Best Deals Travel Sites?

[Aramis]

Correct, and Google Flights is much easier to use

Google Flights uses Matrix AFAIK.

 

[audreyh1]

How do you try to get to the owner directly? We used Booking.com quite a bit for our 2018 trip to Greece and the rates were pretty good, but I’m sure would have been better if we could have gone direct. We stayed at small properties with less than 10 rooms.

If I know the name and location of the property, I usually find them quite easily with a simple web search. Usually find their web page with contact info.

Have done this many times.

 

[CoolRich59]

I book directly with airlines, hotels, rental car companies for the best deals. After all the issues last year getting refunds on travel cancelled by the airlines last year, I will never use third party travel sites such as Expedia.

Not to derail this thread, but I give a big thumbs up to this advice.

After getting jerked around earlier this year on a hotel booking by a third party travel site, the hotel manager told me the same thing: Just book directly.

 

[audreyh1]

Yes, we’ve booked directly for years. If something happens the third party can make resolving the issue difficult. Especially overseas. I’d read too many people complaining about screwups.

Starting out way back (late 90s, 2000) I used Expedia a lot. We arrived at a hotel once, and Expedia hadn’t sent them our reservation! Some scrambling, the hotel was pretty full, but fortunately we had arrived early for check-in.

Also another time an airline CSR pointed out that changing seats is free if I book directly. I think at the time Expedia had said online that they couldn’t assign seats. So I called the airline.

We usually use Costco for car rental US, but they provide the reservation number of the rental company so I can go to their site and check that all is well.

 

[brett]

How do you try to get to the owner directly? We used Booking.com quite a bit for our 2018 trip to Greece and the rates were pretty good, but I’m sure would have been better if we could have gone direct. We stayed at small properties with less than 10 rooms.

We google the name, try tipadviser, etc. We typically stay at small properties as well.

Another thing we do is start with tripadvisor. B&Bs, inns, etc. Sometimes someone has include the owners email. Sometime we just take a chance and input the name of the hotel followed by .gr for Greece. We have been doing the exact same in Thailand for the past five years.

We are fairly flexible and often do not book terribly far ahead. IF we are unsure of a new place we may book for one night. IF we want to stay longer we either approach the owner or another place nearby. Cash. But...whenever possible we look at the room before parting with our cash.

On our last trip to Greece and Cyprus we did five flights on Aegean/Olympic. Four of the flights were booked anywhere from 2-6 days in advance. We checked prices on google air, direct with Aegean/Olympic and with expedia. Incredibly, two of the flights, same for same, were 25-40 percent less expensive when we booked on Expedia.

We found exactly the same on a number of domestic flights in Mexico booked on winter 2020 trip. Not certain why this is. We would not have booked on expedia for a small delta or if the flight was a long way off.

 

[brett]

My favourite travel deal is YVRdeals.com which identifies cheap flights and mistake fares from Vancouver (YVR) and other nearby airports like Seattle and Bellingham. They also have sister sites for deals flying out of the other major Canadian cities like YYZdeals.com, YULdeals.com, etc. They only post very good deals and the better the deal, the less time you have to act of course.

The best deal the missus and I were able to take advantage of was a mistake fare that Delta ridiculously honoured flying return from YVR to LAX for $0 + $65 taxes and fees per person!
Just a reminder about mistake fares: DO NOT CALL/EMAIL AND ASK IF THIS IS A MISTAKE FARE. If the fare goes through, great. If it doesn't get honoured, oh well. In this instance, Delta acutally called me and said they were honouring the fare but asked if we would mind changing to a different departure time which actually worked out better for us.

I also leverage Flyertalk and Redflagdeals.
I used to enjoy Travelzoo a lot more but I felt the deals they were posting started to be only ok over the years.

Haven't found a great site for amazing cruise deals only standard cruise deals.

We also use YYC deals. We also use YVR and YYZ deals since we can fly out of those gateways as well. We have has some excellent deals on flights to Asia based on a YYC deals heads up.

 

[frugal-one]

We did a late booking cruise Australia/NZ cruise. Our on line NA TA gave us a price. THen we called the RCI office in Sydney, Australia.

We booked that cruise with the Australian office for a saving of just over 30 percent for the same cabin, same date, same ship. One phone call.

Did exactly the same on some Aerolineas flights in Argentina. Called down to their call center in BA instead of booking on the web or with their 1-800 North America number. Better choice of flights and 30-35 lower price.

Needed a one way flight to Istanbul for my inlaws. Found one quickly on BA from a consolidator. Exactly half the price of the airline or other on line booking shops.

A safari was at the top of DW's list when we retired. Started dealing with a local TA who supposedly specialized. We were not getting the data we needed. Checked on tripadvisor for a name. Started dealing with a tour firm in South Africa direct. We got accurate information and a much better price. We originally delayed this trip because the SA rand was going dow.. Delaying a year saved us 15-18 percent on the currency. Made a difference to the cost of our three week stay.

Our practice was to book NA rental cars through Costco. Better price than my corporate rate. In Europe, we have always found autoeurope to be the best. But on our last pre covid trip to Greece and Cyprus we had five different rentals. Prices were all over the place. We rented from autoeurope, one direct with Budget, one through Aegean Air, and one with a local on the island. The prices for each rental were all over the map.

Lookin at South Africa when possible... would you be so kind as to share the name of the tour firm?

 

[chris2008]

I am not Brett but we did a great tour through Namibia with Gemma Dry of Discover Namibia tours.
They are based in SA, arrange tours in both countries and Gemma gives some advice on the Trip Advisor forums for SA and Namibia.

 

[Freedom56]

Not to derail this thread, but I give a big thumbs up to this advice.

After getting jerked around earlier this year on a hotel booking by a third party travel site, the hotel manager told me the same thing: Just book directly.

We normally book directly but last year Expedia had a business class fare deal for a flight from LAX to GVA via LHR with Virgin Atlantic and British Airways for $2498 return. We bought the same flights from Expedia in 2019 but for $2894 return (which was a good deal then). It was much more expensive booking directly with the airlines for whatever reasons. The airlines cancelled the flights and Expedia went out of their way not to issue any refunds. It took over four months to get our $4996 refund and I had to deal with VA and BA directly. I have used Expedia for over 20 years to book hotel rooms when they offer rooms at lower prices than booking directly. It should be noted that many airlines such as Air Canada, United, American, and Delta still have not refunded travelers for flights the airlines cancelled. To make matters worse, in many cases the flight credit vouchers they issued to passengers are about to expire. The other lesson from last year is that I will not book trips six months in advance. It will be six weeks maximum. Car rentals will always be direct especially in Europe.

 

[brett]

Lookin at South Africa when possible... would you be so kind as to share the name of the tour firm?

We used Wildwings from SA. They also have Facebook page. Highly recommend Simon as tour guide. He is one of the owners. They also arrange our travel in Chobe, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

We dealt with them directly.

 

[ivinsfan]

On the calling +1 our favorite little place at PDC I scored a great package on Expedia...
I think the discount was mainly on the hotel end.. the head guy at the hotel mentioned to me at checkout that they would match or beat any package price for the room. I think he said Expedia keeps like 30% of the hotel nightly price as a fee.

 

[brett]

Lookin at South Africa when possible... would you be so kind as to share the name of the tour firm?

Not sure what your plans are. SA was part of an extended trip for us. We got very good one way air from Milan to J'burg (where we met our guide) and back from Cape Town to Rome. KLM often has good fares from NA to South Africa.

When the safari was finished we flew to Port Elizabeth and rented a car for ten days. Toured on our own and dropped it off in Cape Town. We spend four days there. Beautiful city.

 

[GreenEggs]

Have any of you used https://www.vacationstogo.com/ ?

 

[Scuba]

Have any of you used https://www.vacationstogo.com/ ?

Yes, we have used them once or twice to book cruises. Very easy and got a good deal. No problems. I can’t say whether they would be as helpful as a traditional travel agent if any issues were encountered such as missed flights or something like that, since we didn’t have any problems. I would use them again.

 

[Scuba]

We google the name, try tipadviser, etc. We typically stay at small properties as well.

Another thing we do is start with tripadvisor. B&Bs, inns, etc. Sometimes someone has include the owners email. Sometime we just take a chance and input the name of the hotel followed by .gr for Greece. We have been doing the exact same in Thailand for the past five years.

We are fairly flexible and often do not book terribly far ahead. IF we are unsure of a new place we may book for one night. IF we want to stay longer we either approach the owner or another place nearby. Cash. But...whenever possible we look at the room before parting with our cash.

On our last trip to Greece and Cyprus we did five flights on Aegean/Olympic. Four of the flights were booked anywhere from 2-6 days in advance. We checked prices on google air, direct with Aegean/Olympic and with expedia. Incredibly, two of the flights, same for same, were 25-40 percent less expensive when we booked on Expedia.

We found exactly the same on a number of domestic flights in Mexico booked on winter 2020 trip. Not certain why this is. We would not have booked on expedia for a small delta or if the flight was a long way off.

Thank you for sharing this information. You are my travel idol!

 

[brett]

We are very much spontaneous travelers. And the deals are sometimes can be on vendor sites.

On our last trip our we flew into Athens. Our plan was to get to Corfu-probably fly. When we were on the Aegean Airlines web site viewing flights to Corfu we saw a $40. fare to a place called Ioannini. For a flight a few hours after we were to land in Athens. Looked at the map, saw it would work so we booked it and decided to stay in the area for a week. So glad that we did.

Same thing in Thailand. At night, in our Saigon hotel we were discussing where to go next Noticed a $29 Jeststar airfare to Dalat in two days time. Had not thought of going there but we booked it. The area looked interesting. Again, so glad that we did. Liked the area so much we stayed longer than planned.

There are lots of offers that never make it some of those 'best deals' websites. Hotel group sites like Marriott, Accor, Riu, Melia, Premier, etc. often have some very attractive specials for three day, pre pay, no refund stays. Especially 5 star hotels in SE Asia.

 

[rayvt]

For cruise packages, go to TravelWithAlan dot com and join the email list. He puts together great packages, most come with air included and often pre-cruise hotel stay.

Not a normal travel agent. You don't call and tell them what you want. They put together a package and send out the details in email.
About 1 email every week or two. If you like it you call in and book it. But you don't get to take a few days or weeks to think about it. Most of their deals sell out in 1 or 2 days. The prices are that good.

The very first cruise we booked with him was a European river cruise. The price was half what the cruise line was charging, and it included round trip air. US to Nuremberg and Vienna to US.

 

[EdL3]

We did a late booking cruise Australia/NZ cruise. Our on line NA TA gave us a price. THen we called the RCI office in Sydney, Australia.

We booked that cruise with the Australian office for a saving of just over 30 percent for the same cabin, same date, same ship. One phone call.

Did exactly the same on some Aerolineas flights in Argentina. Called down to their call center in BA instead of booking on the web or with their 1-800 North America number. Better choice of flights and 30-35 lower price.

Needed a one way flight to Istanbul for my inlaws. Found one quickly on BA from a consolidator. Exactly half the price of the airline or other on line booking shops.

A safari was at the top of DW's list when we retired. Started dealing with a local TA who supposedly specialized. We were not getting the data we needed. Checked on tripadvisor for a name. Started dealing with a tour firm in South Africa direct. We got accurate information and a much better price. We originally delayed this trip because the SA rand was going dow.. Delaying a year saved us 15-18 percent on the currency. Made a difference to the cost of our three week stay.

Our practice was to book NA rental cars through Costco. Better price than my corporate rate. In Europe, we have always found autoeurope to be the best. But on our last pre covid trip to Greece and Cyprus we had five different rentals. Prices were all over the place. We rented from autoeurope, one direct with Budget, one through Aegean Air, and one with a local on the island. The prices for each rental were all over the map.

Please message me the name of your South American tour operator?

 

[Red Rover]

I use Next Vacay. It sends emails whenever there are good flight deals originating out of airports nearby. It's fun to see how cheap some of the flights are as well as all the different places that are available to go.

These aren't last minute deals as they allow for more planning but some of them are really cheap. For example, I got a flight from Palm Springs to Orlando next month for $275 round trip that they alerted me to. It ended up a bit more as I wanted to choose my own seat but I wouldn't have known about the deal if not for them.

 

[brett]

Please message me the name of your South American tour operator?

We used a company called Wild Wings. Our tour director was Simon, one of the owners.

The tour was arranged from J'burg. We actually did two sections. After that we went on to Chobe and then VIc Falls by ourselves. We did the air, Wild Wings arranged the land portion.

After that, we flew to Port Elizabeth. Rented a car for a few weeks and made our way down to Cape Town for four or five days.

 

[brett]

We ended up spending five wonderful winters in Thailand as a base. We did lots of Malaysia and Vietnam plus twice we did add ons to Australia.

It was all thanks to YYC deals. We were sitting in our condo in mid Jan. Snow and wind blowing over the golf course below. We needed to get out of Dodge and fast.

I always wanted to go to Thailand. DW not so sure. So, the screen lit up with a last minute offer of air fare to Thailand from our city. $729. Looked at DW and said lets do this.

A week later were were in Bangkok, then down to Southern Thailand. Personal issues limited us to three weeks.

Next year DW said.....we better get a vis extension, one month is not enough. SO we did. Spent the next four of five winters in Thailand, SE, Asia and Australia (thanks to an Australian couple we met in Phuket who we became friends with and insisted we include OZ the following winter).

So....one last minute deal for us led to five winters in Thailand/SE Asia. We are planning at least one more if we are permitted to enter Thailand.

 

[Parfumeur]

Brett ->> itmatix

?? Maybe a link would help us?

WildWings? South America??
http://www.argentinawildwings.com/ ??
https://wild-wings-safaris.com/ <- can I assume this is the one

Tnx

 

[brett]

https://wild-wings-safaris.com/ Yes...that is the one. They were much smaller when I dealt with them in 2010. Our car rental in SA was done through autoeurope. We use autoeurope frequently. More often than not one way rentals. Excellent rates (usually), excellent service.

Do a little research on the SA rand. For a number of reasons we delayed our trip by a year. During that period the SA rand dropped in value, vis a vis our currency, by 15-18 percent.
That translated into a travel savings for us.

https://matrix.itasoftware.com/

We like the ability to put in a date range and length of stay, then get most attractive pricing. They also identify fare codes with their pricing. Also nearby airports, number of stops. We have saved travel dollars by moving our departure a few days or by using another airport.

-cannot purchase on this. sometimes you have to search to find the offering identified. It may not be on the airline site. It might not be on a 3rd party such as expedia, but then it could pop up on another such as orbitz. Strange.

https://www.google.ca/flights

We like their graphs showing best times to book by day.

https://www.skyscanner.ca/?previousCultureSource=GEO_LOCATION&redirectedFrom=www.skyscanner.com

(we find skyscanner very good for LC airlines in Europe and Asia. Often yields different flight/airline options than either of the above.

One thing about air. We have found that in country websites of airline LC's can often show more flights and at less cost than any of the above. At least this is what we have found in the past in Turkey, Mexico, Greece. Argentina, and Chile.

 

[Maidensong]

VacationsToGo and GoogleFlights

The DH is a Google retiree, so we do like using https://www.google.com/travel/flights unless we are cruising and the cruise line offers an air deal. Not only are the fares less than we can get on Google flights (usually) the ship is supposed to wait for travelers who have booked air through the cruise line.

We have booked through https://www.vacationstogo.com/ often with no problem. In fact, when we had to cancel our 19-day Sept. 2020 cruise to Mexico, we received our refund within a week.

However, for our world cruises (2nd one coming up next January, God willing and Covid declining), we use https://www.cruisespecialists.com/ (ask for Teresa Skeim). There are a lot of moving parts with a cruise of this length, so we felt more comfortable dealing with a TA who deals with more complicated travel on a regular basis. She also arranges for some nice perks to be included and on our more recent booking, an additional $2800 in on board credit from the agency itself. She keeps track of flights, visa requirements, travel insurance, and if we have a problem, I know she'd work tirelessly to resolve it. We pay less using her services than if we booked with the cruise line directly.

Happy travels all!

 

[brett]

We use vacationstogo.com. But when we want to book a cruise we try cruisecompete.com where various TA's submit bids for the cruise. We used to have an on line TA who would rebate anywhere from 8-12 percent of the commissionable fare in the form of OBCs-on board credits.