IMSERSO

I'm not sure why but I have trouble remembering the word IMSERSO - it doesn't flow off the tongue somehow. The word is a name, it's the initials, plus some vowels, of the Instituto de Mayores y Servicios Sociales or The Institute for the Elderly and Social Services. It's a Spanish Government Agency that manages the extras behind the headline services of the Seguridad Social or Social Security System, namely free healthcare, disability care, unemployment payments and retirement pensions. Mention IMSERSO to a Spaniard and they will instantly think cheap holidays for old people.

The idea is simple enough. IMSERSO negotiates rates with the tourist industry and then offers low-price package holidays to pensioners living in Spain. It has the twin advantages of keeping us oldies more active and less isolated while providing low-season business for the tourist industry. Our eight days in Cambrils in Cataluña, with coach travel from Alicante to Cambrils and back and with full board in the four-star hotel cost 228.93€ per person. 

Each year, sometime early in June, IMSERSO tells the press its schedule for the year; how many places there will be and when the successful applicants will be able to start booking their holidays. In order to have a chance of getting one of the spots on the programme, you have to be a resident in Spain and then to fulfill one or more of a series of conditions. Typically that means you're over 65 and in receipt of a Spanish State Pension. There are other things that make you eligible like being over 55 and having a widow's/widower's pension or being over 60 and in receipt of other state benefits. There are other groups that also fit the criteria like returning emigrants. To know whether you're eligible, you'd need to check the website or even apply and see whether they accept you or not. Oh, and partners get to go with successful applicants even if the partners don't meet the criteria - space for Trophy Wives and Toy Boys and whatever the non binary equivalents are.

The holidays are, obviously enough, only in Spain and not everyone can book up all of types of destination when they first apply. Most people get access to the 8 or 10-day stays on the coast in Andalucía, Murcia, Valencia, and Cataluña and there are also 4, 5, and 6-day holidays grouped together as cultural circuits, rural tourism, trips to Provincial Capitals and to the North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. There are also 8 and 10-day holidays in the Balearic or Canary Islands and those are the ones that are initially limited. It's possible to book up multiple holidays with IMSERSO provided that you meet the criteria and that there is availability.

What you get is full board in a double room (there's a single room supplement) in hotels selected by IMSERSO. In Provincial capitals, it's half board and, for most holidays, the package includes transport there and back, even if that's a plane or boat. Travel and medical insurance is included in the package.

The prices are standard for each type of holiday so ours of 228€ was the coach, full board and insurance trip to the coast. If we'd gone to the Balearics it would have been 267€ and to the Canaries 355€ while a four-day city break would be 124€.

You can apply online if you have a digital signature, or you can download the form and fill it in with a biro and either take it to specific offices or send it by post. Once you've made your application someone at IMSERSO determines whether you're eligible or not and where you are in the pecking order. You'll get told in October by email or letter and you'll be given a time from when you can start booking. There's a system of grading that gives you preferential status, or not, and which includes a bias for where you live - people living in some areas get preference over others and, as I said above, not everyone gets the right to all the destinations right from the get go.

I understand that in some cases the old hands are sitting at their computers waiting for their time to click over so they can go for what they consider to be the best hotel in the best location on the best dates. It's a bit like the scramble to book Taylor Swift or Beyoncé tickets. Unlike buying concert tickets for those who have trouble with pesky computers lots of travel agents will do the work for anyone who has the letter telling them they can book places on the scheme. A couple of weeks after the start date for bookings the holidays that haven't been sold are thrown open to anyone.

As in all my blogs of this sort don't take what I say as gospel. The devil is always in the detail and what I write is pretty much broad stroke. If the IMSERSO website says one thing and I say something different then, obviously, IMSERSO is right!