Package Holiday or DIY?

[myhat]

Hi

Has anyone booked a flight/hotel in separate bits on the internet, rather than a complete package, say with Virgin or BA holidays?

There always seem to be quite big discounts on the Universal hotels, and Swan/Dolphin all the time (including summer holiday time). Also the packages seem to run out during busy times when there are spaces left on scheduled BA & virgin flights on the net.

Has anyone tried the DIY option and did you save anything?

 

[wilki32]

This year, we're flying with United Airlines, stop pf for an hour at Washington and booked the accom and car via internet through a company recomended here. We're staying at Windsor Palms and from our first quote just on accom we're saving about £700, I nearly fell off my chair.

 

[tallym]

Anthony...Did you book AKL direct thro disney yourself?

 

[Frances999]

We booked a package with Virgin for our first holiday to WDW, but have booked DIY ever since.

We like to be able to totally tailor-make every part of our trip. We book flights direct with Virgin (usually using FC miles) and then book a Universal Hotel (usually with a discount code) direct with Universal and then a Disney Resort (with an AAA or AP code) through Dreams Unlimited or direct with Disney. Then I check MouseSavers for car rental discounts as well. This way, we save money and get exactly what we want.

 

[tim june and sam]

.......just on accom we're saving about £700, I nearly fell off my chair.

Can I ask £700 saved for how many people plse? £700 is a LOT of money....

Maybe WE should try the DIY route, after all, we know what we want and the company just does the package that I ask for after all my research.

 

[wilki32]

Tallym, yes direct through Disney, looked elsewhere and because, I presume, we're only going for 3 nights was the best price.
tim, june and sam, we originally got a quote from the windsor palms website, after that we were seriously thinking about not going but we got another website (uk based) and price came out $1000 cheaper

 

[tim june and sam]

.....we got another website (uk based) and price came out $1000 cheaper

How many in your party plse?

 

[juliebro]

We always book the DIY route. Like Frances we like to be able to tailor-make our holiday - DIY means we can have exactly what we want.

Julie

 

[Shooby doo]

We have done it both ways & absolutely never take the "free" car! I did look into DIY for next year but for when we are going for some reason both Virgin & BA's hotel prices were quite a bit cheaper than booking direct! If you can find a UK site for hotels then I would probably use them as from what I saw most of the US sites don't include the resort tax which you have to pay on checking in.This on average is 11% but I think WDW is 13% which adds up over 2/3 weeks!
The other thing with booking direct is that you are at the mercy of the exchange rate,our very first trip,we flew out with the $ at 1.9 then Black Wednesday & we were loooking at 1.36!! Sure made a big difference to the CC bill!
SD aw:

 

[wilki32]

Sorry T, J & S for the delay but have been shopping arghhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Go to spend DD vouchers and come back with a new washer dryer!
Anyway back to the question and there are 3 in our party, DD being 11 is now classed as an adult!

 

[tim june and sam]

Thanks wilki32 - that's just like us.

Maybe 2007 needs to be DIY at that rate. First onsite experience me thinks!

 

[jdybnsn]

Whether you save money doing DIY in my experience depends on the following factors;

- how many people are in your party- the more there are, the more likely you are to save money, as most properties/ hotel rooms are charged by the unit rather than by the person (as package companys like to charge us).

- whether any of the package companies are offering good deals on kids places (assuming you have kids in your party of course) Sometimes these can be as low as £199 per child for the package price.

- the number of kids in your party as many hotels don't charge for them but (unless you have the sort of deal outlined above) package companies will normally charge well above flight only prices for them.

- not taking the 'free' car as previous poster suggests

- whether you can book early (approx 14-12 months before) or book very late (ie last minute)

- how much spare time you have to research prices and tips off the internet.

- whether you are prepared to take a risk on the services of the 'economy' charter flight company players such as TCD for fly drive.

hope this helps !

 

[Amyrlin]

To gove you an idea (and the prices do vary wildly according to time of year), I have priced this up for Febuary.

Both BA and Virgn have spcial offers of £299 retrun from Gatwick to orlando, or if you want to save a bit of MOney American airlines going via Maiami adds 2-3 hours ointo the journey, but brings the price for the flights down to £269.

Car hire also varies from £17 a day upto £30 depending inthe size of the car.

If you look at a resort such as the Al stars resorts at Disney then they are at $77 per room (or, if you have an annual pass or an AA card they may be as low as $57 a night). This is likey to work out a lot cheaper than the package deals, even TCD!

The negative points are, it is a lot more organising, you will need tpo leave a credit card imprint at the car hire place. If ypou can wait until the last min sometimes, and only sometimes, the packges may be better.

In the summer the prices for the flights increase, but so do the package prices.

 

[wilki32]

I've had a great time organising the holiday, a lot of frustrations and a few missed opportunities but on the whole I think I'll enjoy this holiday more because I did it!
Amyrlin, don't you have to leave a cc imprint at the car hire even when going through package deals?

 

[Amyrlin]

When going through TCD no you don't, you have all the insurances etc, so the company are covered. Not sure about other package deals though.

 

[allie5]

I did mine DIY for last Xmas. I figured I saved several hundred pounds. Got flights from Expedia (a shade under £2k for 3 adults and 2 kids flying Virgin). Villa I rented privately from English owners. It was a property we had used before, so felt confident booking this DIY. That cost £1500 for 3 weeks over Xmas. Car hire was £530 for a 4X4 for 3 weeks with UScarhire. Total cost just over £4K. Worked out at approx £800 pp. A similar package with Virgin Holidays would have been around £5K.

I didnt find it much hassle at all to be honest (had more trouble with the package I booked this year WITH Virgin Holidays!!). Only drawback is the flights had to be paid for in full, upfront, though the car hire and villa were paid at 8 weeks out like a usual package.

 

[Ali and boyz]

We have done several combinations, whole package deal, then flight only etc.

because we now have a DS I tend to book the flight via the TA so that all the special needs are recorded through them . I know deep down that I could do it myself and I if I didn't have DS I would.

Last year we booked the Flights with the TA, booked the car in the USA straight from the internet and also booked the villa via the internet. For us I think sometimes it is cheeper to do it independently if we want to go to a villa and there is just the four of us whereby if there is a crowd of you sometimes it is cheaper to do the package.

 

[myhat]

THanks for all your help. I think I will have a go and try DIY.

One thing though - we are going in Aug. If we get stuck at home/Florida because of hurricane, do we get any preferential treatment or help from holiday companies to rearrange flights etc compared to just booking the same scheduled flight ourselves?

 

[misskrystal]

We booked everything seperately over the internet. When I worked out what we paid, compared to the regular prices, we saved around £2500 on the hotel alone.

When I added that to the air miles we used, I realised we had saved around £9500 on the holiday.

It took me weeks to find it and book it all, and my db kept telling me to book a package, but after I told him what we saved, he was amazed (especially as it was my db who payed for the holiday).

If you have the time, spend a day comparing prices over the internet and see what you can find.