Best Deals Travel Sites?

[DawgMan]

Like the rest of the country, we want to continue to ramp up our travel the rest of the year, mainly in the US, but possibly also in the Caribbean (probably wait until 2022 to go back to Europe). As DW and are pretty much free as the wind, I recall many years ago there were certain "Travel Deal" sites that would contact you (as opposed to the traveler having to do daily searches for deals) with super deals if you could travel on short notice. Anyone found any such sites they really like, have had a good experience with?

 

[DawgMan]

Well, that post was of major interest!

I suppose I will sit and wait for all the great responses...

 

[brett]

We do not use many of those sites. We do get travelzoo.

Most of travel opportunities (air and otherwise) are found by checking on individual sites. For a Mexico AI we may check with the hotel directly, with a Canadian or US travel vendor, and with a UK firm. We always price out on out of country websites for travel. We also consider fluctuations in currency. We also belong to a number of hotel loyalty groups...Melia, Riu, Marriott, Premier, Accor, etc. From time to time they have sent us some very attractive offers.

When we fly to Europe we use the usual itmatix, google air, etc. sites and we look at the differences between gateway cities. Same in Asia. Last time we flew from Thailand to OZ one way we price flights from Thailand and Malaysia using Skyscanner. And we looked at different gateway cities in OZ. It came down to $190 for Krabi to Gold Coast or $300. for Kuala Lumper to Gold Coast. Same for LC airlines in Europe. For cruises we start with Vacations to Go but we also price cruises in different countries. The differences can be substantial.

It takes lots of time on the web, getting travel tips and advice from others.
There is not one site that we count on to send us these.

 

[audreyh1]

Don’t subscribe to any. I used to occasionally browse FlyerTalk looking for airline deals, but it’s been many years now!

We usually use google air to search for airline tickets and to track prices.

 

[HawkeyeNFO]

Priceline - using the app has yielded very big savings on hotels for me. The website doesn't have the discounts that the app does.

 

[Freedom56]

Like the rest of the country, we want to continue to ramp up our travel the rest of the year, mainly in the US, but possibly also in the Caribbean (probably wait until 2022 to go back to Europe). As DW and are pretty much free as the wind, I recall many years ago there were certain "Travel Deal" sites that would contact you (as opposed to the traveler having to do daily searches for deals) with super deals if you could travel on short notice. Anyone found any such sites they really like, have had a good experience with?

I use this site to look for business and first class fare deals.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/premium-fare-deals-740/

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.

You should be careful booking anything these days through third parties. There are many fake travel sites popping up that taking advanced payments for airfare, hotels, and rental cars and then shutting down and keeping the money without booking anything for their clients. We saw this In Santorini Greece in 2019 at the Hertz car rental office. A couple from France booked what they though was a rental car at Hertz and paid in advance through a third party. They were told by the representative that their reservation did not exist and that the company they booked their reservations with did not exist any longer. The representative at Hertz told the couple never book rental cars and hotels through third parties in Europe. The situation is even worse now as scammers are taking advantage of the pent up demand for travel.

 

[qwerty3656]

I think Costco has some good deals

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

I think the issue is that right now there aren't a lot of great deals out there so the 3rd party sites aren't great. There is a HUGE demand and little supply, so there isn't a need for promotions. Also, a lot of companies (airlines/hotels) guarantee to have to lowest rate if you book directly through them so there isn't much incentive to use the 3rd party companies that can be a pain to deal with.

 

[Mark1]

Don’t subscribe to any. I used to occasionally browse FlyerTalk looking for airline deals, but it’s been many years now!

We usually use google air to search for airline tickets and to track prices.

I use Matrix to look for flights. No deals, but it is helpful.

https://matrix.itasoftware.com/

 

[brett]

Pre covid we have had some amazing deals on Priceline. In the US, in Canada, and in Europe (mostly London, LHR, LGW, Paris, and once in Milan and Lisbon (struck out everywhere else in Europe that have bid) Overall quite a few of them were Marriott wins.

If we see a property on a site like Booking we will try to find the owner and deal direct. Not unusual for us to score a 30 point discount when we do this and pay for cash. Last trip to Greece we paid cash, direct to the owner 250E vs the Booking price of 350E. Everyone wants cash. Especially true in Thailand, Greece, and Italy.

When we were in Thailand we were given the tip never to pay adult fare for a tour. Insist on the children's rate. Worked like a charm for the past 5 years. Domestic airline fares in Turkey booked on a Turkish site were 30 percent less that international sites. Same for some Greece fares and some Mexican fares over the past few years.

It takes some work and exchanging tips with fellow travellers.

 

[Sunset]

^^^^^^^^^^^ For your Greece trip. Did the owner not take payment until you showed up, or at the end of your stay ?
I'm wondering how the reservation worked ?

When we stayed at a hotel at the edge of Stanley Park in Vancouver Canada, I notice a sign on the desk that said " past guests booking directly get 10% off".
Next time I know I won't use booking.com for that hotel

 

[daylatedollarshort]

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.

You should be careful booking anything these days through third parties. There are many fake travel sites popping up that taking advanced payments for airfare, hotels, and rental cars and then shutting down and keeping the money without booking anything for their clients.

I needed to change my flight times on an Expedia package trip to Hawaii my family booked once due to a close friend passing away unexpectedly right before the trip. I had to leave later than the rest of my family in order to help with and attend the funeral services. The Expedia customer service people gave me a really hard time about taking a later flight, even though I was fine with paying any extra fees, and warned me not to let it happen again. I asked if that meant I should stop my friends and family from dying? In the end they did change my flight, but we sure haven't been eager to use them again since that fiasco.

One of our relatives got scammed by booking flights with one of those low price, fake travel sites that posted on Kayak. After those experience we usually try to book directly with the airlines as well.

 

[audreyh1]

I use Matrix to look for flights. No deals, but it is helpful.

https://matrix.itasoftware.com/

Google Flights uses Matrix AFAIK.

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

I still skim the emails from Scott's Cheap Flights, even though I'm still w*rking. They do a good job of showing you the usual fare and the discrepancy, although it's more work since you have to go book it yourself, but this kind of DIY solution that should appeal to this crowd. It's more like a variance alert when prices go far enough below the average.

 

[ivinsfan]

IMO the deals aren't what they used to be.



10-12 years ago we had good luck with Priceline (London hotels) Expedia (packages for our favorite little beach hotel in PDC.)



Once in awhile a good hotel deal on hotel.com for places that are hard to book like Moab Utah.



It seems the discounts aren't aggregated like they used to be and it takes a ton of digging to find good discounts.


I'm a Marriott fan and they used to feature a price guarantee that if you booked a stay and found the room cheaper somewhere else you get your room for 25% off of the cheaper price, I saved a bunch of money that way but that doesn't work much anymore either.

 

[Marita40]

You might try vacationstogo.com. I've not used them, but if you subscribe they send digests of travel deals about every two weeks or so.

 

[brett]

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.

 

[brett]

You might try vacationstogo.com. I've not used them, but if you subscribe they send digests of travel deals about every two weeks or so.

We look at them but we book with another on line TA that gives us bettter on board credits, ie fare decrease.

 

[sengsational]

It would be great if you found a site that only had packages that were a good value, but I've never found one. You can get packages, but sometimes it's just air and hotel (no value-add over what I can toss together). Sometimes Clark Howard has travel ideas with good value. He lets price tell him where to go, then just have fun wherever it ends-up.

I like the idea of finding reasonable business class and going wherever that leads.

 

[brett]

We have several in Canada. They specialize in AI packages than include flights.
Mexico, Cuba, DR are probably the most common.

Sites like redtag, transat, itravel200, westjet holidays, AC holidays.

They all have last minute specials. We have done a few where we booked on Tuesday or Wed. and left the following day or day after. Reduced rates.

There are a fair number of Americans living near large Canadian border cities that book these offers....regular and last minute. Especially the Cuban vacations since there are so many of them.

One good thing about them is you do not have to worry about arranging air. It is included. You simply need to show up at the airport.

The last time we took advantage of one of these last minute deals my spouse was meeting a friend for coffee. I saw the special. Called her immediately to determine if she had anything special on for the next week. Booked, paid, and confirmed ten minutes later. On our way to the airport two days later destined to PV.

 

[Bamaman]

My wife gets Scott's Cheap Flight emails, and they come up with some deals.

DW came up with $422 round trip flights a year ago to Berlin thru Ovago.com. The flights were cancelled and Ovago wouldn't even answer their phones. I finally got the AA return airfare sent to Ovago, and they sat on my $ for 7 months. They finally charged us $200 service fees to pay us back.

We'll only purchase airfares directly with airlines in the future. If you sign up with their frequent flyer programs (free), airlines will email you deep discount airfares weekly.

Note: I'm a MatrixITA user too--to keep up with the best fares and shortest flight times. Normal European airfares are now about $1050, but they get down to the $800's on some days of the month.

The State Dept. directives right now are to delay European trips with Belgium, Netherlands and Ireland being more risky than the rest of Europe. Greece & Spain may be open to tourists with conditions.

 

[brett]

For LC airlines in Europe and in Asia we find Skyscanner to be much better that itmatrix or google.

We sometimes find routes, flights, one way fares that are reflected in either itmatrix or google air. Not certain why this is.

 

[YVRRocketSurgery]

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.

 

[bigreader]

For LC airlines in Europe and in Asia we find Skyscanner to be much better that itmatrix or google.

We sometimes find routes, flights, one way fares that are reflected in either itmatrix or google air. Not certain why this is.

I also like FareBoom for international travel.
BR

 

[Scuba]

Pre covid we have had some amazing deals on Priceline. In the US, in Canada, and in Europe (mostly London, LHR, LGW, Paris, and once in Milan and Lisbon (struck out everywhere else in Europe that have bid) Overall quite a few of them were Marriott wins.

If we see a property on a site like Booking we will try to find the owner and deal direct. Not unusual for us to score a 30 point discount when we do this and pay for cash. Last trip to Greece we paid cash, direct to the owner 250E vs the Booking price of 350E. Everyone wants cash. Especially true in Thailand, Greece, and Italy.

When we were in Thailand we were given the tip never to pay adult fare for a tour. Insist on the children's rate. Worked like a charm for the past 5 years. Domestic airline fares in Turkey booked on a Turkish site were 30 percent less that international sites. Same for some Greece fares and some Mexican fares over the past few years.

It takes some work and exchanging tips with fellow travellers.

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.