Tips For Booking A Vacation

If you want to book a vacation and want to do it at a good price with reputable companies, then this is the guide for you.

Read this to avoid getting scammed booking a vacation! Something that sadly many people encounter.

• Shop around. This is very important. Do this for everything! Flights, hotels, rental cars, insurance etc. Most things can be found cheaper if you shop around. Don’t just find a price and book unless you are very rich and aren’t bothered about saving money.
  
• Check the site is reputable. Read reviews on TripAdvisor, Trustpilot and Google reviews, ask on social media, read travel blogs etc. Don’t just book via any old site you find because the price was good! This is how so many get scammed booking via dodgy sites.
  
• If you are booking a flight or holiday, check that the supplier is ATOL and/or ABTA protected. ATOL is for flights and ABTA is for holidays. This gives you extra protection.
  
• Check to see if you need a Visa, ESTA, ESA or a similar visa travel waiver. Don’t assume you don’t need one! Even if you have a connection in a different country, you might need one, so do your research as if you don’t have one, you may get turned away and your travel insurance won’t cover you for YOUR mistake.
  
• Pay on a credit card if over £100. This gives you section 75 protection so if there are any major issues with the company such as it goes bankrupt, you can try to claim your money back if needed via your credit card. A debit card has chargeback, but you can’t do a section 75 using a debit card, only credit card.
  
• If you pay via PayPal, you are only getting PayPal protection, not section 75. Be aware of that.
  
• Extremely small budget? If you have a very small budget, then a hostel is probably better for you than a hotel. You can get a cheap room in a hotel, sometimes for a very small amount of money. Check prices and see the difference.
  
• Is booking via an app cheaper? There are a few companies who give a discount for booking via their app.
  
• Book separately or together? If you book your vacation separately, i.e. hotel and flight from two different companies, then you may save money, but it can be cheaper to book them at the same time from the same company. Try quotes for both and see which is cheaper for you.
  
• Remember to buy travel insurance. Whether that is a single trip or annual depending on how many trips you are planning to do in a year. If you are going to go away more than once, it is almost always cheaper to buy annual travel insurance.
  
• Make sure annual travel insurance starts when you start booking and NOT on your departure date. i.e. if you book your flight on January 1st, your annual travel insurance should start the same day, NOT the date of your trip! You are only covered for cancellations and travel disruption if the insurance is already in place before your trip. This is something lots of people do incorrectly.
  
• If you have a criminal record, check to see if you need a Visa as some countries require Visa’s and some countries don’t allow people who have been convicted of certain crimes, to even visit their country. Check first.
  
• Finally, when you are away, if you use credit or debit card, it is usually cheaper to pay in the LOCAL currency rather than asking them to convert. Pay the local price as they charge large conversion fees. Check with your bank to see what fees they charge for currency conversion.

Some Sites You Can Use:

These are some good sites to use that have good prices for your travel booking that I have used myself:

• Trip.com (flights, hotels, cars)
• Qeeq (rental cars and hotels)
• Autoeurope (rental cars)
• Getrentacar (rental cars)
• WayAway (flights)
• CedarTree Insurance (Travel insurance)
• CoverForYou (Travel insurance)
• Medical Travel Insurance (Travel insurance)

There are of course other companies too, but these are ones I have personally used in the past and can personally recommend.
(I don’t like to recommend companies I haven’t tried myself as I feel that is not the truth and I like to be honest.)