planning a holiday to Chicago and San Franscico

[mckenzie]

For October half term.
Should I go via Trailfinders or similar?
Local travel agent?
Try and book it all myself?

I've never done more than book flights on line if I'm staying with someone or it's accommodation that I've stayed in before.
other wise, I've always used a travel agent (Travel Counsellors) but I'm trying to be frugal this time.

Any tips please?
TIA

I always use Travelocity to find hotels and then do the booking through bookings.com. If you plan to rent a car you can add that to your airline booking.

I agree, used sites like Travelocity, Hotel.com and Booking.com to get the best hotel deals and Skycanner for flights.

I went to Chicago in 2016 and loved it. We stayed at the Wyndham Grand Chicago Riverfront and it was beautiful. Driving in Chicago is a bit bizarre due to the split level streets!

Hotwire can be really good for cheap hotel bookings, you don’t know the hotel you’re getting till you’ve paid, but you choose the area and star rating, and you can use the cheat site betterbidding.com to get a good idea what hotel it is.
We’ve used it extensively and normally get the hotel we’re expecting, when we haven’t it’s been one of an equal standard, it just takes a bit of research.
Flights I’d look at multi city options on skyscanner

Thanks for the posts. I shall get searching tomorrow

We went to Chicago last year. I shopped around and found the cheapest was with BA holidays. We stayed at the Palmer House Hilton which was the cheapest we could find in the Loop area.

I use AirBnB - I know there are horror stories, but I've never had a bad experience. Got a lovely flat in NYC for a steal!