LONDON, January 6, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
Plus: Top Five Tips to Save Even More
on a Break
With most people now back to work and the nights gradually
getting shorter, thoughts will inevitably be drifting to Easter
breaks, summer holidays and sunnier climes. By making use of a few
simple tips, it's easy to save big when booking a break - and our
experts suggest Sunday 8 January could be an ideal day to book.
This is based on data from Expedia.co.uk, who analysed billions
of data points to find that for those travelling within
Europe, savings on average ticket
prices by booking on a Sunday can be around 30 percent compared to
other days of the week. Meanwhile, January is the best month to buy
economy round trip tickets starting in Europe for all regions except the US, meaning
great value on a holiday can be found this Sunday.
To help save even more on your booking, here are five more top
tips on how to get the most from your travel budget.
Book your trip at the right time
Purchasing airplane tickets 21 days or more in advance offers
the best prices-especially for trips within Europe and the
United States. Some trips can give discounts of as much as
30 percent for booking three weeks before the departure date. A
recent fare search also indicated that a ticket between
Europe and the United States cost £1,558 when booked less
than 21 days before departure but cost around £1,027 when booked
more than three weeks in advance, saving £531.
To get the best deals on trips within Europe, you need to book flights almost two
months ahead (at least 56 days) so for short haul Easter breaks its
best to start booking now. For travel to Asia and the US it's best to book flights
around 6 months ahead (+ 171 days for Asia and + 180 for the US) so now is also a
great time to plan your big summer break.
Whilst the best day to book flights tends to be Sundays, it's
not so clear cut with hotels so to make it easier than ever to get
a great deal on travel accommodation, Expedia has created a tool to
uncover which day of the week you should book a hotel room for the
biggest saving. Just visit
http://expediablog.co.uk/interactive/best-day-to-book, select your
preferred check-in date and the rest is done for you.
Get money back on bookings and travel
To save even more, why not look into whether you are able to
collect frequent flyer miles, cashback, points on credit cards or
Nectar points?
New loyalty programme from Expedia.co.uk, Expedia+, allows
people to collect all these points in addition to Expedia+ points
simply by entering their email address and creating an account. The
rewards on a typical family holiday can return up to £200 off your
next trip.
The average Brit books ten hotel nights a year meaning they
would qualify for the perks offered by Silver membership (requires
seven nights booked) and 10% bonus points in future, while to
achieve Gold membership and 30% bonus points, just 15 nights need
to be booked overall. Meanwhile, booking on the Expedia app also
entitles you to double points.
For more details, check out
https://www.expedia.co.uk/expediarewards
Book flights and hotel at the same time
One critical - but often overlooked - method to drive savings is
for travellers to simultaneously book their flight, hotel and/or
rental car on an online travel agency. "flight+hotel" bookings can
be offered at a steep discount, with average savings on
Expedia.co.uk of £140 and often exceeding it depending on the route
in question.
Those savings can be lost if travellers book these elements
independently, which is common, so flight+hotel bookings remain the
single easiest way for travelers to save hundreds on travel, both
domestically and internationally.
Include a Saturday night stay
After evaluating terabytes of data regarding the impact of
including a Saturday night stay on average ticket prices, Expedia
has concluded that the urban myth is true and most tickets
including a Saturday stay offer the lowest prices and best deals.
In Central Europe, average ticket
prices for itineraries that include Saturdays can be as much as 74
percent less and 47 percent less for flights within the UK and
Ireland. The impact of Saturday
night stays exists independent of what day of the week a ticket was
booked and how many days in advance it was purchased.
Head to an alternative neighborhood on your city
break
By checking out the alternative areas of a city you can save
even more on your hotel. Expedia's local experts have provided
advice - such as booking in a business district for a weekend stay
- to help travellers to find money-saving alternate destinations
that aren't too far from the downtowns or most popular areas of the
cities in question. For example, staying in the Financial District
or Battery Park City when travelling to New York can offer savings but still offers
the chance to stay in two spots that are fast becoming the city's
new must-visit areas. For more information visit
http://expediablog.co.uk/alternative-destinations.
ENDS
About Expedia
Expedia® is one of the world's leading full-service online
travel agents offering access to hundreds of thousands of hotels
including boutique hotels as well as major hotel brand names and
access to over 400 airlines along with a wide selection of car hire
and destination experiences. By combining choice with specialist
tools to help refine these options, Expedia.co.uk helps travellers
to find and create the trip that best matches their individual
requirements. Now with the award-winning Expedia mobile app you can
plan and book flights and hotels on the move. The Expedia app
offers helpful tools to manage your trip including: airport
terminal maps; hotel check out time and flight status
notifications; maps to your hotel and a host of other features.
Expedia.co.uk partners with loyalty programme Nectar in the UK
enabling its customers to collect 200 Nectar points on flight only,
hotel or car hire bookings and 1000 points on package purchases
through http://www.expedia.co.uk.
For travel inspiration and tips visit our Facebook page
http://www.facebook.com/expedia.co.uk
Expedia.co.uk is owned and operated by the Expedia Group. The
Expedia Group delivers consumers value in leisure and business
travel, drives incremental demand and direct bookings to travel
suppliers, and provides advertisers the opportunity to reach a
highly valuable audience of in-market travel consumers through
Expedia Media Solutions. Expedia also powers bookings for some of
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contact Expedia Press Office on 0203 668 6910 or email at
expediaukpress@thirdcity.co.uk.