Current best web sites - flights, accommodation

[Stargazer]

Hi,

am interested in knowing your current best picks in relation to web sites for booking flights, accommodation.

 

[skeeo]

If not booking directly with the airline/hotel, my favourites are:

FareCompare - Cheapest Airline Tickets, Cheap Flights, Travel Deals, Cheap Tickets and Discount Airfares
Cheap Flights & Airfares - Book International Flights | Jetabroad (got some cheap london to sydney tix for april next year, even cheaper than buying direct from QF website)

Booking.com: 173,955 hotels worldwide. Book your hotel now!
agoda.com: Discount Hotel Reservations Worldwide - Smarter Hotel Booking!

 

[aikman]

I like wego.com
150+ travel booking websites all in one!

 

[Stargazer]

I am planning to use webjet for flights and wotif.com for hotels. Any thoughts ......:?:

 

[skeeo]

if for domestic, they are fine though beware of their fees and compare to airline/hotel websites

for international, there are better sites

 

[Stargazer]

if for domestic, they are fine though beware of their fees and compare to airline/hotel websites

for international, there are better sites

I was actually thinking of websites for international travel.

I thought airline sites also charged a booking fee??? (This will be my first overseas booking so not really up to date with the best way to go about it)

 

[ShaneN]

For flights I like Zuji - Cheap Flights, Discount Hotels and Package Holiday Deals on ZUJI.com.au. No booking fees. Also check with individual airlines after searching on Zuji.

For hotels I like Travel Buddies - Cheap Hotels, Hotel Deals, and Unbiased Hotel Reviews - TravBuddy. It links to a wide range of booking services, allowing you to compare the best deal. There are often big differences in price for the same room. Again it is also worth checking the individual chains or hotels.

 

[Cynicor]

Always try directly with the providers, i.e. the hotel chain or the airline first.

I use expedia.com.au for hotels, it's less great for flights.
Zuji has ok flight deals

Kayak is a quick site to compare prices, and see if you are getting a decent deal.

I find WOTIF really sucks, and is one of the least likely places to find a good deal. Webjet used to charge a booking fee, and don't charge less than other companies.

 

[mr mink]

As to FLIGHTS -- have looked at the aforementioned Webjet before and found it relatively useless. Travel dotcom dotAU is relatively useful for point to point comparison pricing over a number of airlines. As I am in the QFF program I tend to go directly to the Qantas site as I think flight margins have been crunched so much by the airlines in recent years that buying direct is generally cheapest (apart from the points benefit for QFF linked credit cards). Otherwise use a travel agent (eeny meeny miney mo there - no recommendations there as YMMV) if the itinerary is a multi-point one which cannot be done directly on the airline site.

In 4 (leisure) travel trips of about 24 weeks total duration in the last 20 months or so (I recently retired), 2 in Europe and 2 in the USA, for HOTELS I have virtually used Booking dotcom as my default. My stops have generally been city stops of only one or two nights as I move around, only relatively booking a day or so ahead. Booking has way the best integrated map function (others often don't work very well) so that you can quickly scope where the particular hotel is, not to mention hover over alternative prospects/prices close by. As I have generally travelled by train or bus, proximity to the relevant station is therefore fairly quickly determined so you do not have to wheel your bag far. And with only one or two night stays you are not intent on staying in the absolutely perfect dream hotel (unless you have deep pockets of course). I have generally found the prices on Booking very competitive and with short stays it is barely worth the bother of kicking tyres all over town just to save a dollar or two. It is only if you are staying five or more nights that you might want to check other sources to chisel the best price. It can be interesting for example however to try Hotelscombined dotcom by which you can sample prices at three or four suppliers. This did lead me to HRS, which I otherwise did not know, where I got a cheaper than Booking dotcom rate on a hotel in Vienna I had stayed at before.

The other advantage of using Booking is that they only take your credit card details as security against the first night if for some reason you do not show. You then pay locally when you leave the hotel in the local currency. With my peripatetic frequent movement travel style this suits me -- however if you are planning a block stay in a city like Paris or something and it is two months away you might want to lock in the exchange rate etc by paying in advance by using somebody else. In that regard Expedia etc might be useful but my unpredictable/could change destinations make "planning" the day before with Booking the preferred method for me anyway.

 

[mr mink]

further on HOTELS - without sounding like I am personally promoting Booking dotcom - the user reviews on there can give you a fairly good picture of what other guests have thought of the particular hotel. An overall score of over eight is likely to be a pretty nice hotel. Anything approaching 9 is either definitely five-star luxury where all needs are met. Earlier in the year however I stayed in a 3 star hotel in Cesky Krumlov in the Czech republic which had a score of 8.9 or some such - I think this actually more reflected the fact that guests were very taken by the town, which is very cute, although the hotel was otherwise a very pleasant experience. The user reviews are hardly a unique feature to that one site as other sites like Tripadvisor do also have them. Tripadvisor however does perhaps tend to be dominated by American whingers where it seems that the squeaky wheel principle about people only going on there to complain about "service" (read: deference to respected guest) applies. As you appear to be a solo traveller you can sort the reviews by those alone so that you can perhaps get more of an idea what sort of solo experience you are likely to get. To me frankly a hotel is a hotel and you check in and out but if the comments by chance include what the hotel bars are like and if that is your thing it may help.

 

[BruceM]

I've used Yeego dot com with good results. It was initially recommended by a friend who had made a few trial bookings in Europe without problems. I used it a few times in the US where it was exorbitant to book with the usual chain.
Some domestic rates don't seem much cheaper than elsewhere, but it pays to check.
No extra fees or taxes - the quoted price is final.

Bruce

 

[Rocket88]

For Asia i always use Agoda - i have used others but always come back to Agoda . They are also the cheapest by far even with the added taxes etc. For Flights i just use the airline site - i have used a couple of other sites that shall remain nameless but have been stuffed around so no more using them again.

 

[pearler47]

In Thailand for Hotels, I strongly recommend Sawadee.com. Their rates are pretty favourable and they are a reliable organisation. They arranged a refund earlier this year when I could not travel because of a last minute health problem.

 

[Dougo]

I am planning to use webjet for flights and wotif.com for hotels. Any thoughts ......:?:

I never use webjet apart for a quick comparison for domestic flights and I always book directly with the airline.

As for wotif.com, I haven't used it for years.

Domestically, I recently booked a hotel through Agoda who took the full amount on booking. I found the best (cheapest) price for the hotel when searching through www.hotelscombined.com. This is a great site that compares different 3rd party booking sites and you choose the site which has the cheapest rate.

For international flights I've used many of the sites already mentioned and have used Farecompare to track fares and alert me to changed fares.

For international hotels I have used booking.com without any problem when I have checked in. I have had a couple of issues with them tho' and they did attend to both matters promptly.

The first matter was a review of a hotel we stayed at in Santiago last year - I said I wouldn't recommend it and would not stay there again, citing various issues from poor customer service to mouldy bread for breakfast etc etc. Well my review was published - edited - and presumably the system gave it a score of 7.9. It was not a score I would have given so I contacted them and said the score was at odds with what I had written and if they didn't want to change the score, they should remove the review. They removed the review. It was then I noticed that there were not so many reviews of the hotel so I wondered if others had similar problems.

The second matter occurred earlier this year. I booked a hotel which did not require a deposit but perhaps an over enthusiastic hotel clerk mis read the booking and charged me a deposit. I contacted booking.com and they fired off an email to the hotel, kept me in the communication loop at all times, and within a week I had the deposit refunded and my FOREX fees refunded too. I was very happy with their customer service.

Re the matter of reviews
While some posters may think the reviews on booking.com etc are somewhat more reliable than say Tripadvisor, I don't agree. In my instance, the comments were edited and the score was not reflective of what I said ... I suspect that there are many hotels on various sites with inflated scores / edited comments.

Since being stung last year, now I post on the TA forums and other forums to see what "real" people say about a hotel - yes you can get biased remarks there too but at least I can ask questions and sort through the info myself.

I've learned that some reviews on many sites by some of our "global cousins" are not worth reading, and TBH, over the years I tended to look for what and Aussies or NZers say about a hotel, it's customer service, location etc rather what has been said by some of our "global cousins" who seem more concerned about things that don't worry me (eg, not enough choice for jams at breakfast, or no ice machine etc). Tho' I have to admit my "system" failed me miserably when we stayed at a hotel in Glasgow - it was the pits !!

 

[Robmn]

Airfares are booked with the airline direct - if you know where you are going keep an eye on the specials and book straight away. Subscribe airline email deals. Go in the right off season.

I generally book through the hotel itself. Look at the hotel specials. Bigger hotel chains central booking have specials but individual hotel within the chain also have other specials. Research is a good thing and comparison of prices. Trip Advisor (Holiday Reviews - Accommodation, Hotels, and Holiday Packages - TripAdvisor) gives a good indication of the hotel quality and service. We have scored some excellent pricing at larger hotels.

r

 

[fernpittman]

I travelled to Vienna in August and found cheap flights from Singapore through skyscanner.net with Emirates. They direct you to the Emirates site, and the booking is done there, so you're dealing with the airline.
An excellent site for tours if you're interested, is tourradar.com .. worldwide.

 

[Sprucegoose]

Routine travel use QF website and direct hotels.

Unusual or first time, use experienced agent.

 

[browski]

With my peripatetic frequent movement travel style this suits me -- however if you are planning a block stay in a city like Paris or something and it is two months away you might want to lock in the exchange rate etc by paying in advance by using somebody else.

Mr Mink, your post was very helpful, not least for the introduction into my life of the word "peripatetic". Please post more often (I am not being sarcastic).

For what it's worth, these are the sites I frequent:

Travel: Firstly, domestically it does not matter which site you use, because there are only a handful of airlines........, but internationally it is best to use a web site that provides a complete list of all possible options. This point is crucial, and no web site has been better over the years than the legendary ita software website: https://matrix1.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch
Beware that there is an updated version of the itamatrix software, but in my opinion, the classic site is still the best.........but note that you cannot actually book from this site, it only shows you all your options (except possibly some very low cost options like Air Asia).

Secondly, it is also essential to see all the airlines which actually fly to/from any particular airport. This is handled well by good old wikepedia. As an example look at Melbourne airport - it displays all airlines and their destinations (make sure you scroll down the page): Melbourne Airport - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Then either book with the airline directly, or via one of the many online travel websites.

Hotels: Hotels.com Australia is my current favorite. Nothing special, just I personally like how the user interface has a multitude of useful SORT and FILTER options. Then crosscheck their results with the hotel website and with tripadvisor (just discount the opinions of infrequent leisure travelers; business traveler opinions are often the best.)

 

[Dougo]

When Southwest Airlines in the US recently released their airfares for internal flights on dates that suited our travel plans next year, we booked with them. Our American friends recommended them ... and the bonus was that their fare included checked luggage.

When another carrier subsequently released their flights, we found a direct flight that suited us better.

So I emailed Southwest and asked if we could cancel our tickets and use the $$ for another flight and got my answer within a short space of time.

Today, we cancelled our Southwest Airlines flights and rebooked with another airline ... only a tad more but better flight times.

Then we booked another internal flight we wanted with Southwestern and used all of our credit for our cancelled flight with no $$ deducted for admin fees or miscellaneous charges or penalties. We were able to apply all of the credit (the amount our cancelled flights actually cost us) on the "payment screen" of their booking system. Our receipt shows how much was credited per person and the difference in price that was charged to our CC.

Very happy with that !!

 

[Jeffrey O'Neill]

i recently discovered International Flights, Cheap International Flights | Vayama - they had some airefares that were cheaper than anywhere else.

they also allowed me to look at bookings further in advance to what he airlines would let me book.

Booking.com: 177,430 hotels worldwide. Book your hotel now! usually shows me the best options for hotels.

Australia Hotels | Cheap AU Hotel Deals | Hotwire AU can sometimes give great bargains on secret hotels.