I travel for work A LOT and have done for 12 years.
Some good suggestions already posted but what I use consistently is Kayak.
First I sort flights. You can put in multiple from airports and to airports at once (3 x) and some codes already include multiple airports (like London).
Enter your dates but use the + / - 3 days for each out and return. Then select the number of days to/from you want your trip for (e.g. 2 to 4 days).
Then sort by cheapest.
You then get a matrix of flights at the top with all the possible days in and out.
Tinker with flight times etc and it’s a very good tool to find some cheap deals.
I then use it alongside booking.com, hotels.com, air b n b etc to find accommodation.
I then use it for car hire if needed. Again, filtering is great.
Good luck!
Just looked on loveholidays. Put in any destination, search the whole month of July and lowest prices and found several on the beach in Morocco for under £180 inc. flights.
Second this. My last 3 holidays have been through them. £250 or less for a 5* hotel for 7 days. So much choice of destination and they haven't been half bad!
Yep, I regret taking the all inclusive murder package, now I just go for the half board murder pack so it's just one murder in the morning and a murder before bed
Murder murder murder, change the fucking record.
Edit: interesting use of the edit button there my guy, literally removing and replacing your entire original reply.
Follow the advice from CheapHolidayExpert.com
Ultimately, travel out of peak times (midweek, with late flights often work out cheapest) and don't be fussy about which beach you are on.
The beach that our family go to in Acharavi in the north of Corfu is pebbles, so no sand gets stuck to you, and then in the sea it's sand, and it's a sand bar you can get out to around 500m before it gets really deep. Waist deep out 100m at least. Perfection, unless you like snorkelling I guess but I'm not partial to deep water
Go on Google Flights and search by the map, with your airport as choice as departing and just worldwide for the destination. I then filter it to the highest I'm willing to spend and browse the map.
Edit: I try to pick a town nearish the airport so I can maybe get a public bus to the hotel. Often the cheapest way
Depends on the holiday. city breaks, apartments and villas? Yes. All inclusive? Absolutely not
Package deals are nearly always a better deal than trying to do it piece meal (specifically if you're looking at all inclusive holidays *not* apartments), this isn't the late 90's, early 00's anymore.
Edit: Think people are getting confused. Booking a city break, apartment or villa will be cheaper to do separately than a package deal. All inclusive holidays are far cheaper as a package deal than trying to book a flight, transport and direct with the same all inclusive hotel. Booking direct with an all inclusive hotel often costs more expensive than the combined price of a hotel+flight you'd get with a package deal
It used to be in the late 90's/00's that package holidays were incredibly up priced by sellers, today trying to do all inclusive holidays by booking everything seperate is more expensive (once again specifically for all inclusive holidays, apartments/villas self catered will be cheaper)
I've found the exact opposite, and I was too young to be holidaying on my own in the early 00s. I've found that booking my own hotel in a less touristy area and eating local waaay cheaper than staying in a resort, with the advantage of getting to eat at different places and not just doing and eating the same shit every day.
Yeah we're saying the same thing
If you're doing a city break or staying in a villa/apartment it'll be cheaper that doing a package deal, if you're looking to do all inclusive it'll work out much cheaper as a package deal rather than booking your flight, transport and direct with the hotel separately
Booking direct with an all inclusive hotel often costs more than the entire package holiday
Oh no definitely not, self catered will nearly always be cheaper than all inclusive, unless you're stopping at some really boujee restaurants and going out clubbing
Updated my comment now to say that I'm talking about specifically when trying to book direct with the same hotel all inclusive piecemeal vs package
Hotukdeals, here's the link to the specific search might want to look at:
[https://www.hotukdeals.com/tag/holiday](https://www.hotukdeals.com/tag/holiday)
Go on Skyscanner and search for Everywhere, then sort by price for flights.
Accommodation is a bit more of a challenge at the moment I've found, but cheap rooms can be found, or airbnb's
> Accommodation is a bit more of a challenge at the moment I've found
If the UK thats because of the tax change on holiday rentals coming Apr 5th. Everyone is closing their Airbnb's and selling to avoid the tax.
[https://www.loveholidays.com/holidays/?nights=7&rooms=1&date=2024-07-01&flexibility=-2&sort=PRICE\_LOW\_TO\_HIGH&f.boardBasis=AI&f.holidayTypes=Beach](https://www.loveholidays.com/holidays/?nights=7&rooms=1&date=2024-07-01&flexibility=-2&sort=PRICE_LOW_TO_HIGH&f.boardBasis=AI&f.holidayTypes=Beach)
Add the airport you want to fly from, If you don't take a case and want transfers it will probably be another £50 added at the end
How much is waaaaay cheaper? Other than getting a deal on a flight, going hand luggage only & getting cheap accommodation on booking or similar, I can’t see any other way to do it cheaper.
Skyscanner. TripAdvisor for accommodation. I book directly with the airline or hotel though usually. I take a small bag which covers me for 3 days and is free to take onboard. Use airport bus rather than taxis if you can.
Fuck most of these suggestions. Skyscanner, sort by anywhere, flexible dates. You'll find cheap as fuck flights. Then go to a hotel comparison site for the location, bang. And the diet is gone.
Forget airlines and trains.
1. Get in your car, drive 10 hours (give or take a couple based on how far you are from London).
2. Drive to Plage de la Concurrence in La Rochelle
3. Enjoy
London to Nantes, £34 round trip per person on ryan air.
London to Nantes, eurotunnel, same dates, £132.5 per person, when travelling with 4 people in a car. Plus 1,000 miles @ £0.25/mile running costs for a typical car = £62.50/person in fuel and car costs. Plus french motorway tolls...
The flights are *waaaaay* cheaper. And quicker. But you might have the hassle of packing into a small bag and dealing with public transit to/from the airport.
It’s not just £34 though. There’s at least £50 in trains to get to and from Stansted (assuming you take the express).
Then €20 to get to and from Nantes Atlantique airport to the city.
Then whatever it costs to get to a beach and back and other travelling around while in Nantes.
Well assuming OP has a car because they were thinking of driving, drive to near the airport, park somewhere free, then walk or take a £2 local bus to the airport.
You're right that transport at the far end is expensive, but you can rent a car for £18/day, which if you're a group of people probably works out cheapest.
What kind of holiday OP?
Lots of people are giving the "just go on Skyscanner and book direct with the hotel!" Suggestions however that era of holidays had long since died (for all inclusive resorts) and you'll almost certainly end up with a worse deal trying to do it piece meal.
That said if you're looking at booking a villa or doing a city break then you'll probably end up getting a better deal doing it separately, package deals are far better for all inclusive holidays though
Probably being downvoted because it's seen as advertising but I have to agree - I got dirt cheap flights to Iceland a few years ago with them, was £40\~ return.
I book 3ish weeks off work then a couple weeks before the time off I start looking for last minute deals for a 2 week holiday. Because I have a weeks leeway in when I go I find loads of cheap holidays.
Then you narrow it down to where you want to go. Turkey may be cheap, but you don’t fancy it, Crete cheap and it seems perfect. Then once I’ve found the holiday, I do another search specifically for that holiday, to see if it’s listed elsewhere even cheaper.
I get 2 weeks all inclusive during the summer for around £500- 800 doing this.
Bear in mind that just like how people who gamble typically only brag about their wins and never their losses, you're probably only hearing about the rare very-cheap wins. In reality most people will have to be doing a ton of research, be willing to take a less than ideal time or date or destination or plan a very long time in advance to get the really cheap prices.
Google flights. You can also put in a country or region and it will show you a map of all the airports and flight costs - eg I went to San Sebastian (northern Spain) but flew into Biarritz (southern France) and took a bus for 7 euro over the border.
Don't search for returns, try to find flights each way individually as you can then take advantage of one airline being cheaper on the return leg (eg fly Easyjet going out, Ryanair on the way back).
Google Flights has a handy graph with prices. It goes about a year in advance (at least for the destination I'm looking at) so you get can see when it's cheapest. Cheaper flights means off-season so the attractions will be less crowded and accommodation cheaper. There's always a trade-off with weather, but shit weather in some countries is better than our summers. That's when I look up average temperatures/rain for the destination and see what I'm in for.
Pick a country and ask on the Reddit page or TripAdvisor for beachy places. Your needs sound like they don't require a tourist trap so pick somewhere off the beaten track, then investigate that place. Repeat until you find somewhere nice, and cheap.
Go on the GoogleFlights website, put the airport you are leaving from and put the destination as anywhere. It will give you a map view of the cheapest return tickets. Like £30 to go to Italy and back for a few days
Teletext holidays, usually cheaper than other sites for exact hotel/dates.
Ex: 1 week in July all inc in Alanya around £600 per person, exact same details on loveholidays around £800 pp.
not sure why you're being downvoted, my friend and I did this last month for a trip to krakow and it was our cheapest option for staying somewhere that wasn't horrible.
The real secret is either work in or have a partner that works in the airline industry. Incredibly cheap flights (often just tax paid) and regular upgrades. As well as travel industry rates for hotels.
Get good at packing light - extra luggage is one of the things the low-cost airlines really sting you on.
I’ve saved up to 75% in the past, simply by leaving my wife and kids at home.
I travel for work A LOT and have done for 12 years. Some good suggestions already posted but what I use consistently is Kayak. First I sort flights. You can put in multiple from airports and to airports at once (3 x) and some codes already include multiple airports (like London). Enter your dates but use the + / - 3 days for each out and return. Then select the number of days to/from you want your trip for (e.g. 2 to 4 days). Then sort by cheapest. You then get a matrix of flights at the top with all the possible days in and out. Tinker with flight times etc and it’s a very good tool to find some cheap deals. I then use it alongside booking.com, hotels.com, air b n b etc to find accommodation. I then use it for car hire if needed. Again, filtering is great. Good luck!
Wait, are you The Man From Del Monte?
Pretty sure he's gonna say no.
I am, and I say YES!
Just looked on loveholidays. Put in any destination, search the whole month of July and lowest prices and found several on the beach in Morocco for under £180 inc. flights.
We went to Marrakesh last year and, culture shock aside, had a great time.
I just did the same search, cheapest suggested holiday was a week in a holiday Inn in Birmingham. £189pp.
Interesting. Do they transfer you the money before or after your stay?
Hope you enjoy it. Don't miss the library.
Did they not just go into liquidation?
No, they're a broker. One of the companies they used went into liquidation https://www.loveholidays.ie/faq/fti-youtravel-insolvency/
Hang on is this legit? I can get a week in a 4* hotel in Milan for 2 adults and a child with return flights for under €400pp!
Yes it is. The list of providers used for your booking will be on the PDF confirmation document you received close to the time of booking.
That's mega.
Second this. My last 3 holidays have been through them. £250 or less for a 5* hotel for 7 days. So much choice of destination and they haven't been half bad!
Downvote if you love poverty Upvote if you love men
You can do as many or as few murders as you like
I did too many murders on my last holiday and tired my self out so much I had to book a second holiday
That’s how they get you
Yep, I regret taking the all inclusive murder package, now I just go for the half board murder pack so it's just one murder in the morning and a murder before bed
You've been holidaying in St Marie, haven't you.
Yes, and that's the beauty of it
Murder murder murder, change the fucking record. Edit: interesting use of the edit button there my guy, literally removing and replacing your entire original reply.
There’s this thing called Google that you can use to search the crime rate in the place you’re potentially interested in visiting.
Saying “there’s a thing called Google” is the most Reddit-style childish thing anyone can say lol
😂 it befit such a lazy comment!
if you're going to be a knob you *might* get stabbed. Otherwise you're fine
we’re in the UK mate if you’re worried about stabbings then i’ve got something bad to tell you
Lol London has more murders than Cardiff nobody cares.
teletext holidays, still the best
`8` `8` `8` `Subtitles ON`
Booked it, packed it.... Fucked off.
Follow the advice from CheapHolidayExpert.com Ultimately, travel out of peak times (midweek, with late flights often work out cheapest) and don't be fussy about which beach you are on.
Long as theres sand and not used jonnys or needles I'm pretty happy.
Pebble beach lovers represent
The beach that our family go to in Acharavi in the north of Corfu is pebbles, so no sand gets stuck to you, and then in the sea it's sand, and it's a sand bar you can get out to around 500m before it gets really deep. Waist deep out 100m at least. Perfection, unless you like snorkelling I guess but I'm not partial to deep water
my mum is from corfu and we went to kalami for the first time a few years ago and it was pretty good. expensive though
In your house ?
Go on Google Flights and search by the map, with your airport as choice as departing and just worldwide for the destination. I then filter it to the highest I'm willing to spend and browse the map. Edit: I try to pick a town nearish the airport so I can maybe get a public bus to the hotel. Often the cheapest way
Skyscanner, Google Flights, or clearance sales on error fares can get you sweet deals!
Depends on the holiday. city breaks, apartments and villas? Yes. All inclusive? Absolutely not Package deals are nearly always a better deal than trying to do it piece meal (specifically if you're looking at all inclusive holidays *not* apartments), this isn't the late 90's, early 00's anymore. Edit: Think people are getting confused. Booking a city break, apartment or villa will be cheaper to do separately than a package deal. All inclusive holidays are far cheaper as a package deal than trying to book a flight, transport and direct with the same all inclusive hotel. Booking direct with an all inclusive hotel often costs more expensive than the combined price of a hotel+flight you'd get with a package deal It used to be in the late 90's/00's that package holidays were incredibly up priced by sellers, today trying to do all inclusive holidays by booking everything seperate is more expensive (once again specifically for all inclusive holidays, apartments/villas self catered will be cheaper)
I've found the exact opposite, and I was too young to be holidaying on my own in the early 00s. I've found that booking my own hotel in a less touristy area and eating local waaay cheaper than staying in a resort, with the advantage of getting to eat at different places and not just doing and eating the same shit every day.
Yeah we're saying the same thing If you're doing a city break or staying in a villa/apartment it'll be cheaper that doing a package deal, if you're looking to do all inclusive it'll work out much cheaper as a package deal rather than booking your flight, transport and direct with the hotel separately Booking direct with an all inclusive hotel often costs more than the entire package holiday
Sorry I thought you were saying that an all inclusive is cheaper than booking it yourself and eating at restaurants, which I haven't found at all.
Oh no definitely not, self catered will nearly always be cheaper than all inclusive, unless you're stopping at some really boujee restaurants and going out clubbing Updated my comment now to say that I'm talking about specifically when trying to book direct with the same hotel all inclusive piecemeal vs package
Holiday pirates . Great app. Similar to HUKD, where people share great finds.
Also if you’re looking for a specific destination the budget airports are often some way from the city and might be listed as somewhere else
Hotukdeals, here's the link to the specific search might want to look at: [https://www.hotukdeals.com/tag/holiday](https://www.hotukdeals.com/tag/holiday)
To add to that id add an alert for anything with holiday, most of it will be irrelevant to you but you might see something you like
Go on Skyscanner and search for Everywhere, then sort by price for flights. Accommodation is a bit more of a challenge at the moment I've found, but cheap rooms can be found, or airbnb's
> Accommodation is a bit more of a challenge at the moment I've found If the UK thats because of the tax change on holiday rentals coming Apr 5th. Everyone is closing their Airbnb's and selling to avoid the tax.
Teletext
I go on Ryanair, Wizz and Easyjet and look at mid week flights.
I use Google Flights and book as far in advance as possible. If you’re not fussy where you go, just add a country
[https://www.loveholidays.com/holidays/?nights=7&rooms=1&date=2024-07-01&flexibility=-2&sort=PRICE\_LOW\_TO\_HIGH&f.boardBasis=AI&f.holidayTypes=Beach](https://www.loveholidays.com/holidays/?nights=7&rooms=1&date=2024-07-01&flexibility=-2&sort=PRICE_LOW_TO_HIGH&f.boardBasis=AI&f.holidayTypes=Beach) Add the airport you want to fly from, If you don't take a case and want transfers it will probably be another £50 added at the end
How much is waaaaay cheaper? Other than getting a deal on a flight, going hand luggage only & getting cheap accommodation on booking or similar, I can’t see any other way to do it cheaper.
Skyscanner has cheapest prices available I’ve found
Skyscanner. TripAdvisor for accommodation. I book directly with the airline or hotel though usually. I take a small bag which covers me for 3 days and is free to take onboard. Use airport bus rather than taxis if you can.
Fuck most of these suggestions. Skyscanner, sort by anywhere, flexible dates. You'll find cheap as fuck flights. Then go to a hotel comparison site for the location, bang. And the diet is gone.
Forget airlines and trains. 1. Get in your car, drive 10 hours (give or take a couple based on how far you are from London). 2. Drive to Plage de la Concurrence in La Rochelle 3. Enjoy
The channel ferry or eurotunnel with a car is well expensive. It's always cheaper to just fly, even if there are 4 of you in the car.
Really? I have never found this to be the case.
London to Nantes, £34 round trip per person on ryan air. London to Nantes, eurotunnel, same dates, £132.5 per person, when travelling with 4 people in a car. Plus 1,000 miles @ £0.25/mile running costs for a typical car = £62.50/person in fuel and car costs. Plus french motorway tolls... The flights are *waaaaay* cheaper. And quicker. But you might have the hassle of packing into a small bag and dealing with public transit to/from the airport.
It’s not just £34 though. There’s at least £50 in trains to get to and from Stansted (assuming you take the express). Then €20 to get to and from Nantes Atlantique airport to the city. Then whatever it costs to get to a beach and back and other travelling around while in Nantes.
Well assuming OP has a car because they were thinking of driving, drive to near the airport, park somewhere free, then walk or take a £2 local bus to the airport. You're right that transport at the far end is expensive, but you can rent a car for £18/day, which if you're a group of people probably works out cheapest.
But I don't think I'm welcome to La Rochelle any more after waking the hotelier up from his afternoon snooze to check in.
What kind of holiday OP? Lots of people are giving the "just go on Skyscanner and book direct with the hotel!" Suggestions however that era of holidays had long since died (for all inclusive resorts) and you'll almost certainly end up with a worse deal trying to do it piece meal. That said if you're looking at booking a villa or doing a city break then you'll probably end up getting a better deal doing it separately, package deals are far better for all inclusive holidays though
Sign up for Jacks flight club and thank me later.
Probably being downvoted because it's seen as advertising but I have to agree - I got dirt cheap flights to Iceland a few years ago with them, was £40\~ return.
It’s just a mailing list for cheap flights this jack fellow finds. I’m not a paying member and still get sent bargains.
Check directly airline websites or tool like Trabber.co.uk or Skyscanner
Use skyscanner for flights
Midweek flights and Ryan , Wizz , and then a Airbnb or booking.com
I book 3ish weeks off work then a couple weeks before the time off I start looking for last minute deals for a 2 week holiday. Because I have a weeks leeway in when I go I find loads of cheap holidays. Then you narrow it down to where you want to go. Turkey may be cheap, but you don’t fancy it, Crete cheap and it seems perfect. Then once I’ve found the holiday, I do another search specifically for that holiday, to see if it’s listed elsewhere even cheaper. I get 2 weeks all inclusive during the summer for around £500- 800 doing this.
Bear in mind that just like how people who gamble typically only brag about their wins and never their losses, you're probably only hearing about the rare very-cheap wins. In reality most people will have to be doing a ton of research, be willing to take a less than ideal time or date or destination or plan a very long time in advance to get the really cheap prices.
Google flights. You can also put in a country or region and it will show you a map of all the airports and flight costs - eg I went to San Sebastian (northern Spain) but flew into Biarritz (southern France) and took a bus for 7 euro over the border. Don't search for returns, try to find flights each way individually as you can then take advantage of one airline being cheaper on the return leg (eg fly Easyjet going out, Ryanair on the way back).
Jacks Flight Club
Booked the last one on loveholidays.com looks a bargain. Flight times are kind of awkward but we live close to Stansted so just will suck it up.
Hotukdeals.com
You'll never find a fecking flight for 50 fecking P
Search for Jacks Flight Club. It’s an email subscription and the free tier sends you 1/2 a week, and the paid tier sends you almost one a day.
Is a few hundred quid not cheap enough already?
Google Flights has a handy graph with prices. It goes about a year in advance (at least for the destination I'm looking at) so you get can see when it's cheapest. Cheaper flights means off-season so the attractions will be less crowded and accommodation cheaper. There's always a trade-off with weather, but shit weather in some countries is better than our summers. That's when I look up average temperatures/rain for the destination and see what I'm in for. Pick a country and ask on the Reddit page or TripAdvisor for beachy places. Your needs sound like they don't require a tourist trap so pick somewhere off the beaten track, then investigate that place. Repeat until you find somewhere nice, and cheap.
Go on the GoogleFlights website, put the airport you are leaving from and put the destination as anywhere. It will give you a map view of the cheapest return tickets. Like £30 to go to Italy and back for a few days
You need to look online and find the best deals yourself
Teletext holidays, usually cheaper than other sites for exact hotel/dates. Ex: 1 week in July all inc in Alanya around £600 per person, exact same details on loveholidays around £800 pp.
Use Google Flights and set the destination to Anywhere
Buy a flight from Ryanair, get an apartment on Airbnb you’ll save a fortune.
not sure why you're being downvoted, my friend and I did this last month for a trip to krakow and it was our cheapest option for staying somewhere that wasn't horrible.
The real secret is either work in or have a partner that works in the airline industry. Incredibly cheap flights (often just tax paid) and regular upgrades. As well as travel industry rates for hotels.
https://www.secretflying.com/search2/?cityFrom=UK&cityTo=&month=&showOldDeals=on thank me later
TUI last minute
Lastminute.com