Advanced options
The comparison is really about geography and children: in cheap-eating countries (Greek tavernas, Turkish lokantas at local prices) half board + eating out often wins AND you see the place: in expensive resorts (or anywhere the hotel is isolated) all-inclusive wins by default. Kids swing it hard toward AI: the snack-and-drink drip of a poolside day is relentless at menu prices. The known AI catches: premium brands/a-la-carte restaurants excluded, the wristband tour never leaves the hotel, and holiday drinking scales to free.
What The All-Inclusive Calculator Works Out
- Buying it yourself: lunch out plus the day's drinks and snacks, per person per day. In most Mediterranean resorts that lands at GBP 20 to GBP 40 a head, much less in Greek tavernas and Turkish lokantas at local prices, much more in isolated or expensive resorts.
- Verdict: the buy-it-yourself figure against the all-inclusive premium over half board, which runs GBP 25 to GBP 50 per person per night on mainstream packages. The sub-line multiplies the gap across the party and the nights.
- The honest variables: the comparison only means anything priced at your household's actual habits, not the brochure's. The beach-picnic family overprices all-inclusive; the poolside family with children under-prices it.
- Nights, adults and children (advanced): the simple mode assumes a family of four for a week. Change them and the party totals, holiday verdict and wasted-days figures follow.
- Child all-inclusive premium (advanced): children's board upgrades are often priced at 50-75% of the adult rate, and kids-eat-free deals make it zero. Enter the percentage your operator charges.
- Child lunch and snack spend (advanced): what a child would run up at menu prices as a share of an adult's bill. The relentless poolside drip of ice creams and drinks is the family all-inclusive case in one number, so 100% or more is realistic for teenagers.
- Drinks with dinner on half board (advanced): half board includes the meal but not the wine, so enter the nightly drinks bill per person. It is added to the half board route every night, including days spent out.
- Days out exploring (advanced): days on excursions or in town where you would eat out regardless. They are removed from the half board spend and shown separately as wasted all-inclusive days, because the wristband buys nothing while you are away.
- Card fees and exchange loading (advanced): every taverna bill paid on a standard card carries about 3% in fees and spread that the wristband absorbs. Fee-free travel cards bring this to zero; see the travel money calculator.
- Break-even daily spend (advanced): what an adult would need to spend on lunch and drinks each day for all-inclusive to pay off, after allowing for card costs. Premium brands and a-la-carte restaurants are excluded from most packages, so compare like with like.