Booking a vacation online
It is easy to go on holiday
One of the first things lots of students do is check the academic calendar to see when they can book a vacation. Regardless of the type of vacation you’re going to take this year, a quick and easy way to research and book it will be by doing it online.
Whether it’s a vacation with friends from your old town, new friends that you’ve made at Hampshire College or even if you’re just going on your own - booking online is simple and straightforward. It also doesn’t matter where or when you want to go on your vacation, by using online booking services you’ll find a great deal to suit your needs. You are already used to buying concert, event and theater tickets online, so why not try it with flights and accomodation, too?
If it’s a vacation in the USA, back-packing around Europe, South America or Asia - you can be in full control of your schedule, budget and choice of accommodation.
Types of online vacation booking websites
There are online vacation booking sites that combine deals for travel and accommodation as well as those that just offer services for travel or accommodation. Whilst booking everything online from one site can be tempting because of the convenience of not having to search separate travel and accommodation sites it might not offer the best deal.
You will have to spend some time comparing travel and accommodation online booking websites to ones that combine the two things. One thing for sure is that you will get a better deal than if you try and book over the phone or by using a travel agent.
For both travel and accommodation offers look at the ratings that they are given and what other internet user say about their services etc in reviews that they post on the websites.
Be organized!
The first thing to do is, of course, have a clear plan of where you want to be, for how long and how much you’re willing to pay for it. If you decide to use separate travel and accommodation sites you will, at some point, need to make firm and quick decisions.
If you find a great offer for say the travel and then spend days finding the accommodation you might find the travel option has already been fully booked by others. Leaving you with travel tickets to your destination - but no where to stay, or vice-versa.
In other words having done your research have both the accommodation and travel pages loaded into your browser, book one then immediately book the other. Don’t forget of course when you make your bookings you’ll be using a credit card.
Satisfy yourself that you are on secure and safe travel website and also establish if the payment will be deducted at the moment you confirm the booking online or when you collect the travel tickets or arrive at the accommodation. Of course some vacations are easier to book online than others.
If you’re booking a hiking vacation in Western Massachusetts, then using the official government websites is as easy as pie.
Making a good deal a great one
Booking your travel online is usually quite a ‘blind’ process, you may or may not be able to reserve specific seats or if you’re travelling by airplane establish the make of plane.
However, when booking accommodation I wouldn’t use a website that hasn’t got photographs of the building, preferably showing its location, and some samples of the rooms as well as descriptions of them. Whilst of course its not a guarantee of what to expect when you get there at least you might establish if its right on a busy road or has tiny rooms that are described as ‘cozy’ or something similar!
Presuming you’ve found a great deal for your vacation accommodation online, let’s just say it’s a hotel, there’s another step you can take to try and keep your costs as low as possible. The website you’re using could well be an agency that the hotel uses. The hotel will undoubtedly have to pay that agency a commission on any booking that’s made through the agency’s website.
Doing a little more internet research and finding out if the hotel has its own website can pay a dividend. If the hotel does have its own website - can you book directly with the hotel and by avoiding paying the agency commission you'll get an even better deal. If you’re booking a vacation abroad don’t worry about not speaking their language. Their website will almost certainly have an English language version - as English is the lingua franca. Also, if you’re using e.mail to contact them you could always use an internet translation service like BabelFish.