Depends where I'm going. I generally use plain old Orbitz for airfare. I find that all those travel sites generally come up with the same fares. The only direct airline site I use is Southwest because their fares don't show up on Orbitz, Travelocity, and all those sites. Southwest is what I check first since you can find those $59 or $79 one way fares on short flights. Then Orbitz.
I learned the hard way that orbitz package deals actually came out to more than finding each separately. For my Socal trip I tried to use it and it cost more than if I found separate one way flights, a hotel, and a rental car on my own. For hotels I use hotels.com because you get a free stay for every 10 bookings. And you can book a bigger better room for free for this 10th stay. For car rental I also use Orbitz, though the price doesn't differ much from booking directly from the car rental site. It's easy to find discounts for car rental though.
Now that I recall - a fellow TUSCLer PMed a while-back that he got very good car-rental deals thru Costco (IDK if it'd also be good for hotels and air-fare but good-chance)
Use online travel agents to find good rates but actually book directly through the service provider. You can often do better there by joining their loyalty program or using a coupon or something else..
Airlines, hotels, rental cars have contracts with the OTAs where they have to pay a fixed percentage of the daily rate to them. Can be upwards of 30% depending on the two parties. The service provider would much rather save that fee.
Also, from a customer service perspective, you only have one provider to deal with so they can't point fingers.
I don't like Expedia as much as Orbitz. Itseems to me that for the places I want to go, Orbitz often has an excellent one- two- or three-night package that often totally eliminates the airfare cost by bundling it with a normal-priced stay in a decent brand name resort hotel. Kayak will be a better airfare alone, except for Southwest Airlines website for flights to any of their destinations. But for hotel plus fight, Orbitz often wins. Better smartphone app, too.
i travel a lot for work and have found the individual hotel and airline sights to provide the best deals for me. I've learned over the years what airline and hotel brand work best for me and stick with them. If you travel enough to achieve rewards program status with your preferred brand, it's worth it in terms of upgrades and perks. I have friends who travel infrequently that use hotels.com and like it.
Costco travel can have some really good travel packages if you're a member.
I just booked a trip to Hawaii and was able to piece together a package identical to the Costco package for $800 less than Costco was charging. I used Hotels.com for the resort and Google Flights for the airfare. The nice thing about hotels.com is that I have a rewards account so I get lower pricing at high-end places, plus I get free nights which equates to another 10% discount. The deal I found at the resort was buy 6 nights get the 7th free and I got a discounted price on those first 6 nights. Hotels.com will also give me credit for 7 nights, so I almost earn a free night just on this trip.
Skiplagged saves me $20-30 K per year on airline tickets. As long as you're not a pussy who insists upon following the rules for no reason, you can save a lot of money if you fly frequently.
Express Deals from Priceline for hotels, hands down. Requires a bit of legwork to target specific hotels, but it can be done. The discounts from the rates listed for the same hotels on the other side of Priceline and on hotel websites are simply amazing.
I used to think Hotwire was ok for hotels too, but I find their ratings to be way too generous, so the deals often aren't as good as they initially seem.
As far as airfare, I use Priceline, Expedia and others to research prices and then book direct. I am a frequent flier on one airline, which comes with a lot of conveniences, so I just make sure that they are not way out of line.
Rental car deals can be found on Priceline and other sites, but the problem is that you can get screwed over if your itinerary gets twisted for any reason. I found out the hard way that pre-paying a car rental reservation can bite you in the ass if you are even a couple of hours late for the pickup, so I will never do it again.
18 comments
Priceline / Hotwire
To decipher Priceline and Hotwire use: betterbidding.com
Flights -
Skiplagged / kayak - find the best deals then book direct on the airlines website.
Trust me - from a fucker who books all his own shit and spends at least half my life in a car or airplane.
I learned the hard way that orbitz package deals actually came out to more than finding each separately. For my Socal trip I tried to use it and it cost more than if I found separate one way flights, a hotel, and a rental car on my own. For hotels I use hotels.com because you get a free stay for every 10 bookings. And you can book a bigger better room for free for this 10th stay. For car rental I also use Orbitz, though the price doesn't differ much from booking directly from the car rental site. It's easy to find discounts for car rental though.
Airlines, hotels, rental cars have contracts with the OTAs where they have to pay a fixed percentage of the daily rate to them. Can be upwards of 30% depending on the two parties. The service provider would much rather save that fee.
Also, from a customer service perspective, you only have one provider to deal with so they can't point fingers.
You going to Germany then Papi ? ;-)
I just booked a trip to Hawaii and was able to piece together a package identical to the Costco package for $800 less than Costco was charging. I used Hotels.com for the resort and Google Flights for the airfare. The nice thing about hotels.com is that I have a rewards account so I get lower pricing at high-end places, plus I get free nights which equates to another 10% discount. The deal I found at the resort was buy 6 nights get the 7th free and I got a discounted price on those first 6 nights. Hotels.com will also give me credit for 7 nights, so I almost earn a free night just on this trip.
Using the other sites is good for finding deals.
I used to think Hotwire was ok for hotels too, but I find their ratings to be way too generous, so the deals often aren't as good as they initially seem.
As far as airfare, I use Priceline, Expedia and others to research prices and then book direct. I am a frequent flier on one airline, which comes with a lot of conveniences, so I just make sure that they are not way out of line.
Rental car deals can be found on Priceline and other sites, but the problem is that you can get screwed over if your itinerary gets twisted for any reason. I found out the hard way that pre-paying a car rental reservation can bite you in the ass if you are even a couple of hours late for the pickup, so I will never do it again.