Business
How to save money on planes and accommodation
Business reporter, BBC News
Prices for all-inclusive family package holidays in some of the most popular desinations have soared over the past year.
But there are ways of saving money if you want to escape abroad. Here are six tips to help keep costs down.
1. Book early for July and August
The price you pay for your accommodation depends on when you book.
July and August are the peak months for summer holidays, not just for Brits but for people in other parts of Europe.
“If you’ve ever been to Paris in August there’s hardly anyone there, everybody goes to the beach or heads for the mountains,” says Sean Tipton, spokesperson for The Travel Association (ABTA), which represents tour operators and travel agents.
“That’s when the hotels put their prices up,” he says. Therefore, it is usually cheaper to book a holiday aboard for June or September.
If you do have to go during the peak months, Mr Tipton says: “It is generally a good idea to book it as early as you can.
“It can be a bit of a lottery because you can’t 100% predict what the demand will be but as a rule of thumb in the majority of cases if you know you’re travelling in July, August or over Christmas or Easter, book early.”
2. Fly mid-week and early in the morning
The best time to travel is the middle of the week, according to Mr Tipton.
“The weekend is the most expensive time to go because people prefer to fly over the weekend so if you fly mid-week it is generally cheaper,” he says.
“Just simple little things like that get the price down.”
The same goes for the time of the day you travel.
“It is common sense really,” he says. “I don’t particularly like getting up at 3am for a 6am flight and I’m not alone in that so those flights will be consequently cheaper.”
3. Book a hotel room late
If you have some flexibility around when you can travel, there are some last minute bargains to be had.
Package holiday operators may have booked a lot of hotel space in advance which they may not have been able to sell at the holiday date approaches.
“They’ll discount it just to make sure they get something for it,” says Mr Tipton.
“Travel agents get sent notifications of last minute good deals so they’re a good place to go if you’ve left it late and you want a good, cheap deal.”
Another option is house-swapping. Instead of paying for a hotel or villa, people can register with an online platform which acts as a fixer between homeowners in different countries who want to stay in other’s houses.
Justine Palefsky, co-founder and chief executive of Kindred, says that people who register with her site pay only a service and a cleaning fee.
For example, someone booking a seven night stay at a three bedroom house in Majorca would pay a $140 (£103) service fee to Kindred as well as $140 for cleaning before and after a stay in the house.
Ms Hawkes advises that travellers go through a reputable site if they are choosing a house-swap.
“People need to be wary of social media ads at this time of year, advertising cheap holidays because scammers do tend to use those portals to show you images of a wonderful location.
“Then when you book it and do you bank transfer, you find it doesn’t exsist,” she says.
She recommends doing a reverse image search on websites such as Google to check the images haven’t been lifted from somewhere else to promote a home that doesn’t exist.
4. Pay in the local currency
Avoid changing money at the airport, says Alastair Douglas, chief executive at TotallyMoney, a price comparison site.
“Airports are normally the most expensive places to change cash,” he says.
Instead, change your money well in advance.
Mr Douglas says that if people are worried about exhange rate shifting between booking a holiday and the date of departure they can “hedge their bets” by changing half in advance and half nearer the time.
However, he says that people don’t really travel with lots of cash anymore. Most spending is done on cards.
This is a good thing, Mr Douglas says, because it will often allow you to select the local currency which is “probably the thing that will save you the most amount of money”.
5. Weigh your bags
Even before you reach your destination, costs can pile up. Make sure you print out your boarding pass ahead of time.
“Some airlines can charge a lot of money just to print out at the airport,” says Nicky Kelvin, editor at The Points Guy website. “Not all of them but just be safe.”
If you’re bringing a small suitcase on board the plane, bear in mind both the weight and the size of the luggage if you have to measure it in a metal sizer at the airport.
If it doesn’t fit, you may be charged a fee to check it into the plane’s hold.
Ms Hawkes recommends documenting the luggage dimensions an airline provides on its website just in case you have followed them but get to the airport and discover your bag does not fit.
“In that case, if the airline makes you put it in the hold and you’ve adhered to their website conditions, document everything and make a complaint after,” she says.
6. Buy toiletries in advance
Food, drink and toiletries are often more expensive at the airport.
One of the reasons, according to Mr Kelvin, is because of the 100ml onboard liquid rule. While restrictions have recently been relaxed at airports in Edinburgh and Birmingham, it applies everywhere else in the UK.
One way to cut costs is to order your suncream or other toiletries online and pick them up in-store at the airport once you’ve been through security.
Some retailers allow you to do this, Mr Kelvin tells the BBC’s Morning Live programme.
“So it’s a double whammy – you’re going to save because you’re going to get the cheaper online pricing and you’re going to avoid the security issue because you’re going to pick up your big liquids after.”
Another cost-saving tip is to take a water bottle with you. Most airports have free water refill stations.
He also recommends taking along your own snacks in lunch boxes, especially handy if you’re travelling with children.
Business
Why AI alone can’t guarantee business success, expert cautions
As companies around the world race to adopt artificial intelligence (AI), strategy expert Shotunde Taiwo urges business leaders to look beyond the hype and focus on aligning technology with clear strategic goals.
Taiwo, a finance and strategy professional, cautions that while AI offers transformative potential, it is not a guaranteed path to success. Without a coherent strategy, organisations risk misdirecting resources, entrenching inefficiencies, and failing to deliver meaningful value from their AI investments.
“AI cannot substitute for strategic clarity,” she explains, stressing the importance of purposeful direction before deploying advanced digital tools. Business leaders, she says, must first define their objectives, only then can AI act as an effective enabler rather than an expensive distraction.
Taiwo stated that many organisations are investing heavily in AI labs, data infrastructure, and talent acquisition without clearly defined business outcomes. This approach, she notes, risks undermining the very efficiencies these technologies are meant to create.
For example, a retail business lacking a distinctive value proposition cannot expect a recommendation engine to deliver meaningful differentiation. Similarly, manufacturers without well-structured pricing strategies will find limited benefit in predictive analytics. “AI amplifies what’s already there,” she adds. “It rewards businesses with strong foundations and exposes those without.”
According to Taiwo, the true value of AI emerges when it is guided by intelligent, strategic intent. High-performing organisations use AI to solve well-defined problems aligned with commercial goals, often framed by business analysts or strategic leaders who understand both operational realities and broader business priorities.
She cites Amazon’s recommendation engine and UPS’s route optimisation algorithms as models of effective AI deployment. In both cases, technology served a clear purpose: boosting customer retention and streamlining logistics, respectively. When guided by strategy, AI becomes a force multiplier, enhancing forecasting, enabling automation, and improving personalisation where workflows are already well-defined.
On the other hand, even the most advanced AI systems falter in the absence of sound strategy. Common pitfalls include deploying machine learning models without a business case, focusing on tools rather than problems, collecting data without a clear use, and optimising narrow metrics at the expense of enterprise-wide goals. These missteps often result in underwhelming pilots and disillusioned stakeholders, issues strategic professionals are well-equipped to navigate and avoid.
In this sense, AI adoption can serve as a strategic diagnostic. Taiwo suggests that when business leaders struggle to define impactful AI use cases, it often reflects deeper ambiguity in their organisational direction. Key questions, such as where value is created, who the primary customer is, or which decisions would benefit most from improved speed or accuracy, are not technical, but fundamentally strategic.
AI, she says, acts as a mirror, revealing strengths and weaknesses in how a business is positioned, differentiated, and aligned across functions. Strategic leaders and business analysts are uniquely positioned to interpret these insights, inform course corrections, and guide effective technology investments.
Looking ahead, Taiwo argues that strategy in the AI era must be data-literate, agile, ethically grounded, and above all, human-centred. Leaders must understand what data they have, and how it can be harnessed, without needing to become technologists themselves.
Organisations must be nimble enough to act on AI-driven insights, whether through supply chain reconfiguration or dynamic pricing. Ethics, too, are critical, especially as AI increasingly impacts areas such as hiring, lending, and content moderation. “AI is not a replacement for strategy – it is a reflection of it,” she said.
In organisations with clarity and discipline, AI can unlock significant value. In those without, it risks adding cost and complexity. The responsibility for today’s leaders is to ensure that technology serves the business, not the other way around.
Business
No imminent change to tax-free allowance
There will be no immediate changes to cash Individual Savings Accounts (Isas), the BBC understands.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves was widely expected to announce plans to reduce the £20,000 tax-free allowance.
The move was aimed at encouraging more investment in stocks and shares, which the goverment says it will still focus on.
“Our ambition is to ensure people’s hard-earned savings are delivering the best returns and driving more investment into the UK economy,” a Treasury spokesperson said.
The Treasury is expected to continue to talk to banks, building societies and investment firms about options for reform.
An Isa is a savings or investment product that is treated differently for tax purposes.
Any returns you make from an Isa are tax-free, but there is a limit to how much money you can put in each year.
The current £20,000 annual allowance can be used in one account or spread across multiple Isa products as you wish.
Business
UK economy shrank unexpectedly in May
The economy shrank by 0.1%, the second month in a row it has contracted.
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