There are great travel deals to be had online - you just have to know where to look. We pick the best bargain websites
BEST BARGAINS
Travelzoo.co.uk
Every week, Travelzoo trawls through more than 1,000 travel websites, whittles down what’s on offer to the 20 best deals, then sends an e-mail alert to its subscribers. They’re as good as they sound, too — a colleague recently bagged a swish hotel in Sicily for half-price, with a room upgrade and 25% off food and drink thrown in. Another good one-stop shop is Travelsupermarket.com, while both Vouchercodes.co.uk and Codes.co.uk list discount vouchers for everything from flights to guidebooks.
HOTEL DEALS
Hotelchatter.com
A blog with the lowdown on all things hotel-related — whether that’s celeb sightings, interviews with “hot hoteliers” or thorough video reviews. The Hotel Deals section flags up offers such as the recent £1 room sale at the Hoxton Hotel, 20% off Marriotts and half-price suites at the Setai, Miami. Search by hotel name or city, or see the lot at hotelchatter.com/tag/hotel%20deals. The only draw-back? It’s heavily America-focused. Sister site Jaunted.com does the same thing for flights, car hire and general travel deals, while Vegaschatter.com does exactly what you’d expect.
BLIND HOTEL ROOMS
Hotwire.com
Hotwire takes chain hotels (three- star and up) and sells rooms at a discount of up to 60%. The catch? You’re not told the name until you book — just the star rating, the area of the city and amenities — so narrow it down by matching the amenties and star rating of the hotel you’re offered with the cheat lists on Betterbidding.com, which details hotels’ amenities. I recently booked the W in Atlanta for $95 (£59), when going through the hotel would have cost $229. And a friend who paid $54 for a four-star in Las Vegas arrived at Planet Hollywood to find she’d been upgraded to a $1,000 suite. The site is biggest in America, but has hotels worldwide; it also does flights, car hire, cruises and packages.
EAT FOR CHEAP
Toptable.com
About 30,000 restaurants around the world are on the books, of which plenty — 1,510 at the last count — have special deals (mostly free drinks and up to 50% off). After you’ve made seven bookings, you qualify for a free lunch (really). Squaremeal.co.uk has half-price deals in the UK.
SPORTY SAVINGS
Skiingholidays.com
Sorry, lazy people — your excuse that sports holidays are too pricey for your impoverished selves just ran out. The newly launched Skiingholidays.com lets you build a European snow break and compare it with package deals from seven of the main operators. Meanwhile, Yourgolftravel.com has spec ial offers on 1,500 resorts worldwide, as well as a weekly special offer, a “bargain bunker” section and regular one-off deals — such as this summer’s two rounds and an overnight stay for £1 if three others pay £79 each.
SAVE ON EXTRAS
Lifebooker.com
Economic resolve can fade fast when you’re dealing in foreign currency — because a holiday’s not a holiday if you don’t treat yourself. The glut of salons in America means they discount like crazy on Lifebooker.com, which offers 50% off anything from haircuts to Botox in LA and New York.
Broadwaybox.com has special offers for shows in New York, London and Vegas (the musical Chicago on Broadway for half-price, for example).
The UK-specific Show-and-stay.co.uk does fantastic deals on West End packages (£100 for a train to London, show and hotel). Finally, keep an eye on Groupon.com — a brilliantly innovative way to bag hefty savings (50% and up) on anything from NFL match tickets and skydiving trips to restaurants and boat tours in 17 American cities. At the moment, it accepts only US credit cards, but the site promises to let us in on it in a few months’ time.
CHEAP FLIGHTS
Kayak.co.uk
Kayak gives you options. If you know where you want to go, it’ll tell you when prices are lowest; if you just want to escape British shores, hit the Fare Buzz option, choose a continent and a date, and it’ll tell you where’s cheapest. Best of all is the “weekend” option, where you enter a destination and it tells you which of the next five dates is best value. Cheapflights.co.uk is another good site, with a laudably clear layout, while Skyscanner.net has the advantage of listing Ryanair as well. Cheapoair.com is America’s discount offering: you need an American credit card to book (time to hit up expat friends), but UK ones will work from next year.
STAY AT HOME
Airbnb.com
An upmarket version of Couchsurfing.com (which offers you the chance to crash on a local’s spare sofa), Airbnb.com lists residents in 1,332 cities who will let you stay in their spare room for cash. Prices aren’t rock bottom, so if it looks cheap, there’ll be a reason (like the cockroach I shared a bed with in a $35 room in Texas), but you’ll skip the extra charges hotels are so fond of and (possibly) make new friends. Also, remember the rental market isn’t confined to holiday villas or week-long rents — Homeaway.co.uk has plenty of bargains, including a flat in the Marais disctrict of Paris for £55 a night. Holidaylettings.co.uk is also worth a gander for its late and early deals (up to 50% off).
DRIVE CHEAP
Carhire3000.com
Car rental can rival hotel bills once firms are done adding the sneaky charges, and most of the comparison websites are so bewildering you’ll be tempted to fling your credit card at the nearest Avis. Don’t — give it to the nice folk at Carhire3000.com instead. They broker for all the main hire companies, so prices are low. We spent days (seriously) trying to book a complicated rental recently, and this site beat the competition by a mile. What’s more, the people on the end of their free phone help-desk number were delightful. Avoid those excessive excess charges by using Insurance4carhire.com. Annual policies start at £50.
CUT-PRICE PACKAGES
Sunmaster.co.uk
This is the website to go to for last-minute deals from tour operators, including Thomas Cook and First Choice — two weeks in Turkey for £159, anyone? Latedeals.co.uk works the same way. Lastminute.com is good for cities — its “weekend break brow ser” tells you when it’s cheapest to go to the most popular places in the near future. (You could have been in a four-star hotel in Copenhagen right now for £172 — that’s flights and two nights’ B&B — had you booked on Thursday.) Even if you want to retain some control over where you go, it’s usually cheaper to use “dynamic packaging” (booking elements together): you can do this on a number of sites, including Expedia.co.uk and Travelocity.co.uk. Even BA.com got in on the act in April — book a flight and hotel, or flight and car hire, and you’re guaranteed to save compared with booking separately (and if you’re an Executive Club member, you’ll get bonus BA miles, too).
