Discounts and Deal Aggregators/Sites

[Andy Hayes]

Researching a piece and curious for Tripatini input:

• If you're a travel agent or tour provider, what discounts & deal sites have you used that you would recommend? Why?  (If you're a deal site, please spare us the press spiel and instead invite one of your happy customers to come share their view with us?)
• If you're a traveller, what deal sites do you use on a regular basis (and by 'use' I mean actually purchased from).  Why do you like the ones you use?

I'm looking at this more from the perspective of the smaller, more niche businesses.  I know that TravelZoo has unparalleled purchasing power, but many of the small businesses I know who have great deals and are of interest to travellers like myself don't have budgets that TravelZoo and the like require (nor can they handle the volume of traffic a successful TravelZoo campaign).

Thanks for the input!

[Anil]

For hotels, I use hotelscombined.com which is a meta search engine. It displays rates quoted by different vendors. For reviews tripadvisor supplements any decision I may be about to make. For flights I still stick with my airline's alliance for the most part. Going to a new place for the first time requires a lot more patience and due diligence about the city, its neighborhoods before deciding on a neighborhood to pick for the hotel.

Hope this helps.

[Andy Hayes]

Thanks Joanna, Anil!

[Danielle Russo]

Hi Andy,
We have had some great success with a few deals offered on our own site. for example the 10 Euro Vatican Tour offer which is valid when you purchase one of a few other tours at regular price you can get the Vatican for 10 Euro. We also have a "buy three, one goes free" deal. We call them our "crisis-buster" tours :)

link here: http://www.wheninrometours.com/Tours/Group-Walking-Tours/Vatican-Ci...

[Andy Hayes]

Will check it out Danielle, thanks!

Danielle Russo said:

Hi Andy,
We have had some great success with a few deals offered on our own site. for example the 10 Euro Vatican Tour offer which is valid when you purchase one of a few other tours at regular price you can get the Vatican for 10 Euro. We also have a "buy three, one goes free" deal. We call them our "crisis-buster" tours :)

link here: http://www.wheninrometours.com/Tours/Group-Walking-Tours/Vatican-Ci...

[Donna Hull]

Andy,
I use Kayak to research flights then go directly to the airline sites to compare and purchase the ticket.

[Andy Hayes]

Cool, thanks Donna.

Donna Hull said:

Andy,
I use Kayak to research flights then go directly to the airline sites to compare and purchase the ticket.

[Tony Humphrey]

We may be a 'deal' site but we do not sell travel....we invite our tour providers to offer direct booking discounts to our members....and we do not charge them for any of our listing or promo services....every item at TheTopTravelClub.com is discounted for Direct Bookers....or DIY travellers.
Every traveller needs this......One of the best deals is for Travel Insurance at discounts of up to 40%.....100% of savings go to members.....the family membership fees are easily recovered with our direct bookings links.

[Mary Jo Manzanares]

I use Kayak and/or Fare Compare to get some preliminary idea about fares. I occasionally check with Vayama as well, but for some reason I haven't really gotten used to checking with them.

I prefer NOT to buy my tickets from a 3rd party site, much preferring to go directly to the airline. If anything goes wrong, I'd prefer to deal directly with the airline for resolution, rather than with a 3rd party. That said, I booked by Rome tickets through Cheap Tickets. At the time the savings was around $300-ish per ticket, so that clinched the deal for me.

For hotels, I used Hotwire.com if it's a city that I'm familiar with (I will know what hotels are represented by the opaque listing). If not, I tend to muddle around, and haven't really found a site that I love.

[Andy Hayes]

Thanks MJ - wasn't familiar with Vayama.... And know what you mean by the 3rd party thing. Always kind of worrying.

Mary Jo Manzanares said:

I use Kayak and/or Fare Compare to get some preliminary idea about fares. I occasionally check with Vayama as well, but for some reason I haven't really gotten used to checking with them.

I prefer NOT to buy my tickets from a 3rd party site, much preferring to go directly to the airline. If anything goes wrong, I'd prefer to deal directly with the airline for resolution, rather than with a 3rd party. That said, I booked by Rome tickets through Cheap Tickets. At the time the savings was around $300-ish per ticket, so that clinched the deal for me.

For hotels, I used Hotwire.com if it's a city that I'm familiar with (I will know what hotels are represented by the opaque listing). If not, I tend to muddle around, and haven't really found a site that I love.