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The 8 Best Travel Package Sites for Booking a Cheap Vacation
Sarah Schlichter
Deputy Executive Editor Sarah Schlichter's idea of a perfect trip includes spotting exotic animals, hiking through pristine landscapes, exploring new neighborhoods on foot, and soaking up as much art as she can. She often attempts to recreate recipes from her international travels after she gets home (which has twice resulted in accidental kitchen fires—no humans or animals were harmed).
Sarah joined the SmarterTravel team in 2017 after more than a decade at the helm of IndependentTraveler.com. Sarah's practical travel advice has been featured in dozens of news outlets including the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, USA Today, Budget Travel, and Peter Greenberg Worldwide Radio. Follow her on Twitter @TravelEditor .
The Handy Item I Always Pack: "A journal. Even years later, reading my notes from a trip can bring back incredibly vivid memories."
Ultimate Bucket List Experience: "Road tripping and hiking through the rugged mountains of Patagonia."
Travel Motto: "'To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.'—Freya Stark"
Aisle, Window, or Middle Seat: "Aisle. I get restless on long flights and like to be able to move around without disturbing anyone else."
Email Sarah at [email protected] .
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Booking a flight, hotel, and rental car together doesn’t just save you time—it can often save you money, too. But before you make such a significant purchase, it’s important to find the best travel package sites for booking your vacation.
I tested more than a dozen vacation package sites to see which ones had the lowest prices and best user experience. I discovered that many of the best vacation package websites allow you to book any combination of flight, hotel, and rental car, while others are more limited (flight + hotel is often the default). Fortunately, some sites will let you add a car onto a hotel+flight package, even if a car isn’t listed on the initial booking page.
It’s also important to compare the price of a vacation booked as a bundle to that same trip booked a la carte as separate components. Booking a package isn’t always cheaper, and sometimes you’ll get better flight options to choose from if you search for your airfare separately. In some searches, I discovered that the flight options included by default with my vacation package had ridiculously long layovers or undesirable departure times (4:30 a.m., anyone?).
The Best Car Rental Booking Sites
Keep a sharp eye out for resort fees; many of the best vacation booking sites don’t count them in their initial per-person price estimate because they’re collected separately by the hotel, but they can drive up the final cost of your trip. Similarly, optional airline baggage fees can also increase your total bill, especially if you book a flight in basic economy, and some vacation package sites don’t disclose these fees as clearly as others.
Finally, it’s important to know that many of the best sites for vacation packages are owned by the same parent company, so you’ll often find similar inventory and prices from one to the next. Knowing which sites are mostly interchangeable can save you some research time.
The Best Travel Package Sites
We put them to the test to compare prices, inclusions, and more. The following are the best websites to book vacations, listed in no particular order. Scroll down for more in-depth analysis of each one.
- Expedia’s sister sites: Travelocity , Orbitz , and CheapTickets
CheapCaribbean.com
Funjet vacations.
This well-known site is one of the best travel package sites for a reason. Expedia offers a full complement of bundle options (flight/hotel, flight/car, hotel/car, and flight/hotel/car) as well as trips to just about every corner of the globe. It’s reliable when it comes to pricing, too: Expedia offered the lowest price in two of my five tests, and was cheaper than average in all but one test booking.
That said, the amount the site said I was saving on a given package didn’t always match up to the actual price difference when I added up the cost of the trip’s individual elements. In one of my test cases, it was actually cheaper to book my flight, hotel, and car separately. So take those supposed savings with a grain of salt (or even better, price out the components separately on your own to be sure you’re getting the best deal).
Expedia has plenty of useful filters to help you find what you need. You can sort hotels by price, distance from a city’s downtown, guest rating, package discount, and property class, while flight options can be filtered by general departure and arrival times (for example, morning vs. evening), airline, whether carry-on bags are included, and more. You can also sort flight options by duration (longest or shortest), price (highest or lowest), departure time (earliest or latest), and arrival time (earliest or latest). There’s also a map view so you can check out the location of each hotel.
Best Feature: The breadth of choice and consistency of pricing make Expedia perhaps the best site for vacation packages. You may not always get the absolute lowest price here, but chances are you’ll pay a fair rate and have plenty of options to choose from.
Check out Expedia
How Far in Advance Should You Book a Vacation Home?
Expedia’s Sister Sites: Travelocity, Orbitz, and CheapTickets
Many travelers don’t realize that Travelocity , Orbitz , and CheapTickets are all owned by Expedia Group, and typically have very similar inventory and pricing to Expedia. Each of these sites has similar layouts and filter options, too. Like Expedia, these three sites offer every possible vacation package combination involving a flight, hotel, and/or rental car.
It was rare for any of these sites to beat out Expedia’s prices in my tests; in general, the rates were identical (especially on Travelocity, where I didn’t find any deviations from Expedia) or a little bit higher. However, Orbitz and CheapTickets did offer slightly cheaper packages on one flight/car itinerary.
Because the pricing is so similar, it’s probably not worth searching all three of these sites in addition to Expedia unless a difference of a few dollars will make or break your travel budget.
Best Feature: Travelocity, Orbitz, and CheapTickets offer a checkbox on their main booking page to specify “I only need accommodations for part of my trip”—a feature that allows user to select a subset of their trip dates and search for travel packages only within that period. This feature is also reflected on Expedia’s search page.
Note: Expedia Group also owns Hotwire , which I didn’t find quite as reliable as the other three in my tests. For one itinerary, a nonstop flight that the other sites offered was not available when booking a Hotwire package (though it was available when booking a separate flight on Hotwire), and the pricing on some searches was a little higher than on the other sites.
Check out Expedia’s sister sites below:
Like Expedia and its partners, Priceline also offers every possible combination of flight, hotel, and rental car. Its search results pages are easy to navigate, with plenty of filter and sort options, plus a map view for hotels. Priceline offers numerous hotel options in popular vacation destinations at every price point.
One quirk to prepare for: Priceline’s flight result page lists departure and return flights together as a pair rather than letting you choose each one separately. This cuts down on the number of screens you have to click through but could mean extra scrolling while you try to find the exact two flights you want. Not all flights that are available when booking airfare separately on Priceline seem to be accessible to those booking a package—so it’s worth checking both.
Priceline was in the middle of the pack as far as pricing was concerned. It won one of my tests but was the most expensive option in two others; overall, it offered cheaper-than-average prices 60 percent of the time. To help you save money, the site offers “Express Deals” for rental cars, an opaque option in which you don’t know which rental car brand you’ll get until after you’ve booked. If you’d rather choose which company you’re renting from, standard car rentals are also available.
Best feature: Once you’ve selected your flight and rental car preferences, the site will keep them the same as you click through alternate hotel possibilities—saving you the hassle of having to select them over and over again.
Check out Priceline
What Happens If You Don’t Turn Your Phone to Airplane Mode?
As its name suggests, CheapCaribbean.com has a more limited scope than other sites on this list, but it’s worth checking if you’re planning a trip to the Caribbean, where package trips such as honeymoons are particularly popular. The site turned up cheaper-than-average prices for both of my Caribbean tests.
CheapCaribbean.com is one of the best vacation websites for all-inclusive packages. Once you’ve entered your trip information, you can also filter your results by “adults only,” “children’s amenities,” and “luxury.” Each hotel-specific page includes a list of active promotions, on-site activities, and the property’s Tripadvisor Traveler Rating.
In some ways CheapCaribbean.com isn’t quite as sophisticated as other travel package sites. There’s no map available to compare locations of the listed hotel options. Also annoying: not being able to group Houston’s two airports into a single search, though you can select “all airports” for New York City and Washington, D.C. But the affordable deals are worth a few snags, as long as you’re only looking for a flight/hotel package—there’s no option to add a car or create any other package combinations, though you can add travel insurance and transfers, at least for the destinations I checked.
Best Feature: The “ Deals of Fortune ,” or bookings where you know the destination but not the exact resort until about a week before the trip. This is a fun feature for value-conscious travelers who aren’t set on a particular island or property.
Check out Cheapcaribbean.com
A popular meta-search site, Kayak saves travelers time by searching many of the best travel package sites with a single click. Unfortunately, you can’t specify which elements of your trip you’d like to bundle; it searches flight + hotel by default. You can add a car later on some of its partner sites, but if you’re looking for a flight/car package, you’ll have to go elsewhere.
Results list the cheapest available packages from sites such as Priceline (Kayak’s sister company), Expedia, and CheapCaribbean.com. There’s a map view available, and the results page shows both air- and hotel-related filters to make it easy to find nonstop flights, free breakfast, or a specific hotel.
I found that the prices listed on Kayak didn’t always match the price on the source site when I clicked over to find the deal—a fairly common problem with meta-search sites. But I also occasionally discovered that I got a different price after clicking from Kayak than I did when searching the same itinerary from the booking site’s home page. For example, a Las Vegas package was $819 per person on Priceline when I clicked over from Kayak, but just $783 when I booked the same package from the Priceline home page. Another test offered the opposite result, with the price being cheaper after clicking from Kayak than it was when booking directly on Priceline. The lesson: Test both options when using a meta-search site.
Best Feature: Being able to search some of the best vacation booking sites in a single place is a major time saver. Though Kayak doesn’t always find you the lowest possible price, it’s a good place to start your search and get an idea of what’s out there.
Check out Kayak
The Essential Caribbean Packing List
The Funjet home page gives you a single package option: flight/hotel. However, you can work around this by adding a rental car on at the end of a flight/hotel or individual flight booking. There are plenty of sort options for your results, including price, hotel name, rating, points of interest, and location.
One annoyance: Similarly to CheapCarribbean.com, there is no option to select “all airports” for certain cities like Houston or Chicago. And Funjet’s prices aren’t the most consistent, ranking as the cheapest in one test and the most expensive in another. Still, the site is worth comparing to others when booking your vacation.
Best Feature: Rather than making you scour the web for coupons, Funjet automatically applies any relevant promo codes to your search.
Note: If you’re headed to the Caribbean, Central or South America, Hawaii, or Mexico, try your search on Funjet’s sister site, Apple Vacations . The destinations it covers are more limited than Funjet’s, but I found that the prices were often a little better. CheapCaribbean.com is also owned by the same parent company, Apple Leisure Group.
Check out Funjet
Book Your Stay With SmarterTravel Hotels
If you’re ready to book your next adventure but don’t want to commit to a prepackaged bundle, you can still save big by booking your hotel stay with SmarterTravel Hotels.
All of the products featured in this story were hand-selected by our travel editors. Some of the links featured in this story are affiliate links, and SmarterTravel may collect a commission (at no cost to you) if you shop through them. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
Follow Sarah Schlichter on Twitter @TravelEditor for more travel tips and inspiration.
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The Pros and Cons of Expedia
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Table of Contents
When it comes to Expedia prices
When it comes to expedia travel insurance, when it comes to the expedia cancellation policy, when it comes to the expedia loyalty program, when it comes to maximizing credit card points, the pros and cons of expedia recapped.
Frequent travelers likely know that there’s something better than a dream trip: a dream trip that you booked on a bargain.
The ways to save money on travel are plentiful. You can redeem hotels and airline points, or take advantage of last-minute travel deals, to name a few. And booking through third-party online travel agencies like Expedia can sometimes yield especially big savings.
Beyond just deals, Expedia has robust search filters that make finding your perfect vacation easy. It streamlines purchasing trip insurance , which can be especially important for travel these days. Plus, the Expedia Rewards program earns you points to pay for future bookings.
But booking through an OTA like Expedia is not without its drawbacks. Here's a look at some of those to help you weigh the pros and cons of booking travel through Expedia.
Pro: Expedia has frequent sales, last-minute travel deals and bundle discounts
Expedia deals are aplenty, whether it’s a bundling discount or a sale.
Bundling: A major component of booking travel on Expedia is the practice of bundling, where you can expect additional savings for booking more than one product (e.g., flight and hotel, or hotel and attraction ticket) in one transaction. For example, when we searched for a hotel and rental car in Miami, one five-day booking option included up to three free rental car days while another offered one free night.
A perk of booking travel through Expedia is that you select your hotel, airfare and car rental in separate steps in the process. This makes it easy to bookmark the page and compare the cost of these items on Expedia versus the cost on the company’s direct website.
Expedia payment plans: If you don’t want to pay for your whole trip at the time of booking, Expedia allows you to make smaller payments through Affirm, which is a service that offers short-term loans for online purchases. If approved by Affirm , you’ll be able to pay for your trip in monthly installments.
You can also check Expedia’s Deals page and Expedia’s Last-Minute Deals page . Both tend to offer an eclectic mix of travel deals, ranging from cheap motels in tiny towns to lavish resorts in major tourist destinations. We’ve spotted deals as high as 70% off.
» Learn more: How to find cheaper last-minute flights
Con: Booking direct is sometimes still cheaper than Expedia
Sure, Expedia sales and last-minute deals are nice, but that’s not to say that you can’t find other (sometimes better) deals for booking directly with the travel provider. Many offer their own exclusive deals — and they might save you even more than booking with online travel agencies. Compare prices across both Expedia and the specific company to ensure you’re getting the best price.
And sometimes the savings go beyond just the sticker price. For example, boutique hotel chain Ovolo Hotels offers generous amenities including free laundry, happy hour refreshments and a daily breakfast buffet — but only if you book directly with them.
» Learn more: Is Expedia legit? Can it get me a good deal?
Pro: You can purchase an Expedia travel insurance policy
Expedia partners with various insurance providers, depending on your individual booking, to offer trip protection.
F or flights: Expedia offers travel insurance protection options that cover flight cancellation, medical emergencies and other covered circumstances.
For hotels: Choose hotel booking protection to reimburse your stay in the case of cancellation.
For car rentals: You can add car rental damage protection for an extra per-day fee.
Coverage varies by plan, but you can typically expect reimbursement for some (or all) trip costs if your trip is impacted by covered reasons. Covered reasons typically include delays, loss, theft or damage to one’s baggage and personal belongings. You’re also typically reimbursed for covered medical expenses, including emergency evacuation if you get sick or injured during your trip.
But there are many limitations and exclusions, so read your policy’s fine print to understand what’s covered.
Expedia 24-hour cancellation
When you book a flight on Expedia, you can cancel for a full refund as long as you do so within 24 hours of booking. The U.S. Department of Transportation requires airlines to allow you to cancel a flight for a full refund if canceled within 24 hours of booking and it was booked seven days before departure.
Con: Outside travel insurance might be more comprehensive or cheaper (and sometimes free)
You can opt out of Expedia’s travel insurance and either be completely uninsured — or simply acquire your insurance elsewhere. And there are better travel insurance policies out there.
After a comprehensive review of dozens of plans that assessed factors including price and COVID-19 coverage, here are the best travel insurance policies .
What’s more, you might not even need to pay for travel insurance at all. Many credit cards offer travel insurance benefits if you paid for your trip with that card.
Pro: Expedia offers some fully refundable options
Because airlines, hotels and other travel services set their own individual policies on Expedia, change and cancellation policies can vary significantly. While it can be tricky to parse the policies for each individual property, use Expedia’s “fully refundable” search filter to limit potential bookings to those with flexible policies.
For straightforward requests, use the Expedia service page to make changes and get a refund. If you’re unable to get help through Expedia’s self-service tools, other ways to get in touch with Expedia include live chat, a dedicated Twitter account ( @expediahelp ) and a phone line.
Con: Most cancellation policies are bad, confusing or both
Because airlines are required to give full refunds if you cancel within 24 hours of booking, Expedia lets you change or cancel your flight reservation without fees within the same time period.
For everything else, good luck. Because each travel provider sets its own policies, navigating them can be a headache. In some cases, canceling through Expedia means you’ll have to chase after the hotel or activity provider to recoup the costs.
Additionally, prepare for cancellation fees (both Expedia’s own fees as well as fees from the service provider). That’s if you’re able to cancel at all. Some bookings through Expedia are nonrefundable altogether.
Pro: It’s great for commitment-phobes
The new Expedia Rewards program, One Key Rewards, lets you earn OneKeyCash for every booking you make on the platform (plus on Vrbo and Hotels.com), which can then be used like cash toward future trips. Not only that, but Expedia users can earn status, which includes benefits like exclusive members-only discounts and extra benefits at VIP Access properties (such as free breakfast or late checkout).
For travelers who don’t like to commit to one airline or hotel company, don’t travel that frequently, or who book travel that otherwise doesn’t have its own loyalty program (like a tour or vacation rental), Expedia makes it possible to still get rewarded.
» Learn more: The guide to One Key Rewards
Con: Most hotel and airline loyalty programs are far more rewarding
While the One Key Rewards program is fine, most travel loyalty programs tied to specific hotels or airlines are almost always more rewarding. For individual point values, most other currencies of airline and hotel points are worth far more than OneKeyCash, which nets you 2% back on cruise, hotel, activity and rental car bookings but only .2% on flights. Once it's in your account, you can use it to pay for bookings just like you would cash — though you’ll need enough OneKeyCash in your account to pay for an entire flight, not just part of it.
Additionally, holding specific airline or hotel elite status is typically more lucrative than the value of elite status on One Key Rewards as most perks extend to Expedia VIP Access properties only. That said, some elite members can enjoy up to 20% discounts on hotels and free price drop protection on flights, which is a plus.
As for how to use Expedia points, OneKeyCash can be redeemed on “pay now” bookings for participating purchases priced in U.S. dollars. You can use it to pay for part of a hotel booking, but you’ll have to have enough to pay for the full cost of a flight (including taxes and fees). And while you can’t transfer rewards, you can use your OneKeyCash to book travel for others.
But depending what status you’re able to reach with individual brand loyalty programs, you can likely expect better perks. So if you’re fine committing to one brand, you’re almost always better off striving to earn its status versus with One Key Rewards. But if you only stay for a night here or there or prefer to book based on location or price, it’s a way to earn a few more rewards.
Pro: Expedia counts as a travel purchase
Many travel rewards credit cards give you a higher rewards rate on travel purchases, and booking sites like Expedia typically count as travel spending. For example, the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card earns 2 points per dollar on travel spending, compared with 1 point per dollar on most purchases.
Con: Travel credit cards are usually better for earning and redeeming rewards
If you’re loyal to a specific hotel or airline brand — or are open to pledging allegiance — credit cards aligned with those brands typically pay more on purchases directly from the brand partner. For example:
on American Express' website
on Chase's website
• 2 miles per $1 spent on Delta purchases.
Terms apply.
• 2 miles per $1 spent on United purchases.
• 12 points per $1 spent on eligible Hilton purchases.
• 6 points per $1 spent at participating Marriott Bonvoy hotels.
• 1 mile per $1 spent.
• 3 points per $1 spent.
• 2 points per $1 spent.
Even general-purpose travel rewards cards that aren't tied to a specific airline or hotel chain will often reward you more handsomely for booking through their own portals than they would for going through a site like Expedia. Going back to the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card : As mentioned, it earns 2 points per dollar on most travel purchases — but 5 points per dollar on travel booked through the Chase portal . Among general-purpose travel cards:
• 5 miles per $1 on hotels and car rentals booked through Capital One Travel.
• 2 miles per $1 on other purchases.
• 5 points per $1 spent on travel booked through Chase.
• 10 points per $1 spent on hotels and rental cars booked through Chase.
• 5 points per $1 on air travel booked through Chase.
• 5 points per $1 spent on flights booked directly with airlines or with American Express Travel, on up to $500,000 spent per year.
• 5 points per $1 on prepaid hotels booked with American Express Travel.
• 2 miles per $1 spent.
• 1 point per $1 spent.
If you're considering booking with other online travel agencies like Priceline or Hotels.com, here are the best credit cards for online travel booking websites .
With the right deal, booking travel — including flights, hotels, cruises or car rentals — on Expedia could be worth it. It makes searching for travel relatively easy given the massive array of available listings, coupled with thoughtful search functionality to actually help you create your ideal itinerary.
But don’t automatically assume it’s a cheap way to book travel. Especially given the complicated cancellation policies, it might become among the most expensive, should an uninsured trip need to be canceled.
How to maximize your rewards
You want a travel credit card that prioritizes what’s important to you. Here are some of the best travel credit cards of 2024 :
Flexibility, point transfers and a large bonus: Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
No annual fee: Wells Fargo Autograph℠ Card
Flat-rate travel rewards: Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card
Bonus travel rewards and high-end perks: Chase Sapphire Reserve®
Luxury perks: The Platinum Card® from American Express
Business travelers: Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card
[Limited Time] New Cardholders Can Get up to $1,050 in Chase Travel℠ Value
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
✈️ Our Nerds say it's "nearly a must-have for travelers " because of its big sign-up bonus, high-value points and money-saving perks like hotel credit and rental car insurance.
🤑 Better yet, it's offering one of the best bonuses ever right now, only for a limited time...
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