Special Offer - MEGATHREAD Holiday Tips & Tricks July 2019
Travel Tips & Tricks!
Summer is now here and I know that a lot of people are looking for last minute holidays for a bit of sun, sea & sand over the next few weeks.
Don't panic if you have nothing booked yet as I have put together some tips, tricks & links for you to hopefully save you some stress and a few ££ too so you have more money for cocktails!
When To Travel
Mid week travel – Tuesday / Wednesday / Thursday – Most people want to go weekend to weekend. Look for anti social flight times - early morning / late at night and also look at nearby airports too so for example, choose north west rather than just Manchester and South East rather than Heathrow as it may save you a fortune.
Also, use the flexible search and search for + or – 3 days either side of the dates you can go.
Consider going for 10 or 11 nights rather than 14 as they can work out a lot cheaper but you still get a decent length break.
Larger Families & Groups
Try looking for a villa or apartment rather than a hotel if you have a larger than average family or are travelling in a group. It can work out loads cheaper and you get a whole pool to yourself!
James Holiday's Last Minute Villas
Sign Up
Sign up to airline and holiday company newsletters and follow them on social media - Facebook & Twitter to hear 1st about flash sales / upcoming offers and discounts. Please make sure they are the official pages though as lots of fakes ones. Always look for the official blue tick.
Create accounts with package holiday websites such as TUI and Thomas Cook so you can save your details and shortlists to your account so you can check them super fast several times per day without typing your details in over and over again and it works on both mobile and desktop sites.
Flights
Sign up to Skyscanner price alerts - they email you every day telling you whether the price of a flight you are interested in has dropped, risen, or stayed the same if you have a trigger point price.
Kayak will compare flight prices for you including baggage so you get the total cost rather than getting a shock when you add your baggage costs both ways. They also have private deals and recommendations for members to sign up and get access which is a free service.
Hopper App - Get a link sent straight to your phone by putting in your phone number at Hopper. Allow push notifications so the bunny can watch for deals and discounts for you and tell you when prices fall or just before they are about to rise. You can search for both flights and hotels on this app. Really handy on the go.
Google Flights has suggestions on cheap destinations, shows you flight prices for every day for a year in graph format so you can easily see the best times and prices visually. You can search by date or budget and it will make suggestions of where you can go on that date or for your budget, places that you might not of even thought about or considered.
Toms seat hack for getting the best seats for no upgrade fee with Ryanair. It really works!
Travelling With Young Children
Check if you can take your child's car seat and buggy for free on top of your usual baggage allowance. Many airlines give you free checked in car seats and buggies in addition to your usual allowance. Saves you money if you are hiring a car as they can be £5 or more per day extra for a car seat or if you plan on taking taxis. Easyjet let you take 2 items for free so you could choose a travel cot and a buggy to save extra expense at the hotel by taking your own travel cot.
Trips & Excursions
Book trips online in advance rather than at your destination – look on Trip Advisor to see the best day trips / excursions at your resort and look at any fellow traveller's reviews and tips for bagging them cheaper.
Look and see if there are any local Groupon deals for dining / day trips or entry tickets for where you are going by changing the location.
Use Florida Tix website for booking Disney and Universal tickets and passes with offers such as Disney passes 14 days for the price of 7 with Disney Fast Pass included and Disney Memory Maker which stores all of your ride pictures online for you to view and print out when you get home too.
Insurance & Medical Treatment
Nobody plans on getting ill on holiday or having to cancel their holiday but it does happen.
Make sure you are covered for free or discounted medical care in the EU and Switzerland by getting a FREE EHIC Card
Never book your travel insurance as part of your package holiday – you can get the same or even better cover for much cheaper elsewhere. Plus, if you go through Compare The Market they search the best deals for you and you get free 2 for 1 Meerkat movies and meals for a whole year as well.
Make sure you book your travel insurance straight away so you are covered for any medical or personal reasons that will stop you going on holiday – don’t leave it until the last minute. Also, if you go on more than 2 trips per year, it is probably worth getting an annual policy rather than 2 individual ones as it often works out cheaper to do it that way.
Travel Money
Halifax Clarity Travel Credit card - You can get £20 cash back through Halifax until 29th August just for opening an account and using it with in the first 90 days of having it (UK or abroad). They don't charge usage, withdrawal or foreign transaction fees and have a fair exchange rate set by Mastercard.
Charging & Power
If you have lots of electrical thing that need charging on holiday, this is a great hack. Buy a cheap 1 metre, 4 plug extension cable from the pound shop and one EU plug adapter and then you have 4 sockets to charge all your phones, tablets and cameras from without worrying about socket points or having lots of EU plug adapters.
Last Minute Package Holiday Links
Few links to last minute deals - worth trying at different times of the day and night as they are updated with cancellations all the time so get your card ready and pounce when you see the price and destination that you want.
Co-Op Travel Last Minute Deals
Olympic Holidays Have a code for Extra £50 off per person with code SUMMER50 on all holidays £229+
1) Search for discount codes here
2) Sort deals by category and topic
3) Find deals for a specific retailer here
4) Use our Amazon tool to find hidden discounts
5) Want to make money online? Top paid survey sites
This is fantastic! Thank you for writing up such a detailed deal post. This will really help people who are looking for a travel bargain.
Brill thanks for the tips! Anything on airport lounges that secure a discount at all and parking? Would be fantastic to have everything under one thread.
Love travelling , just came back from two weeks in disney world Orlando , already planning next year holidays wish we had more annual leave , thanks for posting
This is such a useful post, thank you so much for sharing. i have been hoping to find some good deals so this is great timing!
Some good tips but would not recommend the electric socket idea, first it will take up more room in your bag and second depending where you are staying if you plug all your gadgets in it could pose a fire risk. I would stick to the traditional adaptors, you still an adaptor to plug it in, in the first place. How many gadgets do people need plugged in all in one go. Your suppose to be on holiday not an electrician working for Currys.
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