SOUNDING OFF: Ripped off? Stunned by good value? Write, text or blog your experiences to us.

A reader contacted us last week to complain about the single supplement costs attached to holidays for single people. "I recently tried to book a three-day trip to London and Oxford with the Travel Department and was informed that I had to pay an additional €199 for travelling on my own," she writes. "As this is my first time to book a holiday on my own I was shocked to learn this. I am unsure if people are aware of this. I think it is discriminatory against single people and it should not be allowed to happen. Why is it like this? Is this fair? Has Ireland really gone crazy with overcharging or even simply charging people for being single? This is maddening. I am very angry about this and I think this issue needs to be addressed."

While we can completely understand this reader's frustration, the single supplement is not new. Many hotels and tour operators' price deals are based on a per person sharing basis and rates are not halved if selling to a single person. It is tough to avoid the supplement but not impossible. Shopping around is important. Some big operators use their buying power to negotiate lower single supplements, some hoteliers waive single supplements off-peak and some don't charge single supplements at all.

On some group tours, there is an option to share a room with another traveller to keep the cost down, although you will have to rely on the tour operator to match you with your roommate. There are also many websites where you can post a request for a travel companion. www.boards.ie has a good thread about this and there are a lot of people talking about organising singles holidays as a group at present.

Some Irish companies offer holidays that come without these surchages. Budget Travel has a list of locations in its brochures that don't penalise people travelling alone - although the number of rooms and choice of venue can be pretty limited, but it is better than nothing. CIÉ Tours International offers a similar service, typically for an older age group. Another option is the Patt (People Alone Travelling Together) Club. Set up by a Donegal travel agent, it attracts people from 25 and upwards; most are over 40. Members pay a subscription fee of €75 and supply detailed personal information, which is used to pair members. The website address is www.thepattclub.ie.

But by far the best option for our reader is to forget the travel agents and go it alone in more ways than one. By doing it yourself, you have greater control of the package and can find real bargains.

Blueberry thrill

We got an e-mail from Kate Smith recently. She is an avid lover of Glenisk's range of yoghurts, one of which we reviewed recently and gave four stars to. She was, however, disappointed that we used their dessert range of yoghurts for the comparison. "The 'underground' range of Glenisk's yoghurts is pitched as a dessert and not as a savoury yoghurt," she writes. "Glenisk does a lovely blueberry yoghurt; it comes in a four-pack of 125ml pots. And it contains real blueberry pieces, unlike the 'underground' range." Fair enough.