How to Book a Vacation

HAWAII
Whenever I want to book a vacation, I end up spending HOURS on the booking process. I want the best deal along with a hotel that has received good reviews. One of the best places I recommend is that you sign up on TravelZoo and get the top 20 deals sent to your email (I think it is every week or so). Also sign up for LivingSocial and Groupon. They have deals they will send you for vacation packages too. I hope to help cut down on your booking process by giving you the best websites to search on.

Start by making sure the place you are going to visit has good weather at the time you are going. (Just use google to get some information for this.) Next, find the hotel you want to stay at. Tripadvisor has the best reviews in my opinion. To book the vacation package you should use Orbitz, AppleVacations, CheapCaribbean, or once in awhile you can find good deals on the airlines vacation packages (especially for Las Vegas) at Southwest but DO NOT use Expedia! Let me tell you about my recent experience with Expedia...

I booked a trip to Jamaica with Expedia and the next morning (12 hours later) I received an email from my Travelzoo deals saying that DeltaVacations was having a summer sale for Jamaica trips! I then went to book the exact same trip that I did from Expedia, same flights, same hotel, and the deal was $300 cheaper with this. Luckily, I went back on Expedia and they have what they call the Best Price Guarantee! I send an email saying that they should honor this new price but they responded saying that they were not able to. I emailed back and forth 10 times that day, and tried calling (was put on hold for 45 min each time) and they said they only work thru email not over the phone. All in all, I spent about 10 hours off and on that day trying to get the best price guarantee and they never granted it to me. I ended up cancelling the whole trip thru Expedia and then booking with DeltaVacations. Definitely learned my lesson and want to warn you all about Expedia's horrible customer service. If you Google "expedia best price guarantee scam" a whole bunch of reviews come up!

Anyways....back to booking....once you have the vacation booked, look on TripAdvisor for "Things to do" where you are going. You should also look on the Travelzoo website for local deals of things to do. Hope this information will help you in the future! Have fun with the whole process and get excited! It's summertime and that means vacation time!!


Enjoy and BE relaxed!

2 comments:

  1. Another tip: I booked a vacation to Hawaii about 5 months in advance. Once my trip was booked, I signed up for Groupon & Living Social deals for the area that I was traveling to. Every day I received emails for deals in that area. It gave me some time to check out the different deals offered every day. I was able to book a parasailing adventure, sunset booze cruise and purchase deals at local restaurants. I'm sure I saved hundreds of dollars doing this.

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    1. Thanks for the idea! I wish that groupon and livingsocial had deals for things to do in other countries too! Still looking for cheaper deals on things for Ocho Rios when we go in August.

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