Best Travel Deals: Ways to Find Them

Use these tips and resources to find some of the best travel deals online.

Warning: Thinking of buying a package deal? Make sure you price out the individual components at the source to make sure you are really getting the best travel deal possible.

Be sure to visit the big travel sites first. The more popular sites that publish travel deals weekly include Smarter Travel (smart ertravel.com), Travelzoo (travelzoo.com), Independent Traveler (independenttraveler.com), BookingBuddy.com (bookingbuddy.com) and Sherman’s Travel (shermanstravel.com).

Each one offers a weekly newsletter you can join for free.
Look into cruise discounters for more savings on cruise vacations. Cruise lines like to manage their inventories closely, which means it can be tough to find big discounts from third-party brokers.

Although, more discounters are getting creative by adding little extras, such as free shore excursions, shipboard credits and bottles of wine. Check out smallshipcruises.com for smaller lines.

Speak with a travel agent if you might want an air-and-hotel package or if you’re thinking about a popular resort during the busy season. Companies such as Liberty Travel (libertytravel.com), American Express Travel (americanexpress.com/travel) and Carlson Wagonlit (carlsontravel.com) are known to offer some good deals.

Try renting a vacation lodge straight from the owner. The costs are usually much better than at hotels, and normally the lodges have large kitchens, which means you save money on meals.

Some great resources to use are CyberRentals (cyberrentals.com) and Vacation Rentals by Owner (vrbo.com). Asking a lot of questions before you sign on the dotted line is always a smart thing to do. Be sure to ask for references.

Travel sites like airfarewatchdog.com and kayak.com will let you plug in an originating city, and then a list of the best travel deals is displayed.

best travel deal