The most important facts about “Booking a cheap vacation”
- A good tip is to travel just before or just after the holidays.
- Book early to avoid price increases.
- Flexibility with travel dates and departure airports increases your chances of finding a bargain.
- It is worth comparing prices and services from different providers.
- Choose a travel period outside the vacation season.
- Package deals with flight and hotel can be cheaper than booking separately.
- Keep an eye on discount promotions and newsletter offers from travel providers.
- You should consider alternative accommodation options such as vacation apartments or houses.
- Legal support from Flightright is recommended in the event of difficulties.
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The most diverse holiday offers are a dime a dozen. Whether in a travel agency, online or through third parties, the market is simply huge. But which travel providers are the cheapest? Here you can find out all about how to book a holiday properly and what tips you should keep in mind. If you still pay too much for a few days or weeks of relaxation, you’ve done something wrong. So just read on and save a lot of money with Flightright’s booking tips.
The right travel portals: Where can I book a cheap holiday?
There are several ways to book a cheap holiday. Nowadays, however, the majority of travellers resort to travel portals on the internet. Since there are thousands of portals due to the high demand for the best deals on cheap flights and hotels, we have compared the best and most well-known ones.
Which travel providers are the cheapest?
Here we have compiled a list of the best travel portals and assessed each portal according to various criteria. They are characterised by low prices, offers and customer friendliness. 1 is the best score and 6 is the worst.
Portal | Overall rating | Offer | Price | Customer friendliness |
Check24 | 1,67 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
Urlaubspiraten | 2,33 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
ab-in-den-Urlaub | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
Expedia | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
Opodo | 1,33 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
HolidayCheck | 2,67 | 3 | 2 | 3 |
weg.de | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
Period: When are trips cheapest to book?
In addition to the question of where to book a trip, the question of when trips are the cheapest to book is important. These prices can sometimes vary greatly depending on the time of year, which is why it is important to know the best times for deals. Generally, the best deals are usually available for early or last-minute bookers and in the low season.
Early bird deals
A good way to book a cheap holiday is to get early bird deals. These are available both at travel agencies and online via travel portals. Although this means that travellers are not particularly flexible and can book spontaneously, early-booking offers can save you real money. Once you have found the perfect early bird discount for your dream holiday, you should act and book as quickly as possible. Suppliers usually only have a limited number of early bird offers. This principle also applies to flights, trains and rental cars: once you have found the perfect offer, be sure to book early.
Discounts in the low season
Another good tip is to travel shortly before or shortly after the holidays. Good discounts usually lurk during these periods, as travellers with school-age children no longer have the opportunity to go on holiday. As the peak travel periods are different in many countries, the peak and off-peak seasons cannot always be separated. Once a destination has been chosen, it is, therefore, advisable to check when the holiday season and thus the high season is in the destination country, as this can differ from our latitudes, especially in the southern hemisphere. Good discounts can often be found in the frosty seasons, as popular summer destinations such as Italy or Spain then have hardly any tourists and prices are low. So if you are relatively flexible and not dependent on holiday periods, you should look out for discounts in the low season.
Last minute
When are last-minute holidays cheapest? This is a question many travellers ask themselves when it comes to planning their holidays. As the name suggests, these offers are the cheapest, especially in the last minutes or hours. So if you prefer a safe, long-planned preparation, you must have strong nerves when it comes to last-minute offers. The offers are available both online and offline. If you are relatively flexible concerning the exact travel period, the destination and the departure airport, you can almost always find good offers at a reasonable price, even at short notice and outside the peak season. If the travel time and destination have been fixed for a long time, a long-term booking should be considered, as last-minute trips are always associated with a certain risk.
Book a package holiday or make up your deals?
When planning the longed-for holiday trip, the decision has to be made whether it should be the pleasant package tour without much planning and responsibility of one’s own or rather the individual trip, which is usually much cheaper, but where one is responsible for the entire planning and implementation oneself. The choice should depend above all on the time available for travel as well as the money that can be spent on the trip. In addition, some travellers like to do their planning and other travellers prefer to leave that to a travel agency or portal and just want to sit back and relax.
What is the advantage of package holidays?
Package tours are usually very expensive but well organised, according to the general tenor. But is that true at all? Are there perhaps also cheap package tours? As with many things concerning travel planning, it depends. There are, of course, very expensive package tours, but if you book at the right time and the right destination, package tours do not necessarily have to be expensive. The big advantage of package holidays is that you don’t have to take care of much yourself. Online portals or tour operators take care of that. This is especially helpful if you don’t have enough time to organise a trip and book everything yourself. Moreover, the organisers have a lot of experience and expertise with package tours, which is why these trips usually work without major problems and are well-planned.
You want to put together your holiday?
If you have more time for planning and want to save money, it makes sense to put together a trip yourself. The advantage is that you can design your holiday very individually and are not dependent on the accommodation options and activities offered by tour operators. In addition, spontaneous changes of plans can still be made during the trip, for example, because you don’t want to take another day at the beach and instead undertake a trekking tour with an overnight stay in a tent. Another important advantage is the cost factor. If you put together your holiday yourself, you usually save a lot of money, because the costs for the organisers are eliminated and nowadays, with the help of booking portals, you can pick out and book the best deals on hotels and flights yourself. All that is needed is a little time, patience and a good eye for the best bargains. Our travel hacks can at least give you a helping hand with your travel preparations.
Keep an eye on current promotions and deals
As mentioned in the previous section, the key to a successful self-arranged individual trip is good pre-trip planning. This includes: Checking hotel deals regularly, comparing suitable flights via portals and determining the approximate itinerary. If you don’t want to miss out on certain deals, it is advisable to activate push notifications for the best deals on your smartphone so that you don’t miss out on any offers. In addition, you should then act and book quickly, as the offers are sometimes only available for a few days or even hours. In addition, to push messages, you can also subscribe to certain email newsletters from booking portals etc. so that you don’t miss any more deals.
Tip: Be flexible and try out new destinations
Flexibility often pays off when travelling. You can save a lot of money and discover new destinations that you might not have thought of before. Maybe it doesn’t have to be Majorca every year for a summer holiday. Perhaps the neighbouring islands can also be discovered, which are not quite as well known, but offer good flight and hotel deals. In this way, you can get to know new destinations that may not yet be as touristically developed as well-known destinations. On the other hand, they are not overcrowded with tourists and the prices are not quite as expensive as in the tourist strongholds. So if you are open to new destinations away from mass tourism, you can save a lot of money. Find out more about tips for saving money before and during your vacation here.
Have you been affected by a flight cancellation or delay this summer? Flightright clarifies!
Flexible flight search/ airports near the border
A few tips can also save a lot of money when looking for and booking flights. If you don’t necessarily need a direct flight to your destination and don’t mind changing planes, you can usually save a lot of money. Of course, this is not as comfortable as a direct flight to your destination, but stopovers can often be up to 70 per cent cheaper. In addition, these offer the opportunity to make a stopover and explore the city around the airport. The choice of departure airport can also have a direct impact on your wallet. If it doesn’t necessarily have to be the closest airport to home from which to depart, holidaymakers can look at which airports offer the cheapest deals and flights and what transport there would cost. If the transport is cheaper than the flight from the nearest airport, that can be an option. Of course, it is also always a question of time and money. If travellers have only a few holiday days available, a flexible flight search may not be the best option. For those travellers who have a little more time and not so much money to spare, it is usually worth looking around for the cheapest flights.
Slow Travel: Travelling longer instead of more often
In recent years, slow travel has become an increasingly familiar term. Slow travel refers to deliberately travelling slowly. It is characterised by the fact that new experiences enrich a trip rather than the number of sights. Slow travel can be seen as the opposite of mass tourism, where the most important thing is to photograph all the sights and share them for the perfect social media story. It means taking time to experience the destinations with all your senses and adapting to the culture. A fundamental goal of slow travel is to travel more sustainably. This does not mean that it does not include a flight, as it sometimes needs one to immerse oneself in unknown and new cultures. The important thing is to try to behave sustainably throughout the trip. For example, one can avoid unnecessary plastic packaging, use public transport instead of taxis and stay in eco-friendly accommodations.
How long should a holiday last?
There is no general answer to how long a holiday should last because this varies from person to person. While some people need several weeks to recover and switch off, others need just a few days to forget everyday life and recharge their batteries. It is important to recognise when you need a holiday. Even if you have a lot of work ahead of you, that should not be an excuse to take a break, as overwork can quickly lead to illness, which then requires more than just a holiday. That’s why it’s important to recognise the signs and take leave at a good time. Especially if you are deeply involved in important projects or schedules, it is important to take several days or weeks off afterwards to return to work with renewed energy.
Create shared memories and save: Travel with friends
Another good way to travel cheaply and create unforgettable experiences is to travel with friends. On the one hand, this has the advantage that the planning does not have to be done alone, and on the other hand, money can be saved when booking accommodation, because larger accommodation for several people is often cheaper. But where can you go on a cheap holiday with your friends?
Where can you go on a cheap holiday with friends?
To go on a cheap holiday with friends, a few things need to be considered. For example, should the holiday take place in the home country or neighbouring countries, or should the flight go to a more distant destination? Countries in South-East Asia are particularly suitable for a low-cost group holiday, as accommodation and food can be very cheap and flights do not have to be expensive in the low season if there are good offers. Countries in Southern and Eastern Europe are also often perfectly okay in terms of price compared to Western Europe and there are good campsites and other group accommodation. The important thing, as mentioned so often in this blog article, is to compare prices, pick a good time to travel and get the best deals. Also, several eyes see more and so everyone in the travel group should assist in finding the best deals promptly. Then it can be very easy to organise a cheap but still nice holiday with friends.
How can Flightright help you?
Are you stuck at the airport due to a flight delay? Your flight has been canceled or you have been removed from the passenger list? Has your baggage been lost or only turned up days later? In each of the situations described, you as a passenger have a right to compensation.
According to the EU Passenger Rights Regulation, passengers are entitled to compensation in the event of a delay, cancellation, overbooking, or missed connection. You can claim up to 600 euros of compensation per person (minus the commission fee). This compensation is independent of the ticket price. Flightright enforces your rights for you. If necessary also in court.
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