Getting to a house abroadLow cost airlines fuelled the boom in buying abroad - but all of them jack up their prices in high season. Joan Scalesreports

REMEMBER when buying a holiday home abroad seemed like a great idea? It would be so wonderful to have a place in the sun where you could spend every school holiday, the children could learn a new language and, of course, you could always rent it the rest of the year.

Try reminding families of the romance of the holiday home in Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and then see them wince as they tell the horror stories of trying to get there to use it.

It all seemed like it was going to be so easy to get there, especially when the low cost airlines began flying to lots of new routes. However, the reality never materialised for families, and if your holiday home is in the Costa del Sol area, forget low fares.

Aer Lingus and Ryanair may be both flying at least twice a day to Malaga but in high season, such as recently at Easter, unless you had booked nearly a year ago, return fares were costing at least €250 each. One family I know came back on Easter Sunday, as it would have been another €1,000 for fares if they stayed for the next week of the school holidays.

The Malaga flights are a classic example of the laws of supply and demand: at peak times, prices go up and the only way to get around them is to be flexible and book early or look for alternatives. October mid-term is already €345 with Aer Lingus; Ryanair has not posted its fares yet.

In the late 1990s, when holiday home ownership abroad, particularly in Spain, began to become a possibility, we had Michael Stein of Stein Travel to thank for bringing people to Malaga and Alicante. People went to Spain in droves for the first taste of ownership abroad.

It was the beginning of the building boom in Spain and prices were low: £40,000 would buy you a house in the sun. Stein Travel was running charter flights from Dublin and Cork to Alicante and Malaga and introduced the notion of one-way fares.

But this was not enough to satisfy demand. As things got busier and more people were trying to get to Malaga and Alicante, various routes were tried, over London, East Midlands, Barcelona, Madrid, Brussels, Paris, all at huge cost.

Then Aer Lingus put a service on the Malaga route on December 18th, 2001. It seemed like an extraordinary time of the year to begin a route to a sun destination, but it was inspired; the flight was full, as has almost every subsequent flight since.

Aer Lingus's confidence in the Spanish market is now reflected in the dozens of flights to Spain every week. You can get to Malaga from every airport in Ireland between schedule and charter services, from Dublin, Cork, Shannon, Knock, Kerry, Belfast and Derry.

Our hunger for holiday homes has increased and there is hardly a place in the world that Irish people have not found and bought. Holiday homebuyers in France at least have the option of taking the car and travelling by boat with Irish Ferries and Brittany Ferries. Fares with Irish Ferries are around €860 for a car and four passengers from Rosslare return to Cherbourg, with better value in the winter months.

Brittany Ferries only operates the Cork-Roscoff service from April to October and, while the service is highly rated for both comfort and food, it does only operate once a week. There is also landbridge via the UK, not much cheaper, but an option.

Fortunately air routes to France are not so expensive and you are more likely to get a good deal, though Nice is virtually impossible to get to for under €300 in high season. Services to the Algarve have improved with both Ryanair and Aer Lingus flying to Faro. Strangely TAP Portugal began a service last year and then pulled it off again after about seven months.

When it comes to Italy, the range of routes with Ryanair and Aer Lingus has hugely increased and the great Italian rail network makes getting around easy. Car rental rates in Italy have also become more competitive in recent years. Fares though in high season tend to be over the €220 mark.

Croatia, Montenegro, Turkey and Bulgaria have all seen the Irish euro buying up bricks and mortar, but access can be a bit more difficult. Aer Lingus does operate a service to Dubrovnik in the summer, four times a week with fares around €260. There is a weekly charter flight to Montenegro for the summer.

Holiday homebuyers in Turkey and Bulgaria are dependent on charter services. Turkish Airlines does fly from Dublin to Istanbul three times a week but you then have to go onwards on another flight.

If you bought a home in Poland, you probably have a better chance of getting there reasonably with seven Polish cities served by six airlines, keeping prices down.

However, if you are dependent on low cost airlines to get to your holiday home, forget it. Low cost carriers will only provide a service for as long as the business holds up. As soon as the load factor drops below a certain figure, they switch to another more lucrative route. Airlines watch each other all the time and chopping, switching and changing routes is all very much part of the business.