vacation packages

Don’t Spend $1,000 Too Much On Your Next Vacation

March 31, 2009 By Bimmia

Hopefully you aren’t one of those people that has come to rely on one or two travel sites for all your travel planning needs. If you are, it might be costing you a lot of money, especially when it comes to booking vacation packages.

In this particular investigation, we take a close look at the the differences in prices for Caribbean vacation packages at some of the more popular travel sites on the internet. The differences will shock you.

This should be mandatory reading for anyone planning a vacation or a honeymoon.

Introduction

In our analysis we examined the differences in booking a vacation package (airfare +hotel) to the Caribbean – Barbados to be specific. We checked the vacation package prices to three different resorts in Barbados at 5 different popular travel websites.

The Sites We Researched:

www.cheapcaribbean.com

This selection of sites is representative of the market in general. We included the big 3, a relatively new online travel agency – Bookit, and a popular specialty or niche travel agency – Cheap Caribbean.

Package Details:

This rates shown in this example are vacation package rates for 2 adults traveling from Atlanta (ATL) to Barbados (BGI) for the week of May 2nd to May 9th (8 days, 7 nights). We compare the package rates offered by the travel agencies listed above for 3 different destinations in Barbados: Hilton Barbados, The Crane Resort, Almond Beach Club & Spa (all inclusive).

Results

The first thing to note is that at the time of this research, the price of just the airfare to Barbados was $605 per person, or a total of $1210 for the trip. This rate was the same across all sites. All prices shown below are based on airfare for two adults and a 7 night stay in Barbados.

Hilton Barbados:

Cheap Caribbean $2,757

Travelocity – $2,939

Orbitz – $3,432

Priceline – $3,527 (Priceline required an overnight stay on the return)

Expedia -$3,532

BookIt – Hotel not available on BookIt.

Crane Resort:

BookIt – $1,894

Travelocity – $2,241

Expedia – $2,260

Orbitz – $2,584

Cheap Caribbean – $3,295

Priceline – Hotel not available on Priceline

Almond Beach Club & Spa (all inclusive)

Priceline – $2,711 (Priceline required an overnight stay on the return)

BookIt – $3,297

Orbitz – $3,376

Travelocity – $3,512

Expedia – $3,552

Cheap Caribbean – $3,725

Conclusion

As we alluded to in the intro, some of these results are quite surprising, if not staggering. The variance between the highest and lowest prices were $400, $775, and $1000. What is even more interesting is that there was really no consistency to the results. Cheap Caribbean had the lowest price to the Hilton Barbados by almost $200, but had by far the worst price to the other two hotels. Priceline had the cheapest price to Almond Beach Club & Spa by almost $600, but was out-priced by more than that amount at the Crane Resort. Relative newcomer, BookIt was best and second best price at the two hotels for which they had prices.

What is very clear from this is that you cannot count on any one site to deliver the best price, and that shopping around can save hundreds of dollars. We should also remind you that these represent only a sampling of the dozens of online travel agents.

Although this is only one example, these sort of price differences are very common on vacation packages. What is also a little scary is that some of the more expensive vacation packages are promoted as “vacation deals”.

In a separate article we tell you if you will save money by booking the flight and hotel separately or does booking it as a package saves you money.

Where Should You Book Your Caribbean Vacation Package?

March 5, 2009 By Bimmia

Have you ever wondered which sites have the best prices on Caribbean vacation packages? On virtually every online travel site, you can book a package deal (Flight plus Hotel) to the Caribbean. However, are these vacation packages really deals, and are the prices for these vacation packages relatively similar across sites? To answer these questions we have done some research, and the results may surprise you.

In this particular investigation, we take a close look at the the differences in prices for Caribbean vacation packages at some of the best known travel sites and some of the lesser known ones. We will follow up with another article on the difference in price between booking the vacation as a package and just booking everything separately.

Caribbean Vacation Package Investigation

Before we jump in to the analysis we thought we would give you a quick introduction to the parameters of our research.

How We Defined Vacation Package:

As mentioned in the intro, a vacation package for the most part is comprised of airfare plus hotel. On many of the big sites, you can also add car rental. In this example we focus on the flight and the hotel, as those are usually the biggest expenses.

The Sites We Researched:

www.cheapcaribbean.com

This selection of sites is representative of the market in general. We included the big 3, a midsized online travel agency – Bookit, and a specialty or niche travel agency – Cheap Caribbean.

Package Particulars:

Results

The first thing to note is that at the time of this research, the price of just the airfare to Barbados was $605 per person, or a total of $1210 for the trip. This rate was the same across all travel agencies. All prices shown below are based on airfare for two adults and a 7 night stay in Barbados.

Hilton Barbados:

Cheap Caribbean $2,757

Travelocity – $2,939

Orbitz – $3,432

Priceline – $3,527 (Priceline required an overnight stay on the return)

Expedia -$3,532

BookIt – Hotel not available on BookIt.

Crane Resort:

BookIt – $1,894

Travelocity – $2,241

Expedia – $2,260

Orbitz – $2,584

Cheap Caribbean – $3,295

Priceline – Hotel not available on Priceline

Almond Beach Club & Spa (all inclusive)

Priceline – $2,711 (Priceline required an overnight stay on the return)

BookIt – $3,297

Orbitz – $3,376

Travelocity – $3,512

Expedia – $3,552

Cheap Caribbean – $3,725

Conclusion

Reminder:

If you are currently looking to vacation in the Caribbean, we have several resources to help you find a great deal. We have tons of Caribbean Vacation Packages on our Caribbean vacation deals page. These deals are updated constantly and we are always adding to the list. We also have a search feature to help you find deals on vacation packages. This Caribbean vacation package search will show you some great deals on other sites.

Is a Vacation Package Really a Discount?

March 31, 2009 By Bimmia

You want to go on vacation and you want to get a discount. Sites all over the internet offer discount vacation packages, but are they really a discount? Well, we have done some research to try and figure out the answer. After reading this article, you will have a better understanding of discount vacation packages and where the best places are to find them.

Discount Vacation Package – An Analysis

For the purpose of this analysis we are defining a “vacation package” as a single booking that includes both flight and hotel. A vacation package can also include car rental, but we have decided to focus on the flight and hotel portions of the package.

Vacation Package Details: Who, Where, & When?

To perform an analysis on the quality of the discount, we must first decide how many people are going, where we want to go, and when. Our mythical trip will be:

A trip for 2 adults from Atlanta to Barbados for the week of May 2nd to May 9th.

To gain an even better understanding of the size of the package discounts offered, we have priced the package at three different hotels/resorts in Barbados:

Sites We Researched

www.cheapcaribbean.com

This selection of sites is representative of the market in general. We included the big 3, a midsized online travel agency – Bookit, and a specialty or niche travel agency – Cheap Caribbean.

Results

The first thing to note is that at the time of this research, the price of just the airfare to Barbados was $552per person, or a total of $1104 for the trip. This rate was virtually the same across all travel agencies. Also, all prices shown below are based on airfare for two adults and a 7 night stay in Barbados.

Vacation Package Prices

The Crane Resort

Lowest – $2,026 – BookIt

Highest – $3,180 – Cheap Caribbean

Hilton Barbados

Lowest – $2,721 – Cheap Caribbean

Highest – $3,818 – Expedia

Almond Beach Village

Lowest – $3,429 – BookIt

Highest – $3,786 – Expedia

Given those prices, and the widely available price of airfare for 2 of $,1104, we can price the hotel portion of the cheapest discount vacation package as such:

The Crane Resort – $922

Hilton Barbados – $1,617

Almond Beach Village – $2,325

Now, the question is, can you get a better price at those hotels without the package? Using only the sites in our test, here’s the best price we could find each of the hotels and the discount you get by booking the package:

The Crane Resort – BookIt -$1,381 (More than the discount package by $452)

Hilton Barbados – Travelocity – $2,113 (More than the discount package by $496)

Almond Beach Village – BookIt – $2,462 (More than the discount package by $137)

The results look very convincing. Booking travel as a package can provide you a substantial discount on your travel. Case closed right? Not so fast my friend.

We took our study one step further, what if you expand your list of hotel booking sites? Well we did that, and here’s what we found. For the Crane Resort and Hilton Barbados, we couldn’t find a better deal anywhere. BUT for Almond Beach Village, we did find a better deal on just the resort stay. How much better? Way better. We found a rate for Almond Beach Village of only $1,666 on www.gtahotels.com. That is a savings over the best package deal of $659 (2,325 – 1,666). That is a lot of cash.

Summary

Here is what you should take away from this:

From site to site, not all packages are created equal – this is clearly seen in the variance between best and worst price of the same package on different sites . For more on this variance check out this related article on Vacation Package Price Differences.
At any one site, the package deal is likely to be a discount over booking the components of the trip separately. In fact, many of the largest sites show you the discount you are getting.
If you really want the best deal, you need to search around. Use the big name sites, and some of the smaller ones. Look at this list of travel agent sites for some options.