Booking Travel - quick links for great deals!

Recently, I have had many people asking me where I find my travel deals.  Well, depending on the destination, type of holiday and time of year, it can be many different websites!  Here are some of my favorite sites to start the research:

When I want to get an idea of price points for flights to various destinations, I typically turn to Expedia.  They have some great deals, especially if you combine the flight with accommodations, but generally, it gives me a starting point for what I can expect to pay for a trip to Mexico versus Hawaii, Caribbean, etc.  This site pulls from several major airlines (not the discounted or charter lines), so not only can I see the cost of a flight, but also the schedules available.  It works great for North American  and Southern travel where you generally use major airlines.  Expedia falls short when you want to travel to Europe and abroad, as it will not list the famous discount or regional airlines.  For example, when we booked our flights from London to Florence, Italy, I had to dig around to find Meridiana, the only airline (Italian) that offered discounted flights direct to Florence.

http://www.expedia.ca/

Expedia is excellent for car rentals, worldwide. A tip for rental cars: there is no charge to book a rental car through the Expedia website, charges are made when you collect the car. But the closer to the date of the trip, the higher the prices are for rentals! In other words, as soon as you consider a specific date and destination for travel, go and book your car! You can cancel at anytime.

For all-inclusive package deals, my go-to website is Escapes. They are generally about $20 cheaper than Sell Off Vacations and have a great selection of packages for southern travel as well as US and European destinations.  Escapes will rank each location and provides customer feedback and rankings. 

http://www.escapes.ca/

Generally, when we have booked all-inclusives in the past, I pick my top five from Escapes and cross-reference it with Trip Advisor.  Trip Advisor is a great website that shows actual tourists' photos of the hotels as well as comments and rankings.  When my daughter was younger, we wanted a pristine beach on the Caribbean side of Mexico.  Trip Advisor was great in pointing out the resorts with rocky beaches, rough waves or even sharp objects in the water!

http://www.tripadvisor.com/

If you wake up one morning and decide to fly the coupe within a short period of time but are not fussy on location, give Travel Alerts a visit. This is a great website that pulls last minute (within a month) deals from numerous websites. You can sign up for alerts and once a week, delivered to your inbox is a complete list of travel deals from your preferred destination.

http://www.travelalerts.ca/

These are just a few of my favorite websites visited when I am embarking on booking a family or romantic getaway.  They are either all-inclusives, or simple flights, hotels and rental cars.  For family or multi-family getaways, we prefer to research villa rentals.  Villas offer good value for multiple people as well as the independence of a kitchen, typical home amenities (washer/dryer, refrigerator, etc) and for us, a private pool for the kids to enjoy!  Depending on the location will depend on the websites, but generally I google "rental villas" and the destination, or other key words:

villa, luxury homes, five-star resorts, villa with pool, or classic homes

http://www.vrbo.com/

VRBO is also a great site to get started!

Happy Hunting!