Flash Sales – Luxury Link – FamilyGetaway – Vacationist

We used SniqueAway to get a great deal on our room at the Shores Resort and Spa in Daytona, Florida at the beginning of June. Like Seize the Deal and Groupon with their popular deals of the day, numerous sites have popped up offering short term/flash sales for travel. These ‘member’s only/private sales’ typically run for about a week and offer 20-60% off of regular prices at luxury hotels and resorts around the world. It could just be a flash in the pan like the deep airfare discount sites of the early 00’s. (Oh, how I miss them.) But still, they’re worth looking into as you do your travel planning. It doesn’t cost a thing to become a member, and you get a nominal credit for recommending the sites to friends (should they also book.) Keep in mind many do not offer a refund for cancellations so be sure to read the fine print in the terms of service. Also keep in mind, that if you sign up you’ll find yourself with a lot of tempting spam in your email inbox.

Today I was looking at Vacationist, part of the Luxury Link travel group. One of the travelers that I follow recommended it during a recent podcast. Launched last year as a partnership between Travel + Leisure and Luxury Link, Vacationist offers 3-7 day sales with 25-40% off of regular prices. They have a virtually identical business model to SniqueAway, but their locations are more varied and international. Nothing fancy, just quick sales in beautiful places. 

Luxury Link, itself offers both live auctions and fixed price rooms with up to 65% off the room price. They have an enormous selection of properties as well as vacation packages and tours worldwide. Luxury Link is impressive just for the shear scale and diversity of their offerings. Their site is broken out to include destinations, interests, and property types. I actually ended up lost in their site for a couple hours poring over what they had to offer. I can honestly say that this was the first time I’ve found myself browsing for accommodations by ‘Villas, Estates and Castles.’

Within this same group of companies, FamilyGetaway.com takes the same model and applies a ‘family-friendly luxury’ spin; big discounts, buy now and auction offerings but at family focused destinations. FamilyGetaway includes theme parks and portal for hotels with ‘cool pools.’ How cool is that?

I know there are more of these sites competing for our every shrinking travel dollars, if you have a favorite or you’d like to recommend one to us, please let me know. 

Snique Away

I received an invitation to join SniqueAway a few months ago from George Hobica of Airfarewatchdog. SniqueAway, which is a part of the same company that owns TripAdvisor, is a member’s only site offering short run sales at luxury resorts and 4 and 5 star hotels, mainly in North America and the Caribbean. The sales run about a week and the savings can be pretty significant. We were able to book a weekend at a four star hotel for what we were going to get at a nearby budget hotel for our upcoming trip to Florida. If you know you’re going to be traveling and you are interested doing some comparison shopping it’s worth getting the alerts. You can use this invite from me to sign up. 

If you’ve already used it, let me know how it went.

Oyster Hotel Reviews

I was listening to the This Week in Travel podcast today, and they mentioned Oyster Hotel Reviews. I hadn’t heard of it before. As you do your travel planning, you might want to check it out. It looks like a good site, well laid out, lots of pictures, interactive, not a lot of locations, but still. With the explosion of travel websites and blogs out there, easy to use sites are a blessing. Jenni and I need to find a hotel for New York, so I thought it’d be worth looking through.

It did get me thinking, you should keep in mind as you look through all the feedback and reviews that travelers post on the Internet, some people have their own agendas when they post their reviews on TripAdvisor, etc. Some people will knock hotels just for the sake of being cruel, or to blackmail someone. Sometimes people are unreasonable, and sometimes Basil Fawlty is running the hotel. You just never know. Travel can bring a lot of the unexpected, and it brings out the best and worst in all of us. Sometimes it’s all about perspective. So, always ask yourself, what sort of traveler am I? I think Oyster looked pretty cool. They posted a little bit about who the reviewers were and what their backgrounds are. And that’s a step in the right direction.

Downing and Benson – Flights, Tickets, Vacations, Cruises, Cheap Travel, Hotels, Cars, Cheap Tickets | Homepage for Montrose Travel.com

Jenni and I wanted to make it easier to make travel deals available to our friends and family. We’re working with Montrose Travel to provide travel consulting and booking. Take a look through the site and check out the deals that are available. Let us know if you have any questions.

Downing and Benson – Flights, Tickets, Vacations, Cruises, Cheap Travel, Hotels, Cars, Cheap Tickets | Homepage for Montrose Travel.com

Travelfish

Travelfish is a great a resource for the independent traveler heading for Southeast Asia.

Backpacking travel guide for Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Singapore. Includes itinerary advice, hotel and guesthouse reviews, maps, photos and general planning advice. All at www.travelfish.org

Hoxton Hotels: Book cheap hotel rooms in Central London

For years I’ve been trying to land a 1 pound room at the Hoxton Hotel in the City of London. I haven’t had a lot of success. But though Brits are probably dreaming about Ibiza right now, I’m listening to Massive Attack and dreaming about London. Though there might be better times to visit London, like June; there’s never a bad time to visit. The former capital of the British empire is a world unto itself with an endless supply of attractions to visit, some a bit pricey but many absolutely free. Unfortunately it’s also a consistently expensive destination. If you can get a room for a pound, or 29 pounds, it can certainly lighten the load.

I’ve never stayed at the Hoxton, but since it opened in 2006 I’ve read only positive reviews. They run 1 pound sales every few months, so keep your eyes pealed. They typically sell 500 rooms in about 10 minutes. But who knows, it could be your lucky day.

Hoxton Hotel £1 Room Sale

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HomeAway Vacation Rentals: Beach Houses, Condos, Cabins, Villas & Vacation Rental Homes

HomeAway Vacation Rentals: Beach Houses, Condos, Cabins, Villas & Vacation Rental Homes

Jenni and I have been looking for a place for a mid-winter ski getaway with our family. There are going to be 11 of us. I’d blogged earlier about how much we like renting homes. Here’s a good site to help in your travel planning.

Self-Catering Rentals

Jenni and I have rented apartments on our last couple of trips. It’s a great option if you’re bringing your extended family or all the kids. I don’t mind staying in hotels, but it’s a hotel. An apartment, or even a house, gives you your own living space. The kids can have their own bedrooms, you can make what you want to eat in the kitchen, and having your own yard or a fireplace is pretty cool.

Our apartment in Ireland was a converted stable. We had three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. Downstairs was the living room, kitchen, and half bath. All the pots and pans, plates, blankets, etc were provided. I would walk down the local grocery and buy our food, and we had a family meals in the kitchen just like at home.

The apartment we had in the Cotswolds was one of the nicest places I think we’ve stayed. We didn’t have the kids with us on that trip, but our apartment was cheaper than the hotels and B&B’s around us. Broadway Cottage had two bedrooms and bath upstairs, with a large living room and kitchen downstairs. We also had laundry facilities to share with the cottage next door. The luggage was lost during this trip and we used the laundry constantly. Since we were out in the country you could hear the sheep in the fields and the air was full of nice country smells. I always remember the smell of the rosemary they planted around the building. Jenni and I would walk across a field and take a little bridge over the brook to get to the grocery store in Broadway. We’d meet people coming and going and we’d stop and say hello to them.

Just another thing to think about when you’re planning your trip. It can be very economical if you’re bringing a large group of people with you. And it can certainly make your stay feel more like home. You give up the luxury of people waiting on you and cleaning your room, but you also don’t have to eat in restaurants or feel cramped up in a tiny hotel room. It’s becoming more of a popular trend, so do a little homework when you’re selecting your next destination. You might find this to be the way to go.

Bad Leo’s Diving

My buddy, Bob runs Bad Leo’s Diving. He’s no vegetarian, and I’m no diver. But Bob has a great passion for what he does; he takes great photos of his trips too. I credit Bob with recommending Bermuda to me last year. He’d spent some time working there several years ago and loved it. When I was looking for an island Jenni and I could visit, he provided me with some excellent information. I even stayed at the Elbo Beach Hotel, which Bob recommended. Fantastic trip!

If you’re a diver, or want to become one, check out Bob’s website.

Bad Leo’s Diving

Cheers!

KAYAK

KAYAK

Kayak is a constantly evolving travel search engine. It was started in 2004 by the co-founders of Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia. The site aggregates information from other travel sites, consolidators, airlines, hotel chains and online travel agencies. It’s a pretty cool, intuitive site and the search engine does some of the grunt work of sorting through the clutter.

I’d read in Budget Travel magazine that Kayak is going to allow: Search Sharing, where you can share your search results with others who might be traveling with you. Search Snooping, which allows you to enter your home airport and watch as the best fares other searchers are finding from that airport pop up in real time, and Search On The Go, Kayak’s iPhone app which allows for searching when you’re mobile.

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