A Spain package either saves you real money or quietly costs you extra, and which one it is depends almost entirely on whether you are flying a charter route or a scheduled one. Nobody explains this, so people apply the same assumption to Malaga and Madrid and get it wrong half the time.
The rule
Packages win on the beach routes. UK and Irish departures to Malaga, Alicante, Palma, Ibiza, Lanzarote and Tenerife are dominated by tour operators who buy seats and hotel allocation in bulk months ahead. They can sell the bundle for less than you can assemble it, because you do not have access to their contracted rate. Savings of 15 to 30 percent are normal, and higher in the last-minute window.
Packages lose on the city routes. Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Valencia and Bilbao are scheduled-airline destinations. The operator is buying the same seat you can buy, adding a hotel at a rate you can often match, and taking a margin. Booking the two parts separately is usually cheaper and always more flexible.
| Destination | Better as | Typical gap |
|---|---|---|
| Malaga / Costa del Sol | Package | Package cheaper by 15–25% |
| Alicante / Costa Blanca | Package | Package cheaper by 15–30% |
| Palma / Ibiza | Package | Package cheaper by 10–25% |
| Canary Islands | Package | Package cheaper by 20–35% |
| Barcelona | Separate | Separate cheaper by 5–15% |
| Madrid / Seville | Separate | Separate cheaper by 10–20% |
Where the advertised price stops being the price
Package headline rates are built from the cheapest possible combination, and the gap between that and what you will actually pay is predictable.
The lead price is two sharing, low season, worst room, worst flight time. A 06:00 departure and a 23:00 return are what the lead-in fare buys. Moving to civilised times often adds £40 to £80 per person.
Baggage is frequently excluded on charter packages now, at £35 to £55 return per bag.
Transfers may be shared coach transfers that call at six hotels before yours. On the Costa del Sol that can mean 90 minutes for a 35-minute drive.
Single travellers pay a supplement that frequently erases the entire package advantage. If you are travelling alone, price both options every time.
The protection argument
This is the part that gets ignored in pure price comparisons. A UK package including a flight carries ATOL protection: if the operator collapses while you are in Spain, you get flown home, and if it collapses before you travel, you get your money back. Assemble the trip yourself from an airline and a booking site and you have two separate contracts and no safety net beyond your card issuer.
For a £400 city break that risk is tolerable. For a £3,000 family fortnight in the Canaries it is worth something real, and it is a legitimate reason to accept a package that is not the absolute cheapest option.
Timing
The sweet spots are late April to early June and mid-September to late October: sea warm enough, prices well below peak, resorts functioning normally. July and August cost roughly 60 to 80 percent more than May for the same room, and the Andalusian interior — Seville, Cordoba — becomes genuinely too hot for daytime sightseeing.
Last-minute package discounting is real on the beach routes and mostly fictional on city routes. If you can leave within three weeks and you are flexible on resort, the charter operators will discount hard rather than fly empty seats. That is the one situation where the package advantage is largest.
The short version
Flying to a beach on a charter route, especially with a family and especially last minute: take the package. Going to a Spanish city for a few days: book the flight and the hotel yourself and eat at the places the all-inclusive guests never find.