Cheap weekends away - where do you find them?

[Hyggehygge]

DH and I have decided we need more weekends away (his job makes proper holidays hard).

We are rubbish at it though. We leave it late and book somewhere at full price. I’m always seeing friends talking about cheap weekends, where they’ve paid a fraction of the proper cost of places, and I just don’t know how they do it. If I ask, they say their husband or friend books or they just get lucky with dates.

Is anyone out there a whizz at this sort of thing? How do you find decent hotels / apartments cheaply. Or does it involve a lot of research?

Thank you!

Groupon? Holiday pirates?

Excellent. I’ll take a look, thanks.

In the U.K. just use trivago to search for good deals - group on does have bargains but they tend to come with a lot of restrictions and strings, beware they might not be quite the bargain they look. There's a general rule that for the summer booking 3-4 months ahead get a decent deal, even further ahead maybe if you can, but off season some of the best deals have been booked the week of the trip (we check weather forecast first!) generally I use Booking.com unless trivago indicates a major saving elsewhere.

Overseas tour companies do offer real bargains at very short notice if you have some flexibility and aren't too fussy where, again group on do advertise deals but read the small print very carefully for restrictions. For independent travel going onto skyscanner or directly to easyJet/Ryan air and being flexible will get you the best deals eg I found Frankfurt return for £34 pp went hand luggage only, sat separately on plane and took shuttle to Heidelberg for €5 each way pp. hotel (slept 5) was €50 per night no meals but food locally was cheap, used bikes provided free by hotel for travel.

We just do Premier Inn, Travelodge or Malmaison booked well in advance or on deals.

Anniehm - thanks. All sites I use, I just need to get better at using them. I always think we will get deals booking so late, but hardly ever do!

Remus - good advice. I just need to keep an eye out for sales and get booking.

Malmaison quite often do a room, a cocktail or glass of wine and continental breakfast for around £80.

Buy a gift, they do weekend breaks and there’s often a 25% off code knocking around.

I think of places I want to go and set up alerts on skyscanner.

Managed to get return flights to milan for 13quid and berlin for 20.

Sign up for all the cheap airline emails. Ryan air, wizz, buzz, easyjet etc

Sometimes cheaper to book as a package sometimes not. Look at packages for ideas logistics and hotels etc then price up seperately.

Holiday pirates, jacks flight club, travel zoo, cheeky trips, google flights, sky scanner, expedia, booking.com

All worth looking at.

Good luck and happy travels!!

Travelzoo do a weekly email round up of deals.

Air bnb

Voucher Codes, last minute.com.

Travelzoo have deals.

Jack's Flights...