TravelSiteCritic.com
This is how my post was supposed to start today:
You’ve heard the hype, I’m sure. Travel sites everywhere proclaim:
SAVE $250 by booking your flight and hotel together!
I’ve heard it so many times, I almost believed this hype myself. I am going to convince you otherwise.
As I went on writing this post, I fruitlessly tried to “prove” my theory that it is cheaper to book flights and hotels separately. To my chagrin, I realized I was DEAD WRONG.
I must admit, it is tough to admit I was wrong. You see, I always assumed travel sites over advertised “VACATION PACKAGES” (hotel+flight combos) to shove more money in their deep pockets. I thought I could get cheaper deals if I booked the hotel and flight separately, and set out to convince you of that in this post. In doing so, I realized that you really do save a lot of money if you book the travel site “vacation package”. To further illustrate this, here are the results of my little experiment today:
1. I searched Priceline for “Vacation Packages” to downtown New York City from March 9-13. Priceline pulls up a list of packages, starting with their “Most Popular”. To be consistant, as I’m trying to save money here, I click on the “lowest price” tab to filter the results. Priceline now shows me the lowest priced vacation package in downtown New York City, staying at the “Latham Hotel” for $828. I must admit, that is a cheap price. Can I beat it?
2. To find the cheapest flights, I like to use a site like Kayak.com or cFares.com. For this experiment, I search cFares for round trip flights from Seattle to New York City from March 9-13, and find a Jet Blue flight for $339 with tax. That’s a cheap flight, which leaves me with $489 ($122/night) to spend on a hotel in New York City for 4 nights to break even with Priceline’s deal. Is that possible?
3. Still optomistic, I head over to the Latham Hotel website. (The hotels own websites often have the rock-bottom rates). Their rate is $159/night with tax. That means that if I book the “package” on Priceline, I save nearly $150! No way. I am truly surprised. I even took a gander onto Hotwire’s site, to see if I could find a cheaper hotel in downtown New York City. Not even close! The cheapest hotel was $249/night. I think I would be hard pressed to find another hotel in downtown NYC for less than $159!
Still not convinced. I try it again.
1. This time I search Travelocity for vacation packages to Chicago, same dates. Not really familiar with Chicago, for the sake of this experiment I choose “Chicago Area” and filter by “lowest price”. The lowest priced vacation package to Chicago is $363 staying at the Days Inn Elk Grove Villiage. This hotel is not truly in “Chicago” (20 miles away), so I scroll down and look for a hotel in “Chicago”. Finally, I come across a vacation package to the Chicago O’Hare Garden Hotel for $537. Whoa. That’s crazy cheap. I know I can’t beat that. But, I’ll try anyway.
2. Flights on cFares come up with $271 (for members). Since that is the cheapest flight I find, I’ll go with that, which only leaves me with $266 ($66/night) to spend on a hotel in Chicago. Um, I think that is impossible.
3. Again, I go to the hotels own website. The Chicago O’Hare Garden Hotel website shows their rate is $89/night. So, yet again, we would save by booking the Travelocity vacation package. In fact, we would save $92 to be exact, which is like getting one night free. (Keep in mind that we would need to be a cFares platinum member ($50) to get the $271 flight, so we should add another $50 to the savings as well).
4. I have to see how much I would save if I stayed at the Days Inn Elk Grove Villiage. So, heading over to their site, I find that their cheapest rate is $60/night. So, with the $271 flight + $240 (4-night hotel) = $511. That is $138 more than Travelocity’s package.
Now I am convinced. Are you?
Sources: Priceline.com, Travelocity.com
, cFares.com
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