Companies with no single supplements?

Voyages to Antiquity has cruises in the Mediterranean with pretty exotic itineraries that offers special deals for single cabin bookings: http://us.voyagestoantiquity.com/special-offers-US.html

I recently returned from a Swan Hellenic cruise which offers good rates for singles with special offers as well as having a number of single occupancy cabins on the promenade deck for those who don't want to wait for an offer to come up. It was a great cruise and there were many passengers traveling alone. We all got together at meals in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere.

A recent article I received as a travel agent suggests some positive signs for single travellers.
This year Abercrombie & Kent waived the single supplement or reduced it considerably on the destinations and itineraries ranked highly by its past single travelers. The company is offering 30 "solo savings" departures on 13 of its itineraries, including to China, East Africa, Egypt and Turkey.

Travcoa, too, has recognized the potential of the singles market. This year, it announced it would be reducing its single supplement by 50% on eight of its small-group itineraries, representing savings of between $500 and $1,000 per traveler.

Both companies said they were able to offer the lower single supplement through a combination of absorbing additional costs themselves and renegotiating with suppliers.

"Everyone’s giving a little back in order to make this happen," Wiseman said. "It was important to us that it wasn’t just discounts and shoulder and off-season [itineraries]. We did go back and do secondary buying and renegotiated. ... It was also an inventory management strategy. Not every hotel is always 100% full. You can take a couple rooms out of inventory and give it to a market that has pent-up demand."

He said A&K was able to make some suppliers understand that a room occupied by a solo traveler was better than an unoccupied room. He added that in destinations and at properties where A&K can promise consistent volume, it was easier to negotiate compromise prices for single travelers.

The single-traveler market logic is spreading. Last month, Santiago, Chile-based adventure travel company Explora said it would waive the single supplement at three of its properties for solo travel between May 15 and Oct. 15 this year: Hotel Salto Chico in Patagonia, Chile; Posada de Mike Rapu on Easter Island; and Hotel de Larache in Chile’s Atacama Desert.

Gap Adventures, a Canadian company, touts a "no single supplement" policy, whereby it will match single travelers, which make up 40% of Gap’s customer base, with same-sex roommates to help them avoid additional costs. (Gap also offers solo travelers the option of getting their own room for an extra cost that varies per trip.)

Norwegian Cruise Line’s new ship, the Norwegian Epic, is offering 150 singles-friendly interior studio cabins at 100 square feet each, a product that makes cruising financially more viable for singles.

I look for no-single supplement offers also and have identified the following as particularly good ones:

Overseas Adventure Travel www.oattravel.com 800-493-6824
Their trips are limited to 16 travelers and they have two or three places on every land trip with no-single-supplement! I’ve been to Australia/New Zealand (1 month), Japan (3 weeks) and am going to Vietnam (2 weeks) with them with this offer.

Grand Circle Travel www.gct.com 800-959-0405
this is a sister company to Overseas Adventure Travel -- groups are bigger -- up to 40 people, but they have the same no-single-supplement offer on their land trips.

Both OAT and GCT offer river cruises, but the supplement is around $900, which is still less expensive than other companies.

Book early to get the no single supplement offer as they only offer a few places with the no single suppl. offer.

Vantage Travel
A friend told me they waive the single on their land trips -- one per trip. But I don’t have any experience with them.

Cruises:

TravLtips 800-872-8584 www.travltips.com [email protected]

They have a $20 a year fee, but it is deducted when you book a trip. They also send out a bi-monthly magazine with cruise reviews and reports and lots of interesting ads. They do a lot of mailings - with special offers, no single supplement offers,etc. The $20 is worth it.

I booked an 20 day Antarctica and Chile trip with them at the no single supplement and also received a two cabin upgrade to a mini-suite on the top deck.

Small-ship Cruises
Expedition Trips 877-412-8527
signup for a newsletter from www.expeditiontrips.com
They discount Lindblad/National Geographic, Corinthian, Clipper Odyssey, Callisto, Panarama and lots of others. The main thing, is that they are smaller ships with expedition-type cruising. They often list no-single supplement offers - especially a few months before sailing time.

Register with vacationstogo.com then look at this link:

http://www.vacationstogo.com/ticker.cfm?r=0&jpw=107&sp=y

it will give you the percent single suppl. for various cruises from 0% up to 50%. Just look in the last column for this info.

you can also go to the main page, look on the left side for “Singles Discounts” and click on that.

Talk to a travel agent about these cruises:
The Norwegian Epic has single cabins
Avalon Waterways has waived the single supplement for trips in 2011
Uniworld has waived their single supplement on some departures
MSC Cruises has greatly reduced their single supplement
Hurtrigrun (former Norwegian Coastal Voyages)

Voyages to Antiquity has cruises in the Mediterranean with pretty exotic itineraries that offers discounts for single cabin bookings: http://us.voyagestoantiquity.com/special-offers-US.html