I found a video done by popular YouTube creator, “Coolist” (aka James Williams) regarding tips on saving money when booking your vacation (and who doesn’t want to do that…).  Nice to hear that I’m already doing some of his suggestions, interesting to hear about the ones I am not.

Have a look at the video below…how does the way you book your vacation differ from what Mr. Williams is suggesting?  In addition to his comments, I would also add the following in how to save $ when booking your precious vacation time.  Here’s what I’ve found to be helpful as well:

• Sign up to receive emails from resort’s you are interested in visiting.  That way you can be one of the first to read about flash sales, surprise sales, and deeply discounted stays at resorts you’d love to visit.
• Sign up to be a member of the resort’s “loyalty club” (if they have one).  They are free to join, and you can get incredible additional discounts when booking your stay on resort’s websites as a “loyalty club” member.  Most loyalty clubs also offer other benefits–the more you stay at the company’s resorts the more points you accrue and the more benefits you receive (if you belong to World of Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott, etc. you already know the benefits of this additional way to save on your stays).
• Booking your vacation as a “loyalty club” member will also get you a better room location.  Trust me on this one, I’ve been visiting all-inclusive resorts for over 30 years and have booked my vacations all kinds of different ways and have found that booking directly on a resort’s website has gotten me some awesome room locations as well as surprise room upgrades.
• Here’s a tip for when you are trying to find the best deal on a resort–clear your computer cookies after each resort view and pricing.  If you keep going back later to re-price or just view the same resort, your cookies have identified you as being interested in that property and may not show you the best deal you found when you first checked out the resort.  Resorts like to show their best deal at the time it is up on your screen, but if they think you are likely to book they may up the price a bit just because they think you are going to book them anyway.  I’m sure there is a technical term for this, but I’m think you know the point I am trying to make.  An example would be my checking on a price for a swim-up at Hyatt Zilara Riviera Maya, clearing my cookies and going back a day later to find that the same resort and same room category was $250 cheaper when the resort hadn’t added an additional “sale” offer.  I had to book it by the way, it was a steal.
• I agree with Mr. Williams on booking everything separately, although my reasoning is different.  I always worry about flight snafus since I’ve encountered many over my years of travel.  Booking with a wholesaler just because I got a better deal by booking everything together doesn’t mean it’s smooth sailing if your flight(s) get cancelled. Booking directly with airlines gives me more control over potentially troubling situations rather than stay on hold with a wholesaler while they make some attempt to fix my problem.  Mr. Williams suggests this practice of booking everything separately is primarily due to the fact that best pricing is different depending on the best and cheapest time to book a flight vs. booking a resort.
• If I’m thinking of traveling and I know my dates of flying in and out of an airport, I always first go to Kayak and see if I like flight times/connection times between flights, and if I find one I am interested in I will ask Kayak to let me know when prices drop. I typically then visit the airline’s website and see how fares are comparable to what Kayak has listed. If you are traveling last minute this will obviously not work.

Do you have any tried and true ways to save money when booking your vacation?  Let us all know!  In the meantime, here’s Mr. Williams’ video and his thoughts on the matter.