40% Off Your Next Family Holiday?
After a few years of summer holdays in southern Spain and half board hotels in Portugal we discovered that there are some better ways to make our money go further when booking a luxury family holiday abroad.
We have discovered how to book the best family holiday abroad, All Inclusive; 2023. The new year has arrived and we're at it again looking for our next Summer Holiday! The focus is luxury Caribbean holidays 2023 [ Fingers Crossed :) ]
Family Holidays Caribbean
In 2022 we purchased a 2 week family holiday (2 Adults & 2 Children) to the Caribbean with a full day in Washington and a few days in New York for a similar price per day as a European holiday. This 15 day holiday cost us under £6,500!
It turns out that right now, in winter 2023, may be the best time to buy your next Summer holiday.
Now that you know how to stop Teams status changing green by using our Caps N Lock® "Mouse Jiggler" keyboard clip, you can put some extra time into booking this most important holiday abroad for your family and save some money by just being smarter.
I would like to share how we have been takling this in 3 steps: 1. Search, 2. Book and 3. Pay for our 10-14 day best family holidays abroad, All Inclusive, 2023.
How To Book The Best Family Holidays Abroad - All Inclusive 2023
1. Search For Destinations
There are 3 main sub-categories to your search for the best family holiday abroad.
1. Location
Where should you go? Is it safe for my family? What's the weather like in August? We will focus on the process we used to buy a holiday to Aruba in the Caribbean. The process should still assist you for locations any where else in the world.
The Caribbean in August is not known as the most common of destinations for Europeans. This is the hurricane season so it may sound off putting at first. What many of us dont realise (me included) is that the southern parts of the Caribbean aren't impacted in the same way as the north by the unpleasant weather patterns. Aruba maintains temperatures of around 28-32 degrees in August and it is beautiful.
Our favourite way to explore locations was to piggy back on the hard efforts and research already done by the expert holiday firms like TUI, Thomas Cook & Hays Travel.
Don't limit yourself by cost at this point as we just want to know which locations excite us. Search for the 4 and 5 star resorts or those holidays with the best reviews. See if you can narrow your search down to 1, 2 or 3 countries that make you feel all warm & tingly inside!
2. Find Accomodation
There will be many options here and of course these will vary by company. We will share what worked for us and highlight how the same holiday booked via a mobile app can save you hundreds of pounds.
We have been using Booking.com for many years to find short stays away in the UK. By chance we also discovered that Booking.com could also be used to book hotels abroad.
The most exciting benefit is that by booking on the booking.com mobile app instead of the desktop or standard website we could save over £200 for the same All Inclusive hotel.
As you can see these prices are still too high for us. We saw offers in Dec with 40% off so we're holding out til the price drops again to £3K. We will keep an eye on prices over the next few weeks in Jan 2023. We will buy the All Inclusive hotel from booking.com and find the best flights via Google Flights.
3. Flights
In April 2011 Google purchased a travel software firm called ITA Software for $700m. This became Google Flights. I reamin amazed at how few people know about Google Flights. We will show you how using this free website could save you £thousands on your family holiday abroad.
Google Flights - Interface
The Google Flights interface is really simple. Be sure to change Round Trip to "Multi-City" to explore the best prices with stop overs.
Google Flights - Price Graph
By using the Google Flight Price Graph feature you can narrow down the best dates to fly. As you can see in my recent search shows that a 2 day shift in flight dates can save you £1,109! Be aware that depending on your airline the checkin baggage may not be included in these prices.
Explore Stop Overs
In addition to using Google Flights to find the best direct flight prices, we recommend familiarising yourself with the destinations that fly to you desired location. Search for the [Your Airport] Arrival Times to see if you could get some extra travelling into your low cost flight.
By using this method we discovered that we could fly to Aruba in August 2023 and stop over in Toronto for a few days. Simple search but it opens up new exciting opportunities for your family holiday.
2. Book Your Family Holiday
Book Flights In Winter / Advance Booking
If you are flying long haul then some airlines offer free adjustments to your flying dates when they make a change to your flight times. (Infact this applies to all flights long and short from the EU)
By booking far in advance, such as an August flight booked in January, then you may increase your chances of the airline changing flight times. While this may be seen as a nuisance this change can help you secure the more expensive flight dates and times IF the airline were to make significant changes to your flight times.
To take advantage of this you do need to be flexible and probably keep a detailed itinerary of your holiday plans so you don't mess up the logistics of the journey!
3. Pay
We like to use our credit card for all purchases abroad. Read about Credit Card Protection here
Planning Summer Holidays While Working From Home
So in summary, now you know how to secure the best family holidays abroad - All Inclusive 2023.
1. Search for locations using TUI & the websites of package holiday providers
2. Look for special offers from the same hotels direct on their websites and on Booking.com (or other 3rd party hotel booking providers)
3. Buy your summer holiday in December or January when some of the best winter discounts appear
4. Buy Flights In Advance
5. Use your mobile app to (potentially) get more money off
6. Visit your chosen country's airport arrivals website. Discover which countries fly there. Helps find cheaper indirect flights with stop offs.
7. Search for flights using Google Flights Multi-City
For everyone else staying in the UK, you can use some of the mentioned techniques to save money on your next local holiday.