I always get asked how I find such good deals for things and how it always looks like I’m going lovely places and if there is something which I want to do I will find a way of making it happen in the best way possible, it just takes patience and persistence. Apart from my most recent holiday to Mexico which was booked through British Airways I have always gone through Love Holidays. For me and my personal financial situation their low deposit and installment option works best for me and I find it the most affordable way to book something several months in advance and not have to pay the full balance up front or put anything on a credit card. I’ve booked many different trips with Love Holidays now and I have come up with a bit of a system that I wanted to share.
First up if possible I would really recommend doing this on a computer instead of a phone if possible it makes it a lot easier.
So go in to the site and set where it is that you want to go. When looking for a beach holiday I normally put anywhere in and then filter it down by minimum temperature and take it from there, if you know where you want to go then you can put in your specific location or you can also put in multiple locations too so its really flexible.
The next most important thing for me is to filter by star and filter by trip advisor rating, star rating of the hotel is something that will be different for person to person, I generally go 4* or above as in many countries the star rating standards are never as good as in the UK but that is of course each to their own, however Trip Advisor rating for me I find non negotiable, so filter it to 4 or above. 4 out of 5 really is the lowest I would go, 4.5 or higher and you know you’re playing it safe that its going to be pretty good.
There’s lots of different things that you can filter out for your requirements- that you do or don’t want on your holiday and once you have set the parameters sort by ‘Trip Advisor rating high to low’
This is a good way of those hidden gems coming to the top of the list instead of the most popular statistically, the cheapest or the biggest saving. I would do this first and then filter by price after if you wish and then you can cross reference against the ones which you saw high up the TA rating list.
Then in a separate window pull up trip advisor and have a little look through recent reviews, maybe read some of the bad ones to see if it’s people with way too high expectations or if they’re being ultra picky or just generally if their issue is something that wouldn’t bother you or the bad reviews genuine red flags about this hotel or resort. Have a look through the traveler photos too to give you a bit of an idea of what to expect.
Then lastly for good measure because I’m ridiculously anal and hate being disappointed when holiday time is so precious I go and see if they have an Instagram and have a nosy at what’s on there, have a look at people who have tagged them and also shots which are tagged at that location.
By this time you should know if you want to go to this place or not so if you do go through to the payment screen and select which deposit option you want to do as there is a few and you are good to go! Make sure when you select the room you pick the option with deposit option otherwise when you go to pay it won’t be there.
You can log in and pay more at anytime outside of the scheduled options and can pay off early too if you wish to, just got to ‘manage my booking’
Just a note to be aware of with flights-
Ryanair’s current baggage policy literally includes a small handbag- like the kind you would use day to day for phone, keys, makeup etc. If you want to take a hand luggage case as well the cheapest way to do this is add priority boarding, this adds a standard size hand luggage case per person.
With Easyjet it includes a standard hand luggage case with no weight restriction, however, if you have a handbag on you with you purse/passport in etc it must fit into your case before you board as to have 2 bags you must be an Easyjet plus passenger and this is a yearly membership.
For further info please check the airlines websites!
Love Holidays have a really good January sale too and other sales throughout the year so keep your eyes peeled for booster deals!
I hope this helps and you find some amazing deals!
Safe and happy travels!
Hx