Monday 2 November 2009

Do you know any good travel booking sites?

We are often asked this. We use several internet sites to book flight-hotel combinations and some sites seem to offer better deals than others for certain requirements. But, it can still be laborious task finding the best deal online so here's our tips on how to make it easier.

First, it's worth remembering that lastminute.com is not just about last minute deals, and sites like lastminute.com and e-bookers seem to be coming up with the best deals far less frequently than they used to. Before looking at these, we start by looking at our favourite sites:

www.skyscanner.net: generally the best site for flight-only deals
www.expedia.co.uk: always worth checking for combo deals and excellent for managing itineries
www.sidestep.com: searches 200 sites, compares airfares.com, Hotwire, Expedia and Travelocity

The internet is definitely more time consuming that using a Travel Agent, but you can get better deals and other benefits from booking and managing travel online. However, we've found using a Virtual Travel Agent helps ensure we always get the very best deal. Our Virtual PA will always do an initial internet search - not spending too much client time - to find the best deal. Then we ask Lucy at Travel Counsellors to better it. You can contact Lucy directly through her website at www.travelcounsellors.com/lucy.morgans.

Apart from the added value advice we receive about airlines and hotels, we are surprised at how many times Lucy beats the internet. And, this doesn't cost us/clients a penny. Travel Counsellors seem to get access to deals that the search engines don't - or they find better non-stop flights for the same price as the cheapest airlines and routes. We reckon that Lucy beats the internet about 8/10 times - we were amazed when we worked it out - so, our clients always get the best deal and everybody wins.
 
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