The practice of charging holidaymakers for issuing 'tickets on departure' on last-minute bookings has become widespread among the big tour operators in the last two years. Travel agents say charges of £10 per person on bookings made three weeks in advance are unjustifiable.

'They could just as easily put the tickets in the post to arrive the next day,' said travel agent Peter Hawke of Travel Experience in Kent. David Whitaker, manager of Andrews Worldchoice in Camberwell, London, said: 'It's just another way of ripping the public off.'

Often the extra charges do not appear in the initial quote for a holiday.

Airtours, which was the first operator to introduce these charges, levies £10 per customer for bookings made less than 21 days before departure. The operator says the charges cover the cost of staffing a ticket desk at airports and installing airport ticketing machines. A spokeswoman for Cosmos, the most recent tour operator to charge, said: 'People want to be able to book holidays and travel at the last minute and we have to cover the cost of investing in the technology to enable them to do that.'