Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity Hawaii Promotions
I received the Expedia promotion above in an email, which got me wondering what the competition might have to offer. Here’s what I found. Let me know if these are useful for you. Most are valid outside Hawaii as well.
First, my shopping suggestion for the best deal
Try looking at hotel and air separately. In today’s economy there are often better bargains to be found by contacting the hotel property directly by phone or on their website. Sometimes though, online travel agency packages work out to be the best deal. I’ve bought them myself. Compare before you buy. It’s always a good idea to check to see what promotions they may be running first, just by Googling “Expedia promotions” for example.
Expedia
1. Receive $10 off per night of hotel stay, min 2 nights. Book by May 31. Use Coupon code: 10MA.
2. Last night free sale valid at 59 Hawaii hotels. Book by May 31 for travel through June 15. Minimum 3 night stay.
Orbitz
1. Book a qualifying flight + hotel package by July 30. Stay 3 or more nights through August 31 and receive $75 off your booking. Select “I have a promotion code,” enter 75orbit, then look for packages marked with the word “COUPON.”
2. 30% off hotel sale. Just look for the $BIGsale! icon to find the deal. Book by May 31.
Travelocity
To redeem your instant $75 discount on qualifying flight plus hotel purchase, enter promotional code HAWAII 75 on the billing page. Book by May 31, 2009. Valid only for Hawaii travel.
I think they key to finding a great deal is to figure out when to fly for the least amount of money. For my trip to Kauai in April I first used Orbitz’s “Flexible Stays” flight search option to see what days during April had the cheapest flights for the days I had available for travel. Orbitz gives you a grid of prices showing you what it costs to leave and depart on different days during the range of dates you give them. Some days are hundreds of dollars less than others.
Once I knew the cheapest days I went back to the other travel sites (Travelocity, Expedia, and smaller-named travel agencies) and searched for hotel/airfare deals using those exact dates. This was really helpful because then I knew how much the hotel costs were (since I could subtract the cost of the flight from the total) and I could compare that to booking the flight and hotel alone.
I ended up booking with Pleasant Holidays simply because their hotel/flight package was much less expensive than every other site I looked at (for one particular hotel), and I ended up adding a convertible car though them because their rental car deal beat even Hotwire. One thing I didn’t do was to call the hotel directly but I’ll be sure to try that next time.
Thanks for sharing your tips Alba!
Jeff