How savvy are you when it comes to booking holidays? Will you do whatever it takes to bag the best bargains and save the pennies – or just wing it and end up paying over the odds for your trip?
Take this quiz to find out whether you're a “Travel Titan” – or a “Sticker-price Sucker”.
It comes as a poll of 1,500 holidaymakers, who go abroad, have shared their top tips for keeping costs down when booking a holiday – with 65% employing a number of “hacks” when booking online.
These include comparing different travel dates to see if it gets cheaper, and searching for flights departing on a particular weekday, to see if this could save money.
Other tips include searching for flights six to eight weeks in advance of the trip, paying for flights with a credit card – and booking a hotel directly, rather than through a third-party site.
One in four of those polled (24%) will always check whether two single flights are cheaper than one return – and 16% will wake up early in the morning to take advantage of sales going live first thing.
But while 23% admit to going through “a lot” of stress to bag the best holiday deal, 74% reckon booking a getaway is just “a bit of a gamble” when it comes to prices.
A spokesman for FlightsFinder.com, which commissioned the research to launch its specialist “ask the expert” function, said: “Everyone wants the best deals and cheapest flights.
“The problem consumers face is deciding which hacks are actually worth the effort, and which are not. Some might even be more hassle than they’re worth.
“The fact remains that the more rigid you are with your travel plans, the less likely it is that you’ll grab a bargain.”
Other top travel tactics include setting flight price tracking alerts, clearing their web cookies, and signing up for air fare newsletters – while 23% will use browser incognito mode to hide previous searches.
And 15% search for “hidden city” or multi-city tickets – with a long stopover to squeeze in an extra day’s sightseeing in a new location.
On average, adults start planning a holiday overseas five months and one week before they actually take to the skies – although 31% are not very spontaneous when it comes to choosing a holiday destination.
Travellers’ top priority is the accommodation (49%), followed by what the weather will be like (31%).
And arranging travel insurance (18%) was deemed a higher priority than picking what to pack (17%), according to the OnePoll.com figures.
The spokesman for the flight comparison site added: “There is still a huge demand for travel even though we are living through a cost-of-living crisis.
“Now, more than ever, it is essential that consumers educate themselves about the best money-saving tactics when looking for their next trip abroad, to save their hard-earned cash.
“That is why we launched our new “ask the expert” service, which guides consumers to the best deals online, essentially separating the wheat from the chaff.”
TOP 25 HACKS SAVVY HOLIDAY BOOKERS SWEAR BY:
- Compare different travel dates to see if it's cheaper
- Search for flights departing on a particular day, to see if it's cheaper
- Pay for flights with a credit card
- Book a hotel directly, rather than through a third-party site
- Pack as lightly as possible to avoid baggage charges
- Search for flights six to eight weeks in advance of the trip
- Buy a package deal to make the entire trip less costly
- Compare multiple flight comparison websites
- Compare multiple airline websites directly
- Book flights in the “off season” of where you’re travelling to
- Look up when school holidays are, so as to travel outside of these times
- Clear cookies from your browser when resuming a search for flights or hotels
- Compare two one-way flights, instead of a return flight, to see if that’s cheaper
- Compare multiple travel agents directly
- Use “private” or “incognito” mode on your browser so they can’t tell you’ve already looked at flights
- Book a flight into a less busy airport
- Fly overnight to reduce costs
- Set up price alerts to be notified of price drops
- Sign up to air mile or frequent flyer programmes
- Sign up to airline flight deal newsletters
- Consider different layover options to lower the price of your overall trip
- Wake up early to take advantage of the cheaper tickets on sale at the start of the day
- Compare flights in other currencies to see if you can save money
- Search for “hidden city” tickets (where you buy a ticket with the intention of leaving the plane at a stopover, rather than the final destination)
- Use throw-away ticketing (where a round-trip flight is cheaper than your desired one-way flight, so you purchase the round trip flight and throw away the return ticket)
Source: Read Full Article