What the figure holds before you reserve a vacation package from $1,485 per person

A figure on this desk is the operating company's price for the ground arrangements, per person, with two of you in a double room. It is a starting figure. The confirmed amount comes back in writing after your dates are checked against what that company holds for the season.

Inside a figure

• Accommodation for every night named, at the standard set out on the departure page
• Transport within the country, of the kind and quality described there
• The guides, permits and entrances the itinerary actually requires
• Meals as listed for that departure, which is never all of them
• The operating company's own liability cover for its own services

Left out of the figure

• Getting to the country and home again, which you arrange yourself
• Anything a border wants from you, which is your business and not this desk's
• Cover against cancellation, illness, delay or loss
• Meals and drinks not named on the departure page
• Anything personal: laundry, tips, phone, what you buy

The eight things that move a final quote

How far ahead you ask is the first. An operator quotes against the rates it holds on the day, so eleven months out you are quoted last season's rate with an allowance, and five weeks out you are quoted what it pays now.

Occupancy is the second. Two people sharing a double is the basis of every figure here. Three in a room built for three takes something off each share, and one person alone brings in a single supplement set by the operator.

Then the standard of the beds, the exact week inside the season, whether a departure runs with four people or fourteen, the exchange rate on the day the operator prices it, whether you want the itinerary altered, and how many separate companies have to be paid before the trip exists.

Read every figure as one person's share when two of you take a double room together. A single > traveller is quoted the supplement the operating company sets, and it is printed on the page for > that departure rather than buried here.

What this desk will not say about a figure

It will not rank one figure against another, and it will not divide a price by the nights to make a point. Neither of those is a fact about a trip. Both are opinions about what you ought to want, and this office does not hold opinions of that kind.

What it will do is tell you honestly when a figure will not stretch to what you have described, and name the number that will.