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How I book my Flights & Accommodation to make sure I get the cheapest and best deals.
So here we go, probably the number one thing my friends and family come to me to ask, is HOW do I find the best and CHEAPEST Travel Deals online. I am a bit of a guru you could say in sourcing out the best deals and also choosing the best and most unique properties. I spend hours every week, even when I am not travelling, researching and looking for my future trips.
So here it is... my process, how I first source and find the best destinations, hotels, deals, cheapest flights, cheapest accommodation, and how I check that the rate I am seeing is the best there is!..
First off you will need to do your... RESEARCH
When researching a destination, I must say the number one place I look for inspiration is Instagram!!
I simply put in the destination of choice and look through the top photos, reels and video from travel creatives and save them to a folder.
You can even pull up a map and look at exact locations within a country!!
Secondly I use Tripadvisor.com I love this website, it has all the must do activities, forums, travel reviews, accommodation, flights. It is a one stop shop!. If you are like me as soon as I decide on a destination I want to know the top things to do there and this is where I use TripAdvisor.
I also like to look at real travellers photos as this give a REAL sense of what a destination or hotel / resort actually looks like as professional photos can be very deceiving.
Flights:
The next part of your puzzle should be your flights, when choosing your destination you will need to consider the cost of actually getting there, you can always find great Sales fares online and I like to use a website like Trip.com to source out the best airfares. These types of websites look at ALL the airlines and booking websites and even come up with multi airline options using multiple options. WHAT I LIKE most about TRIP is, (this function below) where you can select to look at a graph which displays the cheapest days and combination's for you to fly. By altering your dates by one or two each side you could save thousands!
The second feature I LOVE is that you can search multiple cities at the same time. So for Example if you are flying from Bangkok and wanting to fly to one of the islands you can choose, to search Samui, Phuket and Krabi, and use this tool to best choose your cheapest route!
There is a reason we chose to partner with Trip and use them in our website header, and that is because the functionality and pricing you get from the site is always the BEST!
Another tip would be to wait until the sales period, for example you may be able to book flights 12 months in advance but they may not come on Sale until the Airline is focussing on that quarter, I find the best deals are found from 6months to 3months in advance. Although this is very much changing due to COVID and there are a lot more last minute deals of late with the restart of the industry. This could be a trend that continues with hesitancy to book to far in advance!
Accommodation
I mainly use 3 sites to book my accommodation, a below I will outline the pros and cons to each
This is probably the first one I go to, I find there selection to be huge, the prices are almost always the best, and if you are a member and have booked a few trips you get 10% most accommodation, free upgrades and free breakfast at some hotels. It is called Genius rating so it well and truly pays to subscribe.
I also like this feature below, where you can bring up the calendar, where it will show you the breakdown nightly, giving you the opportunity to know which nights are the cheapest and adjust your trip.
They also have a great number of reviews for each property so you can see other peoples experiences and what they did and didn't like about the property.
Agoda is also one of my Favourites and sometimes when looking between Bookings and Agoda you will find Agoda has a better deal. I tend to find it is stronger in its selection and pricing in certain country's such like South East Asia. It has similar benefits of being a Subscriber as Bookings.com and I usually check both for the bet deal.
They also have a great number of reviews for each property so you can see other peoples experiences and what they did and didn't like about the property.
What I like about TripAdvisor is they will search, both the above options and more AT THE SAME TIME, plus they also have a selection of holiday homes. You can also see travellers photos and reviews easily from this platform to see if you are being catfished lol.
What I don't like as much is that not all properties will have pricing.
So there you have it...
Time to go book yourself a HOLIDAY and save yourself some Cashola!
Trip.com
Bookings.com
Agoda.com
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