Gone are the days of having a travel agent. Now it's all about sitting down at the computer with a cup of tea and finding great getaways for a steal online. We have a couple of go-to sites we use for deals, last minute or otherwise, on hotels, flights, and vacation packages:
Websites for Scoring Travel Deals
Flights:
• Orbitz is our go-to for flights across the country or even transatlantic ones. We've consistently gotten good deals as long as we book about 2 weeks in advance. We even got a cheaper fare on Virgin America going from LA to New York on Orbitz than was listed on the Virgin America website.
• Priceline (yeah the ads with William Shatner, hilarious!) works a little differently than Orbitz and other online flight finders. On Priceline, you name your price for a particular trip and then if the airline accepts your offer, the flight is booked, and you cannot get out of it (trust us we tried once). You can set the time of day you'd like to leave and how many layovers you're willing to have. But they don't reveal the details until once the trip is booked. We got an incredibly cheap fare going to Oregon this way, but it was definitely a little stressful.
Hotels:
• Hotwire let's you choose an area to stay in and the caliber of hotel you'd like (4 stars, baby!) and then they show you some options without revealing the exact hotel or location until after you book it. This is our go-to for last minute bookings since it has turned out to be infinitely cheaper than booking directly through a hotel. Of course this only works if you're flexible about where you're staying. You can't search for a particular hotel and try to find a deal.
General Deals:
• Travel Zoo sends out a weekly email with 20 great travel deals ranging from cheap airfare, a great 4 star resort or even cruises. We make sure to check each week since sometimes deals are so good, you can't pass them up. (Our old neighbors booked roundtrip plane tickets to Chicago from LA for $20).
There are a milion other sites out there, but we've had luck with these so we're sticking with them. Care to share where you find great deals?
Tags
Weekend Getaways & Destinations, getaways, hotwire, orbitz, priceline, travel deals, travel zooRelated Links
- 25 Reasons To Get Out Of Town
Los Angeles Magazine - Escapes: Plan A Walkable Day
- Acido Dorado
Weekend Getaway - Escapes: Flying Pigeon LA
- Good Question: Favorite Vegas Hotels?
Los Angeles
Share
Comments (21)
Daily Email
Top Tours
- Bryan's Fashionable Statement
- The Stitch Lab Studio
- Alysia's Treehouse by the Lake
- A Mid-Century Modern Musicians' Loft
- Joe and Kristin's Design Mix Craftsman
Top Posts
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
kayak.com every time
view ratita's profile
farecast.com incorporates all that stuff!
view alisoncat's profile
travelaxe
view I Love Upstate's profile
I like kayak.com too. I just tried farecast.live.com and it actually on searches the travel websites (expedia, priceline, etc.) it does not search the actual airline's own website, therefore it's about $5 more on domestic flights.
view eec007's profile
Kayak is great for research purposes, then I usually go to the airline's website and purchase the actual tickets.
Kayak is great a searching roundtrip but using two different airlines so often you can still get the same deal individually at the airline's website. American Airlines recently announced they are pulling out from Kayak.
view crewtag.com's profile
sidestep.com - it's a search engine of all the airlines plus expedia, priceline, etc. no fee. awesome.
view ndvheller's profile
i used to be an orbitz user, until i tried sidestep...
view shainLA's profile
I call my travel agent, she always gets me better deals than what is offered online.
view daytimedrama's profile
Priceline works for hotels too... I've never used it for flights, but I've used it for hotels and rental cars. Love it for rental cars (find your best offer online, and then go lower on priceline). For hotels, you can specify a geographic area and star rating for the hotel when you make your offer.
Sometimes I want to be right next to something (walking distance to a particular theater, etc), and in those cases, I don't use priceline. But if I just want to be near a general area (say, in Costa Mesa rather than walking distance to OCPAC), then priceline is great. Again, find your best price online, and then base your lower bid for a better class hotel on priceline on that price.
view SanDiegoAT's profile
AAA offers free travel agents, and you dont have to be a member. They usually get you really great rates too! And there's no fee.
Although, if I'm looking online... I use farecast.live.com
And when I visit my parents, I love using Hotwire - works great if you know the area you want to stay in.
-Ruth
view cptnruthless's profile
one more for kayak!
view jenniejenjen's profile
another for kayak, then purchase at the airlines website
view alexis's profile
I still love my travel agent. She finds much better deals than the online sites.
Friends don't let friends fly Orbitz....
view quiltmaster's profile
I've found great hotels with unbeatable prices at hotels.com I love that they have customer reviews so I'm never surprised when I get to the hotel. They turned me on to one of my favorite places to stay in NYC - Hotel 17.
Lately I've noticed that I get the same or better deals on airfare by going with the actual airline website.
view pegling's profile
One moreee for kayak.com, you can also put in the city youre flying out of and instead of selecting a destination, it will show you the deals you can get... Great if you just want to escape but are not sure where you want to go. Or if you only have $300 in your budget and want to know where you can fly for that.... Love it! I was an avid Orbitz head until someone showed me this site!
view ghostrider's profile
www.kayak.com (of course--especially for multi-leg trips)
www.luxurylink.com (auction site, often worth it)
www.lastminute.com (formerly site59.com)
view elvedon's profile
I just purchase from the airlines website. every time I have used expedia, ect the cheaper flights always end up being 3 stops or more since I live in a small town I can never have a direct flight anywhere... so what would be a 5 hour flight ends up being 9 hours sitting in airports and waiting to get on the next.... so I just buy 2 stop flights which work out better for me in the long run.
view witchbaby's profile
kayak.com- and it automatically reroutes you to the airline's website when you click to book- they don't act as a middleman.
view lz's profile
kayak.com and momondo.com.
Momondo is a danish site, but I often find cheaper tickets through them, even for domestic flights within the U.S. But I loke kayak's weekend search function and the search for deals from your airport. Momond has neither of those.
And, like kayak, it reroutes you to the airline's site to book.
view annaholl's profile
It appears that kayak.com and sidestep.com are kind of the same thing. Same page skin, same search engine. Just FYI. Cool though, hadn't heard of either before!
view jes's profile
there's also dealbase.com
view dealbase's profile