Friday, July 20, 2012

My Top 5 Travel Web Sites




My Top 5 Travel Web Sites - You may have never heard about some of these

       There are so many travel web sites out there, even I get confused and lost when I am trying to book a vacation. In my opinion, the Expedia's, Travelocity's and Orbitz of the cyber world are pretty much the same. They will help you book your trip and get you on vacation. But then there are some web sites that I have discovered that offer incredible deals on vacations and make you feel quite smart as a traveler.

1) Yapta.com - This is one of my favorite web sites because it helps you do something that just sticks it to the airlines. Yapta.com is a free site that will help you track airfares as they go up and down. We've seen this before with other sites like farecompare.com. But what makes Yapta.com so great is, it will also help you get a refund even after you booked your flight.



     All you have to do is give them your email address and then search for the flight you want. When you find the right price, Yapta.com sends you to the airline's web site to book the ticket. If the ticket price drops between the time you booked the trip and your departure date, Yapta.com will send you an email. Most airlines will refund you the difference in price if you call them. The airline won't alert you to the fact that the ticket price dropped. That wouldn't be good for business. But Yapta.com will and it saved me about $500 on a trip to Costa Rica with American Airlines. Keep in mind that not all airlines will refund the difference but Yapta.com has a list of the ones that will.



2) Seatguru.com - All airplane seats are not created equal. I love airplanes and I love flying first or business class when I can. Even when I fly economy, I always want to find the best seat on the plane. That's what seatguru.com does. Seatguru.com has information and reviews about almost every airline. When you are booking your flight and they give you the option to choose your seats, open up a new web page, log into seatguru.com, and look for the airline and type of plane you are flying on and seatguru.com will help you find the best seat to reserve. Some seats are too close to the bathroom. Other seats don't have windows or don't recline. There are all sorts of reviews that may surprise you. Even with business and first class seats, you can end up with a seat that doesn't recline as much or one that is too close to the galley where all the flight attendants are making noise while they perform the inflight service. Seatguru.com is a site I bookmarked and I use it everytime I book a ticket.



3) Sceptretours.com - I don't remember how I came across this site but, when it comes to vacations to Italy, Great Britain and Ireland, they have amazing deals. I remember the first deal I talked about. It was a vacation they were offering to Dublin, Ireland for 7 nights. The package included the roundtrip airfare from New York, 7 nights at the Ritz Carlton Powerscourt in Dublin and a rental car. I think the total price was around $1000 per person. I thought to myself, "that is absolutely amazing." Just the flight to Dublin could cost that price, roundtrip. This is why sceptretours.com became another one of my favorite travel web sites.



4) Travelbyjen.com - I don't know who Jen is but she has some amazing vacation deals to the Caribbean. The first time I found the web site, I saw a vacation to Cancun. It was to a luxury resort and the package gave you an oceanview suite, roundtrip airfare from New York, a $500 resort credit to use at the spa or for your incidental charges and the resort was all-inclusive, meaning all your food and drinks were included. This package was for a 5 day vacation and the price was $799 per person. Do I have to say anymore? I would bookmark the site. www.travelbyjen.com



5) Floridavacationauction.com - I am not supposed to call it the Ebay of travel, since the owner of the site, Sal Dickinson would snicker at me but that's what it really is, "The Ebay of travel." Floridavacationauction.com is a travel web site where you bid on Florida vacations. You can save 60% or more on trips. Sal has all sorts of hotels on his site, from luxury properties to places that your kids will love. Some of the resorts he has are right near Disney World or on a beautiful beach in The Keys. He also has some auctions for activities. His site is so easy to use. It's free and, when you win an auction, the price includes all taxes and fees. There really aren't any taxes and fees, since your winning bid is what you pay. All the auctions start on Sunday night and last for one week. The winner is notified the following Sunday. You first look at a map of Florida and choose the area you want to travel to. Then you scroll through a list of active auctions. As I am writing this story, Sal has an auction up for a vacation at the historic Biltmore Hotel in Miami. The vacation package is for five days and four nights.You get a junior suite and, in this case, you do have to pay a resort fee of $20 per day but that is not normally the case. The retail value of this vacation is $1,521.88. You can buy this package immediately, without bidding for $813.48. The opening bid is only $305.00. Have you bookmarked his website yet?


There is one other site that I would recommend you check frequently. It's my site,www.travelnewsanddeals.com. You can check all of my favorite travel web sites and see the most current vacation deals from all over the Internet. Happy travels everyone.

1 comment:

  1. I like travelling and if I have to come to Hollywood to make a movie I will, but otherwise I'd never move there. It's very much an industry town and that doesn't really interest me.
    Flights to Addis Ababa
    Cheap Flights to Addis Ababa
    Cheap Air Tickets to Addis Ababa

    ReplyDelete