Jet2holidays and the return of the package: done properly, until the hotel lets it down

The short answer

Yes, for most people booking a week in the sun from a regional British airport. Jet2holidays bundles the flight, a checked bag, the transfer and the room into one package, and says plainly on its own homepage that every flight-inclusive holiday it sells is ATOL protected.¹ The operation is well drilled and the service is unusually well regarded. The weakness is the hotel itself, which Jet2 sells but does not run, so read the property’s own reviews before you pay the deposit.

The case for

The first thing Jet2holidays gets right is the thing the low-cost airlines taught us to stop expecting: the price includes the bag. A checked allowance, a cabin bag and a return transfer to the hotel come with an ordinary package, and the homepage makes a point of promising no fuel surcharges once you have booked.¹ The booking terms back this up rather than wriggling out of it; once the price is confirmed, they say, it will not be increased except to correct an error.² For anyone who has watched a cheap flight double in price on the payment page, that is the whole argument in one sentence.

For anyone who has watched a cheap flight double in price on the payment page, that is the whole argument in one sentence.

The second is protection, which on a package holiday is not a footnote. Jet2holidays holds its own ATOL licence and is a member of ABTA, both numbers printed in the booking conditions, and the homepage states that all flights and flight-inclusive holidays on the site are covered by the ATOL scheme, with a certificate issued when you pay.² If the company or a supplier fails, you are not on your own in a foreign arrivals hall. This is the dull, structural reason to book a package rather than stitching a flight and a hotel together yourself, and Jet2 makes it unusually easy to see.

The third is the reputation, which is large and broadly earned. On Trustpilot the brand has several hundred thousand reviews and an Excellent rating, with the great majority at five stars, and the praise is oddly specific: staff at the airport, transfers that turned up, a phone line answered by a person.⁴ The homepage also lists Which? Recommended Provider status across several categories.¹ The departure list has quietly grown, too; London Gatwick and Luton now sit alongside the northern bases where the airline made its name, so the southern half of the country is no longer an afterthought.³

Where it falls short

The weak link is the one Jet2 does not own. A package is only as good as the hotel at the end of the coach ride, and the hotel is run by somebody else. Read the one-star reviews in bulk and almost none are about the flight. They are about cold food on an all-inclusive buffet, a four-star room that felt like two, a pool bar playing music past midnight, a hotel under the flight path.⁴ Jet2’s star ratings are its own, and the gap between the brochure and the building is where the disappointment lives. The answer is to check the hotel independently, every time.

Jet2’s star ratings are its own, and the gap between the brochure and the building is where the disappointment lives.

The second reservation is about changing your mind. The cancellation scale is steep and rises quickly from about ten weeks out, until the whole cost is lost in the final fortnight.² Amendments cost a fee per person on top of any price rise, the fee is not refunded even if the holiday is later cancelled, and only the lead name on the booking may make changes.³ None of this is unusual for a package operator, but the low deposit invites people to book early and casually, and the terms do not share that relaxed mood. Buy travel insurance at the same time as the holiday, not the week before.

Third, the complaints machinery is slower than the booking machinery. Trustpilot reviewers describe waiting weeks for a reply after getting home, and nearly every one-star review we read carried the same templated response directing the writer to a contact form.⁴ The terms ask that problems be raised in resort and followed up within twenty-eight days of returning,² which is reasonable, but it does mean the burden falls on the holidaymaker to complain promptly and in writing. A company this good at getting you there could afford to be quicker about listening afterwards.

The range, considered

Beach and all-inclusive packages Our choice This is the core of the business and the reason to come. A week in the Canaries, the Balearics, Greece or Türkiye, with flight, bag, transfer and room in one protected booking, from an airport near home.¹ The search is good and the filters for board basis and adults-only hotels are easy to use. The caveat is the all-inclusive end of the list, where the one-star reviews cluster around food quality and rooms that have seen better seasons.⁴ All-inclusive is only a bargain if the buffet is edible; read the hotel’s recent reviews elsewhere before committing a family’s fortnight to it.

Family holidays and Free Child Places Our choice Jet2’s family offer is its most persuasive. Free Child Places are offered on selected hotels and dates when two full-paying adults share the room, and the school-holiday departures from regional airports spare parents the motorway to Gatwick.² Read the small print, though. Only one free place is allowed per room, the child’s age limit is set hotel by hotel, a deposit is still payable for the free child, and cancelling carries a charge for that child on top of the usual scale.² Kids’ clubs, by a few reviewers’ accounts, open less often than the hotel page implies.

Indulgent Escapes Also considered The premium line puts you in a five-star hotel with a larger bag allowance, private transfers, a priority lane at the UK airport and two drinks on the plane, champagne excepted.⁵ The private transfer is the useful part, since the shared coach doing the rounds of six hotels is the low point of any package. The rest is pleasant garnish, and the onboard shopping voucher can only be spent in Jet2’s own duty-free trolley. Not every hotel in the range is a quiet one; some have aquaparks and kids’ clubs, so check which kind of five stars you are buying.

Jet2Villas Also considered A clever idea: a private villa, the flights, a checked bag and a hire car in one ATOL-protected package, across Spain, Portugal, Greece, Croatia, Cyprus and more.⁵ For a group that would otherwise book four things from four companies, the single booking and the single point of protection are worth having. Our reservation is that the villa page we read said nothing about the hire-car excess, pool heating charges or any security deposit, which are precisely the costs that turn up later on villa holidays.⁵ Ask before you book, and get the answers in writing.

Jet2CityBreaks Also considered The city range covers more than forty destinations, from Rome and Prague to Reykjavik, Krakow and Marrakech, with central hotels, transfers and a checked bag included.⁵ That bag is the point: a three-night city break rarely needs one, but the inclusion is a fair answer to airlines that charge for a coat in winter. The weakness is that city breaks are where self-assembly works best, with plenty of direct flights and hotels to compare, so the package premium buys you less here than it does in a beach resort.

VIBE Not for us Jet2’s nightlife brand sorts hotels into moods, from chilled to full-on, with poolside DJs and the big Ibiza names at the top of the list.⁵ It is honest about what it is, which we respect. It also sits uneasily beside the rest of the catalogue, because the most common noise complaint in Jet2’s own reviews comes from guests who did not want the party.⁴ If you want it, it is well organised. If you are booking anything else, check that your hotel is not on this list, or next door to one that is.

Buying from them

Jet2holidays sells by website, app and telephone, and the phone line is open seven days a week, with WhatsApp offered as an alternative.³ The deposit is low and paying monthly is offered without a fee; the balance is due ten weeks before departure, and anything booked inside that window is paid in full at once.² Once you have paid, the price is fixed.² Changes are possible but cost a fee per person, and they stop entirely once you have checked in online.³ Cancellation charges rise in steps as departure approaches.² In resort there are representatives or Customer Helpers in many destinations and a round-the-clock helpline, and the terms expect any problem to be raised there and then rather than saved for the journey home; a written follow-up is due within twenty-eight days of return.² Customer reviews of the service are warm about staff before and during the holiday and cooler about how long a complaint takes to resolve afterwards.⁴

Our verdict

Jet2holidays has done something unfashionable and done it well: it has made the package holiday the sensible choice again, with the bag, the transfer and the ATOL certificate in the price and no surcharge waiting at the end. The airline side is competent and the protection is clear. The hotels are the variable, and Jet2’s star ratings are not a substitute for reading what recent guests say about the buffet. Book Jet2holidays for a sun holiday from a regional airport, but choose the hotel as carefully as if you were booking it alone.

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Others to consider

Notes

1. Jet2holidays homepage, read October 2026: ‘All the flights and flight-inclusive holidays on this website are financially protected by the ATOL scheme’; ABTA membership, no fuel surcharges, Which? Recommended Provider in seven categories; packages include 22kg hold baggage, 10kg hand luggage and transfers.↩
2. Jet2holidays terms and conditions, read October 2026: ATOL 9618, ABTA Y1256; £60pp deposit ten weeks or more before departure, balance due ten weeks out; cancellation from loss of deposit (70+ days) through 30, 50, 70, 90 to 100 per cent (14 days or less); Free Child Places rules; complaints follow-up within 28 days of return.↩
3. Jet2holidays Manage My Booking FAQs, read October 2026: amendment fees from £50 per person, non-refundable; only the lead name can make changes; balance extension to eight weeks; departures include London Gatwick and Luton; phone line open seven days, WhatsApp available.↩
4. Trustpilot page for jet2holidays.com, read October 2026, including the one-star filter: rated Excellent on roughly half a million reviews; recent one-star reviews focus on hotel food, cleanliness, star ratings and transfers, and receive a templated reply.↩
5. Jet2holidays Indulgent Escapes, Jet2Villas, Jet2CityBreaks and VIBE pages, read October 2026: Indulgent Escapes include 25kg baggage, private transfers and priority lane; Villas include car hire; the villa page did not state excess, pool heating or deposit terms.↩

Filed under the Away desk