Subsidised wine

Subsidising my holiday is one thing. I can see the justification. We poor old people need to get out of the house; we need a bit of social integration rather than a life shuffling around in worn slippers and worn out dressing gown among unwashed pots and smelly laundry. It may keep us active and, of course, it keeps people in work when those jobs might otherwise disappear with the ebb and flow of the tourist seasons.

But subsidising my alcohol intake is quite another thing. True, the wine wasn’t good—in fact, bad may be the better adjective—but, acidic as it was, it had the inestimable quality of being, to all intents and purposes, free. A bottle with lunch, a bottle with dinner. Just what the doctor ordered—actually, I forget—was it two bottles or two glasses? Indeed, didn’t the spoilsports downgrade that to just two, or even one, glass, and was it only red? Never fear, it's still two bottles, any colour, for we oldies in Spain.

It’s the third time we’ve done a holiday with the IMSERSO programme (the initials stand for Instituto de Mayores y Servicios Sociales—more or less “Institute for Older People and Social Services”), though generally it just gets called Turismo Social, which doesn’t need much translation. Basically it's a programme of low season tourism for old people.

This is a loose interpretation of the jargonese the Spanish government uses to explain the scheme: the Imserso tourism programme is designed to offer older people affordable holidays as a complementary social security service, with the dual aim of promoting active ageing and supporting the tourism industry during the low season. Its stated purpose is to foster the autonomy of older adults by making it easier for them to take part in cultural and leisure activities that improve their health and quality of life, thus helping to prevent dependency and social isolation. At the same time, it seeks to stimulate economic development in tourist areas by reducing seasonality, maintaining employment and sustaining related services such as hotels, restaurants, transport and leisure activities outside the peak summer months.

It’s been a while since I first did it, but signing up for the IMSERSO programme isn’t that tricky. It’s mainly personal details like TIE/NIE, pension type, age and contact info. I seem to remember you had to say how much you earned, but what really seems to matter is that you meet the age and eligibility criteria rather than passing a strict income test.

You have to be legally resident in Spain to register, and you have to do that yourself because, while travel agents are happy to book you into the accommodation and the like, they can’t do the original application for you. It’s pretty easy to find the forms online and, as I remember, the site wasn’t difficult to use to sign up. You can still download a form and fill it in with a biro, and though most applications are now done online, you can, I think, still do it by post.

Brits—and, I suppose, other foreigners with a pension—can apply for IMSERSO tourism trips once they are legally resident in Spain and recognised within the system as pensioners or beneficiaries. The key point is status rather than nationality, although the exact conditions (age, type of pension and recognised status) depend on IMSERSO’s official rules for each season.

As always, be aware that what I say may not be entirely up to date, even though I think it is. In my case, it was all particularly easy because I have the clear advantage of having a work history in Spain and a Spanish state pension, but I have met Britons and other non-Spaniards on the trips who have never worked here and have no Spanish pension, so it is definitely doable.

There are three “modes” of holidays: coastal holidays, usually of 8 or 10 nights, on the peninsula, largely focused on the Costa Blanca, Costa del Sol, Murcia and Valencia; beach stays in the Balearic and Canary Islands; and finally three- to six-day short breaks (turismo de escapada), covering cultural circuits, nature tourism, visits to provincial capitals and trips to Ceuta or Melilla.

You “earn” points in your original application based on things like age, income and work history. Those with more points get first dibs—they can usually book slightly earlier than those with fewer—and, from my own experience, it also seems there may be limits on which types of trip you can access. We’ve only ever been offered coastal trips on the peninsula, within a fairly limited geographical range. I have always booked the holidays online as soon as we are given the get-go, but I know people do use travel agents to handle the bookings if they are a bit computer-shy.

All the hotels we’ve booked have been in the tourist belts around the named town. So when we went to a hotel described as being in Cambrils, it turned out to be halfway between Cambrils and Salou, and our latest jaunt to Peñíscola had us on the seafront but a good 3 km from the castle.

The digs have always been four-star and, although that sounds quite grand, the star ratings are largely about facilities. Things like a restaurant, car parking, twenty-four-hour reception and lifts. It’s facilities rather than quality that push a hotel up the scale, but there is a strong link between the two. Mind you, we’ve stayed in some great places that lack the jacuzzis, gyms or pools that score points—and points mean stars—but they’re not the places that IMSERSO uses.

That said, all the hotels have been perfectly good: decent-sized rooms, comfortable beds, clean, well-equipped bathrooms. And as all our trips have been full board—with wine included at lunch and dinner—that obviously means a functioning restaurant. I’m not sure whether the entertainers count towards the star rating, but the quality has ranged from amateur to excruciating, with the usual bingo and line dancing (examples rather than specifics), which may or may not be your thing.

There have been excursions on offer everywhere we’ve stayed. We’ve generally chosen to do our own thing, but because these are, by definition, low-season holidays, the alternatives can be quite limited. The hotel we stayed at in Roquetas de Mar was in January, and almost everything nearby was firmly shut for the winter. Still, we’ve yet to be sent anywhere that isn’t on a decent bus route into the main town, so it’s not as though you’re likely to be stranded.

The holidays we’ve been on have included transport—most do—as well as insurance, and in the hotels we’ve stayed in there have always been doctors available by appointment as part of that cover. For all three trips, we’ve turned up early morning at Alicante bus station (the starting point is always the provincial capital) and taken the organised coach to our destination, arriving in time for lunch. On the last day, you have lunch before heading back on a coach going the other way.

The first time, we rather assumed we’d be bundled into a group and end up socialising with Spaniards, but in reality, once you’re off the bus and through the welcome/sales-pitch talk, you don’t have to see the same people again until you get back on the coach home. Sharing the same restaurant and bars means you can chat if you want—but whether you do, and with whom, is entirely up to you.

This time it was 244€ per person for the 8 nights, including the transport, insurance and full board. Well worth a look if you're even vaguely interested.