would follow a more aggressive approach to investment. "But if the family wants to travel next year itself, we would take a more conservative approach," he said.
Major tour operators Thomas Cook and Kuoni are also luring travellers with their holiday savings and investment plans. Thomas Cook has launched a holiday savings account, a recurring deposit account which returns 9.1% interest for a 12 month tenure with the 13 installment top up contributed by Thomas Cook.
"The whole idea is to promote an affordable holiday solution, where the customer can possibly lock in the package rate before actual travel," chief innovation officer of Thomas Cook, Abraham Alapatt, said. The company is currently running the scheme in association with IndusInd Bank and has also signed up for ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and ING Vysya Bank for the same.
"There is no exit clause under this scheme. So even if you don't decide to go on a holiday at the end of 12 months, the money remains in your bank account," Alapatt said.
"We have recently launched a three country European package under our holiday savings scheme (seven nights/ eight days) and it can be availed at a monthly deposit of Rs 9,800 per person," Alapatt said. Next on cards are USA, Australia and Africa.
Similarly, Kuoni has a holiday investment plan in partnership with Kotak Mahindra Bank.
"This enables people to save up bit by bit for their dream bucket list holiday," head of sales, tour operating of Kuoni Daniel D'souza said.