Expedia
In 2004 when my sister and brother-in-law came to visit me in England I booked a 4-day trip to Dublin with them. We had to stay in 2 different hotels for our stay because the hotel I chose was fully booked on our last night. That’s when I “discovered” Expedia! Flight and hotel in a package at a reasonable price!! What’s more I could choose the dates and the length of my stay at a hotel of my choice! I had some memorable holidays with Expedia between 2005 and 2010.
The best deal was a 5-night stay at a 4* hotel in the heart of Vienna in the last week of August, including the bank holiday weekend, in 2006. The total price for flight and accommodation was under £200 per person!!
However, there were restrictions with Expedia. The holidays had to be paid in full upfront. The choice of airlines and departure times were also very limited and restricted
Booking.com
British Airways is my preferred airline. When I found out that by booking well in advance I could have very good deals plus air miles (before avios and when they were more generous with air miles) with which I could book free flights. For instance, a return flight to Nice for only a service charge of £35 can’t be bad! Why bother with low-cost airlines!! Once the flights were taken care of I started to look for hotels. That’s when I came across Booking.com. There were (and are) such a wide range of hotels to choose from; no deposit and no cancellation charge! All these immediately made Booking.com my holiday planner. It was great to be able to split the cost of flight and hotel. Booking.com is great for hotels in the UK too.
British Airways Holidays
In 2017, while browsing the BA site for a flight to Krakow, I came across their flight and hotel package offers. The savings were amazing! And for a deposit of £150 (£300 for Moscow) for 2 people, I was able to secure the flight and the hotel with the balance due 6 weeks before departure. I have had 4 wonderful BA holidays so far and have booked 6 more for 2018!