LG John

This time last year I was in Gran Canaria on a package holiday. I was happy with the deal and had a great time. I'm thinking of nipping off to the sun for a week at some point in the next 6 weeks but feel sufficiently confident to try and put the deal together myself (i.e. flights & accomodation).

What are the must have resources to do this? (websites?). In other words whats the best means of going about getting good value flights and good value accomodation independantly of one another?

Is it really as simple as spending ages googling or am I missing a trick?

what would scooby do

It's cheaper and easier to book a package to the common destinations like that.

davegtt

No its not always

I use FlyGlobespan.com - Low Cost, Cheap Flights and Holidays to Europe, Canada, America and South Africa from the UK and Ireland. Cheap Flights from Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Doncaster Sheffield, Dublin, Durham Tees Valle for very cheap flights or obviously Ryanair.com - Cheap flights - Fly Cheaper, Car hire, Hotels, Travel Insurance

then when you know what dates your coming and going get on alpharooms.com: Discount hotels and apartments worldwide. Specialists in Majorca and holiday resort destinations. book your hotel per room rather than a per person per night basis. Cheap as chips.

All you'll need then is a taxi to and from the airport which is sometimes more convienient than waiting on a coach for ages.

The Chief

I was going to do this last year but as always GF got in a flap and as a result paid way above the going rate.

we went to Benalmadena in Sothern spain, easy this. cheap flight to Malaga and then a taxi or bus to Benalmadena having booked the room through laterooms costabeds etc.

j4ckos mate

TELETEXT HOLIDAYS : Cheap Flights, Last Minute Deals, Ski Holidays and Cruises

davegtt

Using Ryan Air and Alpha Rooms I was going to book a holiday last week for next week (unfortunately my mate couldnt get the time off work) return flights to Palma Nova and hotel in Magaluff for £70 each. Hotel had good reviews too.

Paid about £120 IIRC for a week in Tenerife last year knowing exactly where i was staying etc using fly globe span and alpha rooms. Cant go wrong IMO

LG John

Cheers for the links - seems the solution is to hunt around through all the 'last minute' sort of sites to see what you can piece together.

GazTheHat

I found that turning up at the destination and asking for prices got the best deal of all. Can be a bit of hastle if you're not lucky though.

KiwiGTI

Don't waste your time with the last minute type places and some of the other sites linked to above.

For me planning a trip is a very enjoyable process, and researching and booking is very enjoyable.

Start with the airline sites, many of them now guarantee the best fares.

British Airways
www.lufthansa.co.uk
cheap flights from the uk, Europe and worldwide | bmi
easyJet.com - Come on, let's fly!
Ryanair.com - Cheap flights - Fly Cheaper, Car hire, Hotels, Travel Insurance
www.olympic.co
etc

But be aware that in many cases the last 2 airlines I listed are supposedly budget and will often take you to isolated airports and their schedules may not be as regular as the other airlines. (So if you miss a flight you could be there for a few days)

Then try the major online travel companies

Book cheap flights, hotels, car rental, city breaks and package holidays with Opodo
www.expedia.co.uk
ebookers - Cheap Flights, Hotels, Airline Tickets, Car Hire & Holiday Packages
Book flights, hotels, city breaks, car hire, holidays and more with Travelocity.co.uk

These can do flights and hotels, quite often they will give you a good deal on hotels if you book flights too.

Then try the individual hotel sites which can often have their own specials and discounts.

Reviews of vacations, hotels, resorts, vacation and travel packages - TripAdvisor is an excellent reference for finding out about your destinations, and what hotels and attractions are the best. It can also get prices for hotels.

wrxjay03

hi saxo boy
there r some real bargins on package holidays out there me and the wife grabed a week all lnclusive to sharm el sheikh departin next week for £674 thats with cosmos through sky travel !!!!!

ChrisB

Lots of good links up there. All our holidays are DIY, booking everything directly.

We've been to Canada, Italy, France, Poland, Prague to name a few places. Never had any major problems.

Tripadvisor is a great resource for checking up hotel ratings, though you can usually put money on one bad review from an American...

LG John

Thanks kiwi - is there any way of finding what opperators fly out of and into which airports. For example, how do I find out who runs from 'any scottish airport' to 'las palmas'? Knowing that could save me considerable time!

davegtt

Gran Canaria International Airport - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

List of Airlines and destinations on there for you. Not sure if its upto date though as it doesnt mention any Scottish airports?

Edit to say I know IBERIA, British Airways and KLM, XL Airways and Thomsonfly all fly from Glasgow

HTH's

KiwiGTI

I'm not aware of anything apart from going to their websites. Many are covered by BAA: Official Site for BAA Airports

eg:
BAA Glasgow: Destinations and Airlines

supertouring

Trip Advisor is a good site for checking out hotels before you book.

davegtt

Holidays Uncovered - Package Holiday Reviews Hotel Reviews Opinions and Real Reports of Package Holidays. Hotel Reviews in Majorca Minorca Menorca Ibiza Tenerife Lanzarote Fuerteventura Turkey Spain Tunisia. Truths about Airtours First Choice Thomson is the best Ive seen for this type of holiday, trip advisor is good if your staying in a city somewhere though

Monkeybone

I've used expedia for just hotels and also hotels + flights before, always been the cheapest for where I wanted to go. When in Tokyo for a couple of nights I popped into a net cafe, booked the hotel through expedia, then took the metro to the hotel and checked in not long after And it was much cheaper than just walking in and booking it...

jfrf

when i booked flights and accomodation myself, good websites for accomodation were

Holiday Rooms Direct - hotels in Costa del Sol, accommodations in Benidorm, Tenerife, Majorca, Algarve, Salou, Spain, Portugal
Cheap holidays, all inclusive holidays, last minute cheap holiday deals, bargain holiday

also tripadvisor was great for viewing other people personal experiences of hotels, and their photos of the place.

luckily i got dirt cheap flights from ba as long as you book in advance

best thing about booking holidays myself is that we usally stayed in a couple of different holtels rather than just one
also with packages you usually only get a choice of 7 or 14 days

Nido

Cheap flights - low cost and budget airline specialist in Europe & Australasia (the url is www. skyscanner. net])

Instead of searching each of the low cost airlines look at this, searches them all pretty much and displays the results as a monthly bar graph so you can see which airline & day is the cheapest to travel, a really useful site, I do a lot of travel for work and use it all the time

princessyin

That's not a bargain. I arranged a hol for my sister flying this Sat to Sharm AI 5* hotel for 1 week, £379.

TELETEXT HOLIDAYS : Cheap Flights, Last Minute Deals, Ski Holidays and Cruises is a really good site for cheap flights and packages. Take the time to shop around- it's worth it when you get a godd deal.

Fuzz

Tripadvisor is well worth a read up on your desired destination.
I've done a review on there too.
Anyway....
Although I get an "averaged out cost" by using the net and most of the above links.
The final port of call is to a local independent travel agent who specialises in tailor made stuff. I've use them for Gran Canaria Christmas break/ surprise holiday for the ex, Oz, including car hire and stuff, and most recently Maldives and Thailand.
They have yet to put a foot wrong.
I did have the agent in tears over the Oz one though but that was a massive itinerary, part of the holiday I'd booked online myself so she had to fit everything both sides of that. Couldn't fault it though. Hats off to them over that one and hence why I re use them now.. "Courtney world travel" if they have an outlet near you i'd definitely recommend them.

Andy

LG John

So many good links - thanks guys

NotoriousREV

Cheap flights & hotels | car hire | package holidays - TravelSupermarket UK is the best