Single supplements
 

Single supplements when traveling are nothing more than blatant discrimination against single travelers. Just because it's an industry norm it by no means makes it right! They consume half the water, electricity, amenities and toilet paper but are penalised for having the shear audacity to travel alone. " sorry you single Sado we will charge you one and a half times the usual rate!" It's so very wrong and needs to stop. If an establishment proudly states that they do have single accommodation at a reduced rate it is usually cellular with no view and often no windows. But of course you're single so why would you possibly want to enjoy the benefit of the rooms with a view that couples do! Single supplements no matter how argued are discrimination against the single traveler and it needs to stop!

LOL, well that's one way to look at it.

There is of course another way to look at it. A hotel room is taken up by a single guest the same as by a couple.

This is also something that generally only happens with package tours. An independent traveller does not encounter this at all.

Airlines have no single supplement. Taxis have no single supplement. The list goes on. So just where do you find this?

Hotels sometimes have a REDUCED price for a room for a single person but none have a 'single supplement'. In many hotels of course, the price is per room, not per person which is so common in the UK for example vs. a price per room in N. America.

Thank you for your reply. I travel extensively in South and Southern Africa booking my own rooms directly with an establishment by no means a package tour! As an independent traveler I have been charged a single supplement almost every time! Almost all hotels, guest houses B and B's etc in this part of the world have a single supplement. All I can say is that you are very lucky that NONE of your hotels penalise you with a single supplement!

Just don't book packaged deals. I always travel solo and I have never once paid a "single supplement" (Europe, Mexico, Caribbean, Hawaii).

Maybe South and Southern Africa are different, I've never been there myself.

Gillie, you really need to think about what 'supplement' means.

So if a room is $50 a night for a couple, you are suggesting they charge you a 'supplement' on TOP of that as a single? I think not.

What you are saying is they don't charge you $25 as a single but perhaps $35 instead of $50 that the room could be rented for.

You are looking at it from your own narrow little viewpoint. I have no sympathy at all. A ROOM is worth as much as someone is willing to pay. Try travelling in N. America where a room is the same price whether you are a single traveller or a couple. The price is PER ROOM.

You are complaining that where you travel, they charge you LESS than the full price of the room.

I travel solo almost all the time, in Europe. If I go on an organized tour, I have to pay a single supplement. If I go on my own, I can usually avoid it.

Sometimes the price is per room, sometimes it is per person. You have to look very carefully before you book.

And some rooms are so tiny, with a single narrow bed, that two people can't fit. So they can't really rent it out to a couple. But those rooms are usually marketed as single rooms.

Overseas Adventure Travel is one tour operator that frequently does not charge a supplement- I am going to Africa with them and no extra charge for being solo.

We have a friend who owns his own nature tours company and runs the tours himself. For singletons, he offers the following compromise: pay the single supplement and get a room every bit as large as the ones given to couples, all to yourself; or, avoid paying the supplement by accepting a smaller room, like the ones he himself stays in. (A third option is sharing a room with another single traveller, if there is one on the tour, but few people want to throw in with a stranger.)

So taking very small package tours, where it's possible to negotiate a compromise with the tour operator, might allow one to avoid single supplements.

The OP is gone -- either nuked by the editors or she 'aufed' herself.

The thread was topped by a spammer.