A woman who was horrified by the cost of visiting London's Winter Wonderland market managed to find a far cheaper deal - in Switzerland. Cheryl Pyne, 49, wanted to visit a Christmas market this winter with her husband Gareth, 46, but when they costed out the price of getting the train from their home in Lincolnshire down to London, they were shocked by the cost.
Instead, graphic designer Cheryl turned to the AI programme ChatGPT to see if it could find them a cheaper alternative - and they were both stunned to learn they could fly to Switzerland and back in a single day, a round trip of over 1,200 miles, for far less.
She says: "My husband and I thought it would be nice to go to a Christmas market but we were amazed at the price of the train ticket to London. That was without factoring in activities like Winter Wonderland or ice skating. "We looked at train fares from our location Stamford, Lincolnshire to London, to go midweek in peak time and it worked out at £126 for both of us, plus a taxi to and from the station- a total spend of £136.
"Our flight to Geneva was £91 (£45.50 each), parking £14. We got a train into Geneva from the airport which was £3 - our total spend was £108.". Cheryl and engineer husband Gareth flew to Switzerland and back on Tuesday, describing the experience as "magical". ChatGPT gave them a full itinerary, catching a flight out from Luton airport at 8am and onto the 8.50pm flight home, meaning they were both in bed by midnight. They flew with easyJet.
