How do you plan a vacation (ie flight & hotel reservations)

[waterjug]

I'm 31 and never been on vacation in my life, I figure I should probably do it once before I die. So how the heck do you do it? I can find plenty of sites for airfare, but how do you find hotels at your destination? Do you have to call them up on the phone? I seriously have no f'ing clue what I'm doing, so if someone could help with the hotel part it'd be much appreciated.

 

[ElFenix]

booking.com

 

[kranky]

I'm 31 and never been on vacation in my life, I figure I should probably do it once before I die. So how the heck do you do it? I can find plenty of sites for airfare, but how do you find hotels at your destination? Do you have to call them up on the phone? I seriously have no f'ing clue what I'm doing, so if someone could help with the hotel part it'd be much appreciated.

Most travel agencies and travel websites have package deals where you can get flights, hotels and rental cars together. You can probably save money that way vs. booking each on your own separately. You don't need to call hotels directly. Expedia, orbitz, AAA.com, travelocity, etc. all let you book a hotel+flight(+car if you want).

The reason it can be cheaper to get a hotel+flight package is that it hides the actual cost of the hotel, so the hotel is willing to let rooms go cheaper than they would if the price was visible.

Read hotel reviews on tripadvisor.com first. Nothing worse than getting the cheapest deal and finding out when you get there you are stuck with a week-long non-refundable stay at a bad hotel.

 

[clamum]

I book the flight myself (if I'm flying); easy enough.

For a motel, I just use Expedia or whatever and find a Comfort Inn, Motel 6, etc or something (I do book directly from the hotel's website though).

 

[Midwayman]

trip advisor is a good place to start. Look up where you want to go and it'll have hotels ranked by user reviews. Plus links to open price search sites. They'll also have reviews of attractions at the destination. Beware of tiny places with glowing reviews and only a couple reviewers.

 

[purbeast0]

i use travelocity and expedia to book packages most of the time. but i've also booked a villa over in aruba where i just contacted the owner of it and communicated personally with them.

if i'm just doing flights i will use bings travel search.

 

[Dr. Detroit]

Hotels.com
Hotwire.com
Travelocity.com
Kayak.com
Orbitz.com

Tripadvisor is a good site to read reviews.

 

[Onita]

A lot of it will depend on where you plan on vacationing.

 

[vshah]

flights with the airlines directly

hotels, we used airbnb exclusively for our upcoming france trip.
way nicer places than most hotels.

 

[BurnItDwn]

When I traveled last year I used hotels.com and orbitz.com and I think travelocity to try to book my hotel, cruisedirect to book my cruise, and then no airfare because we drove.

I learned of booking.com when on that trip, and would have probably saved $100-200 had I booked hotel through there.

 

[Midwayman]

flights with the airlines directly

Good point actually. Do this with hotels as well. Once you've found the price in a search engine, try direct on the hotel/airline site. That way if something goes wrong they don't tend to play the 'pass the buck' game. Also I've found you tend to get treated nicer if you book direct. More upgraded rooms or hotels, etc.

 

[Sixguns]

Good point actually. Do this with hotels as well. Once you've found the price in a search engine, try direct on the hotel/airline site. That way if something goes wrong they don't tend to play the 'pass the buck' game. Also I've found you tend to get treated nicer if you book direct. More upgraded rooms or hotels, etc.

Did this two years ago when I went to Houston. Got some good deals doing it this way.

 

[TallBill]

Good point actually. Do this with hotels as well. Once you've found the price in a search engine, try direct on the hotel/airline site. That way if something goes wrong they don't tend to play the 'pass the buck' game. Also I've found you tend to get treated nicer if you book direct. More upgraded rooms or hotels, etc.

I've been on 20+ vacations booked through Expedia or Kayak and have never had any snags. Id be willing to bet that most messups are user error.

 

[Scarpozzi]

I typically go to Expedia or whatever to find flights and hotels....but then I hit the hotel brand's booking service and airlines directly. It's typically a few dollars cheaper (in my experience)....no middleman.

 

[Vic Vega]

Use my corporate booking app first as it usually has the best rates. Then I compare with Hotels.com, Expedia, etc.

As far as researching if the place sucks or not, online reviews are OK. Word of mouth is better in my experience.

 

[Blackjack200]

I'm 31 and never been on vacation in my life, I figure I should probably do it once before I die. So how the heck do you do it? I can find plenty of sites for airfare, but how do you find hotels at your destination? Do you have to call them up on the phone? I seriously have no f'ing clue what I'm doing, so if someone could help with the hotel part it'd be much appreciated.

When you say you've never been on vacation, do you mean you've never been abroad or that you've never actually travelled anywhere for pleasure?

If you've really never, ever gone on vacation, I would definitely do a small trip first, to somewhere close to your home. Where do you live?

I would also find someone to travel with. There are people that that enjoy travelling alone, but I hated it and would never do it again, you don't seem like the type that would enjoy it.

 

[RagingBITCH]

Use my corporate booking app first as it usually has the best rates. Then I compare with Hotels.com, Expedia, etc.

As far as researching if the place sucks or not, online reviews are OK. Word of mouth is better in my experience.

The published rates for the major chains are all the same. Rate parity agreements with the OTAs require the rate to be the same, whether on their own hotel.com site or an OTA site. It's consumer mis-conception that rates are cheaper on the OTAs than booking direct.

The few cases where that's not true - smaller hotels without those agreements, and/or a OTA funded discount/special. Those normally are far and few between. This also doesn't take into account opaque OTA. (IE, Hotwire or Priceline where you buy a hotel room blind but know it's a "4 star" hotel)

TripAdvisor is the best place for reviews...I'd look there over any other source. It's also what we require our hotels to monitor and review. (I'm in the industry)

 

[KoolAidKid]

I'm 31 and never been on vacation in my life, I figure I should probably do it once before I die. So how the heck do you do it? I can find plenty of sites for airfare, but how do you find hotels at your destination? Do you have to call them up on the phone? I seriously have no f'ing clue what I'm doing, so if someone could help with the hotel part it'd be much appreciated.

Really? How have you been spending your time up until now?

To answer your question, use expedia/priceline/booking/travelocity/name-of-hotel-chain/tripadvisor.com.

 

[CountZero]

For hotels I like the reviews on oyster. Pretty limited selection but if they have a place you are looking at you can get a good idea about the quality of the rooms/amenities.

 

[Midwayman]

I've been on 20+ vacations booked through Expedia or Kayak and have never had any snags. Id be willing to bet that most messups are user error.

That's the thing. When thing go right, you're fine. When they don't you get treated better. I've hard things go wrong both ways and got the pass the buck game with expedia, while booking direct just got solved. It doesn't really matter if it is 'user error' or not. They are more willing to help when you book direct. I've even got some snarky attitudes from the front desk when you book through 3rd parties where they have specifically mentioned it as why they can't accommodate my request. (This is really bad with things like priceline.)

I wouldn't be surprised that the majority of errors are user generated. However that doesn't mean companies don't screw up on their own.

 

[K1052]

As others have said....Tripadvisor is where to look at hotels. You can used a 3rd party size to compare airfare. Booking both directly is highly preferred should anything go awry and for a better CS experience.

TA is so useful in getting a real sense of the service and condition of a property. Even chains with good reps have their shitty properties, it really helps to avoid them.