When we booked our first holiday to America in 2015 we were clueless. We’d been abroad together before but never on a long haul flight and we’d never booked a holiday as big as going to Orlando for two weeks. We found the whole process to be so much different to booking an average holiday so today I thought I’d share how we found booking a holiday to America.
This is not your average beach break
If you’ve never booked a big holiday like this forget everything you know about booking European holidays because it’s just not in the same league. European breaks tend to be fairly simple to book, low cost, stress free and can usually be booked independently rather than as a package to get the best deal. We found booking a holiday to America to be a completely different experience to booking our European holidays.
Arm yourself with a notebook and pen
You’re going to need to take notes and organise your thoughts. It’s not quick and simple and you need to remember prices, websites and dates so you really need to write stuff down. Remember you’re still looking for the best deal and after a few websites it’s easy to forget all the number so you’re best of writing stuff down as you found it as it’ll make comparing the figures later on much easier.
Get comfy
You’re in this for the long haul. It took us 8 hours to find and book the perfect holiday the first time we booked an American holiday. If you’re a newbie chances are you aren’t going to be booking something within the first half an hour of looking and you shouldn’t be doing that anyway. You need to do some proper research.
Know what you want before you start looking
Have a decent idea of your budget, the area you want to stay and other things such as places you want to visit so you can see how easy it is to travel to other places from your hotel location. The last thing you want is to spend 10 hours travelling to America only to find the hotel you booked is no where near any of the attractions you wanted to visit.
Go it alone
Booking through lets say Virgin is much quicker and simpler than finding things yourself, however it is so much more expensive as well. For example our exact holiday (same dates, same hotel) back in 2015 costs £867 more by booking with Virgin. This is why you need to research and why you need to know exactly what you’re looking for because whereas a package is simpler it’s often not cheaper so you need to be prepared for booking more things yourself.
Look, look and look some more
Holiday’s to America from the U.K. are not cheap so you really want to be getting the best for your money. Check on every website you can think of and weigh up all the options. This is where the notebook will come in handy as you’ll be looking at lots of different dates, hotels and prices and you need to keep note of where you find the most suitable deals.
Get quotes with a reference number
If you’re phoning or emailing travel companies for quotes be sure to get the name of the person you have spoken to and a reference number, that way your quotes and holiday details can easily be traced if you phone them back to book.
Factor in extra costs
When you’ve got a price for the flights and hotel be sure to factor in things such as baggage (a lot of airlines now charge extra for luggage), return transfers and resort fees to make sure the holiday you’ve found is still within your price range.
When you think you’ve find the one just double check
When you think you’ve found the perfect holiday just double check everything to make sure you really have got the best deal you can find.
When it’s all done get excited
Congratulations you’ve booked your holiday! After hours and hours of searching it’s all done and now the fun can begin. It’s time to get excited!
Do you have any tips for booking long haul holidays? Leave a comment below.
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