With lockdown being relaxed, the travel community is gradually coming back to service holidaymakers. As far back as I can remember, we’ve opted to search for the best holiday deals online. Since the boom of online travel agents in the late 90’s, we now have a bewildering array of holidays to choose from but finding the best fit is sometimes a hapless search, so I'm going to give you a list of the best online travel sites for the best holiday deals. These are based on my personal experience as well as customer reviews.
Skyscanner
Frequent travelers booking through Skyscanner love the simplicity that comes with their all encompassing services and you’re most likely to get really great deals too. This Online Travel Agent uses a metasearch engine to aggregate the best possible deals online across hotels, airlines and car rental services. I’ve found them to be consistently better value than most services online, however this does depend on the time of the year and destination you’re wanting to book. It is always worth comparing prices with other sites, but this is a good place to start to get some inspiration for your next holiday.
Top Tip: Unlock their special hotel discounts by clicking the Fly Stay Save icon.
Trustpilot: 3.4/5
Lastminute.com
Personally, I’m a huge fan of Lastminute, they’ve always come to the rescue, especially if you’re after a European holiday. They’ve been a trusted and well-loved online travel agent since 1998 and you’re able to book absolutely everything you need, including hotels, flights and car rental, moreover you can even book your theatre & days out experiences. Their spa breaks are a welcome feature for that spontaneous weekend getaway for you and your partner.
Top Tip: The ‘Inspire Me’ feature is great if you’re unsure where to go – all you need to do is choose your type of holiday (spa, beach, city break), the total price for your party and your departure point and you’ll be shown packages in a range of destinations that ticks all the boxes.
Trustpilot: 3.4/5
Opodo
The great thing about this travel site is that they allow you to tailor your journey across different airlines, to ensure you get the best deals, with a choice of over 660 airlines, it’s unlikely that you’ll miss out on the best deal.
When you book hotels, you can view it all on a map to check the location and you can filter by price, breakfast, hotel brand, facilities (including accessibility).
Top Tip: Opodo offers airport transfers and a shuttle service to the hotel
Trustpilot: 3.1/5
Despite the basic functionality and relative lack of sophistication compared to other travel sites, On The Beach boasts the highest trust pilot rating if you’re after a beach holiday. Over 60% of travellers voted it to be an excellent travel website. Now I will say that you need to know what you’re looking for and you’ll often find exactly what you need.
Top Tip: The main reason people love On The Beach is that it offers you an option to pay for your holiday in installments after putting down a small deposit, making it easily affordable for everyone if you need to book an urgent get away with not many funds available.
Trustpilot: 4/6
Booking.com
They are one of the biggest online travel agents today and they are partnered with over 660,000 hotels worldwide with a choice of Hotels, Apartments, Villas, Hostels, Resorts & B&B’s, so they are pretty hard to ignore. They don’t charge any booking fees or reservations charges, however many travelers have expressed their frustrations with the service, so it may be one you'd want to keep away from.
Having said that, many use their service and they have more than 8,000 positive reviews on Trustpilot, so you may be able to find very competitively priced deals, but be sure to do your research.
TopTip: They offer an airport shuttle service. The hotels would usually offer discounts starting from 20% going all the way down to 60%. So you can save a lot of money and/or stay in a much nicer place than your budget would typically allow.
Trustpilot: 2/5
Let us know how you've gone about finding great online deals.
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