My wife and I had been invited to attend a wedding in Chiang Mai in February 2013, the last few times we haven’t used a travel agent, as we have been able to shop around for good prices on hotels and flights etc. Although we are travelling during the shoulder season, we were still able to get some good prices, however you need to shop around and one website maybe cheaper for one hotel, but more expensive for another. I looked and looked for a good price to stay at the luxurious Chedi Hotel in Chiang Mai and the best price was on www.expedia.com this was about AUD$40 cheaper than the next. Generally booking direct with the hotel is more expensive because of discounts the Web Travel agents offer, but for the Manathai in Chiang Mai there was a 20% saving, however this was a pre-pay and cancellation is not possible, but overall this was the cheapest option. We also had to stay at Bangkok airport for the first night and www.sawadee.com offered the best deal on Vismaya Suvarnabhumi.
We haven’t been down to Hua Hin and to break the holiday, we wanted to stay somewhere exclusive and we chose the Hotel De La Paix in Cha-am, the best deal was www.hotelclub.com, as it was about AUD$40 cheaper overall. This was only while obtaining the price via www.tripadvisor.com, visiting the website direct and obtaining a price was more expensive (go figure). After entering all my details as well as my credit card number, the price was $384 (with a room upgrade, bear in mind, the price for the standard room on other websites was $394), however on submit, the price had increased to $420 (a scam?). I immediately chatted with on-line help and she was able to rectify the issue and enter all the booking at the lower price.
Booking the hotel in Bangkok, I was able to use the Family and Friends website which offered a discount on the Holiday Inn hotel (approx. $10 per night)
On this trip, the best websites for arranging travel are as follows:
www.expedia.com
www.sawadee.com
www.octopustravel.com
www.hotelclub.com
Always check with the hotel, sometimes they have great savings.
I always find www.agoda.com a little more expensive and while www.lastminuite.com and www.wotif.com always claim they have lower prices, I’m yet to find one. (Maybe if I try and book on short notice, but I like to plan my trip in advance).
As for flights, I have found that traveling on certain days can save money as well. Most of the travel sites like www.zuji.com etc don’t seem to have any savings.