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Planning a holiday is definitely an exciting thing to do, but it can also be quite stressful, and if you’re not careful and shopping around, then the money aspect can get out of control.

Although there are many great offers available through travel agents, websites, and even hotels and airlines direct, they sometimes only appear great on the surface until you dig a little deeper.

When it comes to travel, you have to be more savvy and actually look around in different places to ensure you get the best deals and can actually save money on your next trip, not only before you go, but whilst there, too.

Budget isn’t always best:

although the rise in budget airlines over the past decade or so has really made it easier to travel for less, they’re now having to up their game and compete with the bigger airlines for ticket sales. So, while you may think at first glance that the ticket with the budget airline is cheaper, it can actually include a lot of hidden extras that aren’t immediately made known until you start moving further through the booking process. On a few occasions, I’ve been very surprised to find that the budget airline ticket would cost me much more than just booking through a non-budget airline. While non-budget airlines list their full ticket price to include everything like baggage allowance, taxes, etc, many budget ones simply list the seat price, and then you have to pay extra to add bags, and it can soon mount up, so it pays to do an actual comparison because you can really save yourself some money here.

Check comparison websites:

When booking something like a flight or even a package holiday, you shouldn’t just go for the very first deal that pops up - even if it’s through a travel search engine where all airlines are compared. There are many times when I’ve looked online for a flight and thought I was getting a great deal, then looked either directly with the airline or on another website only to find that I could get the exact same flight, exact same route, exact same everything, but the only difference was I’d be paying a few hundred less. I don’t pretend to know anything about booking system or airline algorithms, but I know that the difference I made in savings was huge, so why wouldn’t I want to save money on that ticket?

Look on specialist websites:

There are so many travel and booking portals out there today, and each of them claim to be unbeatable on price and also claim to have the best offers when compared to booking directly with the airline, hotel, etc. What I’ve found in some cases, though, is: it can actually be better to avoid those portals and book directly through a specialist website, with the airline directly or with the hotel directly. For example, if you want to book a cruise, instead of searching through all the listings and hoping for the best deal on a travel portal, you could look for cruise deals at Bolsover cruises who only focus on that one thing, and will likely find you a great deal. Another example of this, is with hotels. Many times, you’ll find you get a much better deal by booking directly through their website, or even a website that focuses only on hotels.

Book flights and hotel individually:

Although the more common way of booking a holiday involves booking a complete package with everything included for convenience, it’s not always the best option if you’re looking to save some money. Of course, if the savings are very small, then you would probably be best just going for the full package because they definitely are more convenient in a lot of ways, but if the difference in price is pretty substantial, then it actually makes more sense to look at booking each part of your trip individually. Check out the airline prices for just the fight, and then look at the hotel costs without the flight, you may even find yourself a better deal, such as half board or all inclusive through booking with the hotel directly that you wouldn’t find on a travel portal, and then just arrange your own travel.

Whether you’re looking for a luxury dream destination, or just a quick break in the sun, there are obviously many ways to save yourself a bit of money when it comes to booking a trip, but these are the main ones I’ve found that can actually result in pretty massive savings, and all it takes is a little extra time to dig around the internet and doing some comparisons - but it can be absolutely worth it for what you save in the long run.