With the world bouncing back after the pandemic, the travel industry is booming, and prices are finally coming down again. With so much competition, there are some incredible travel deals to be found.
Finding the best travel deals works the same as online casino players scouting for the biggest deals. It’s about keeping your eyes open and knowing where to find them, so why not use those skills to save yourself some money?
Know When To Use A Travel Agent
If you tend to travel from one city directly to another, you can almost always get the best flight deal by booking directly with the airline. But contact a travel agent if you have a complicated itinerary with multiple stops. They get negotiated prices from airline groups to bundle these itineraries together.
Be sure to have the conversation upfront about how much their fees are. Shop around from agent to agent to get the best overall deal.
Flexibility Is The Key
Have you ever wondered why flight prices on the exact airline change from one day to the next? Airlines offer pricing levels in each cabin class.
Let’s look at a flight with 300 economy seats, for example. It’ll sell 50 seats at the highly discounted price, 100 at the base discount price, then 100 at the regular price, and finally, the leftover 50 at an inflated price.
More people want to fly on the weekend, so those 50 super-discounted seats get snapped up faster than flights departing on a Tuesday or Wednesday would.
Websites like Skyscanner allow you to search by month. If you’ve got complete flexibility over what dates you can travel, you can pick the cheapest ones to fly by scanning a block of dates.
Consider The Season
Seasons are another factor when it comes to airline prices. High season is usually summer in Europe or the USA, or popular holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter. Shoulder season is often based around school holidays in that country, and low season is the rest of the year when fewer people travel.
Low season is considerably cheaper than the other two if you don’t care when you travel.
Last-Minute Deals
Hotel GMs base the success of their property on the number of room nights they sell yearly over the actual revenue made. That’s why if a hotel has several rooms still available on the day, they’d rather discount them than leave them empty.
How To Find Last-Minute Hotel Deals
There are two ways to find these deals. First, walk into the hotel and ask them if rooms are available. Front desk staff are often given a bonus based on the number of rooms they can sell to walk-ins, so they’re very prepared to offer discounts.
The second way is to visit an online hotel booking site or travel app. Hotel sales teams have logins to these and can add or remove rooms immediately and at any price they choose. That’s why the price is lower at 5 pm on the day than at midday. If you’re arriving late at night, the discounts are even higher.
Last-Minute Tour Bookings
Last-minute deals also apply to tours. Some tours need minimum numbers to operate. Let’s say a tour departing tomorrow has nine confirmed passengers but needs 10 to operate. Rather than cancel and disappoint and have to refund nine people, they’ll offer you a discount price the night before to allow the tour to go ahead.
The risk you take with last-minute bookings is that the hotel or tour may be fully booked. For example, things book out quickly during high season, so they do not need to offer discounts.
The Power Of Social Media
Pop-up ads on social media feeds can be annoying. With the improvement in the algorithms’ ability to know what the user wants to see, they’re no longer as much of an issue. If you’re looking for travel deals, keep an eye on your feed.
The new wave of travel agents, called Travel Managers, work from home and curate their own deals with airlines and hotels based on their volumes of passengers. These tech-savvy people then create catchy ads to pop up on relevant feeds, offering deals that are unavailable elsewhere.
Knowing When To Book In Advance
Book well in advance if you have no choice and must travel during the high season. There are still staggered pricing levels on flights, and the earlier you book, the higher the chance of getting a lower price than many others on the same flight.
Booking in advance doesn’t always work out for low-season travelers, though. As the travel date gets closer, the airline may offer spot sales if the flights aren’t filling up. The people who booked too early may have paid more than those who waited.
It’s Easy To Find Great Travel Deals
To find the best travel deals, the trick is to pick your holiday time and be prepared to be flexible. If you can travel during the low season and are prepared to take the risk of walking into a hotel on the day and asking for a discounted room, you’ll save a lot more than others.
Consider engaging a travel agent if your travel plans aren’t easy point-to-point, as they have access to deals that you may not. Always look for travel ads on your social media feeds; these negotiated deals aren’t offered to everyone.
Finally, even high-season travelers can find deals if they’re prepared to book well in advance.
Happy traveling!