Joanne Curran’s money-saving tips will take the stress out of your holiday planning and help you get the best deal.
IT’S the perfect time of year to start planning your next holiday, whether you’re looking for an adventurous city break or a relaxing trip to the sun.
There are so many options, it can be difficult to know where to begin.
Our money-saving tips will help take the stress out of your holiday planning and make sure you get the best deal.
To find the best rates for flights, travel experts recommend searching in the “Goldilocks window” – which is two to eight months before you want to travel for international flights, and one to three months ahead of domestic flights.
It helps if you can be as flexible as possible with dates, avoid peak travel times, and search across multiple sites.
Once you find a deal, act fast as flight prices are volatile and can change within minutes.
It can help to use price comparison sites such as Google Flights, Skyscanner and Momondo, as well as flight deal subscription site Jack’s Flight Club These can show you which airlines fly to the destination you’re interested in, and give an idea of prices.
Many of these sites also let you set up price alerts that tell you when costs change.
For extra peace of mind, consider finalising your purchase directly on the airline website to get a clear price breakdown.
One common concern is that travel providers will increase prices if they notice someone is running multiple searches for a particular journey.
There’s lots of advice out there telling you to clear the cache/search history on your computer, or search for deals using a different device.
While there is no harm in doing this, research has shown that it has no impact on prices.
Many airline passengers try to keep costs down by paying only for small pieces of hand luggage, but a recent study by “Which?” found that this isn’t always the cheapest option and you could save money by taking the same amount of checked luggage.
“If you don’t care about priority boarding,” “Which?” stated, “it might work out cheaper to check in one 20 kg suitcase, rather than choosing two 10 kg bags of hand luggage and priority boarding. This was £5 cheaper on our Alicante route.”
The research found that choosing a basic fare, then paying for add-ons, was cheaper than the regular fare, which came with extras included in the price.
Checking i
