re: Honeymoon

Diamond1031

This year we plan to book our HM and are doing Hawaii, Maui.   

Would it be cheaper or have you found it cheaper to book flight+hotel OR just do flight only?  I'm not sure if it's a deal (to lump it all) or not and thought I'd ask those of you who have done the research already what route is less expensive.

Also what websites have you found is better over others? 

Thank you in advance! 

 

vegasgroom

Before we settled on a destination we looked at a bunch of places from Hawaii to Mexico to the Caribbean and I never found a package price that came out cheaper than me booking the flight myself.

Sara191431

I would say it depends when you book and what time of year you are going. We are going to Mexico when it's considered somewhat off-season, we booked a few weeks ago, so about 6 months in advance. Booking the package for us was hands down cheaper. You'll just have to price compare the two. Also, I'm not sure for HI, but Orbitz was about $400 cheaper than any of the other sites.

Good luck!

queenklm33

I booked through the airline direct for flights for the cheapest rate.  I booked one hotel through hotwire, there is great site to help you identufy hotels.  And our other hotel I booked through an Orbitz special.  Way cheaper than any package.

Diamond1031

Sara--Good question I'm not sure if it's off season, June so I'll have to look. 

Queen--I'll be sure to check those sites out as well. 

I thought I'd get a feel and see what the best way to go is...looks like I have research to do..or I'll leave it up to him.  lol

mhoneybee

I would sugegst you book seperately.  There are a lot of vacation rentals, so besides hotels check out VRBO.com.  You can reduce a lot of your costs by renting a tmeshare or condo that has a kitchen that you can cook some meals in.  There is a costco and walmart just outside the airport in Maui that have some of the best food prices as well as a Safeway in Lahina.

The 3 main areas are Kihei (desert - awesome sand beachs) on the east side, Lahina & Kaanapali on the west side more rocky.  Lahina is the touristy shopping/dining area and where a lot of the snorkle and sunset cruises originate.  There are a ton of timeshares and condos just above Kaanapali.  You will also want to rent a car. 

Pick up the Maui Revealed book for a lot of good info on the island.  We just went in May and it was considered the off season but I think you will find the prices a little higher in June.

queenklm33

I used betterbidding.com to figure out what hotels were what on Hotwire. We saved a lot of money going this route.

j_jaye

We booked through priceline.com as it was the cheapest we found for the exact hotel we wanted. We were also limited to dates  so it was kind of easier to search ever site to compare. We looked at orbitz, hawaiian, united, expedia, hotels.com and a few local sites in Aus. priceline was the cheapest by far but I hadn't heard of a couple of the other sites pp's have listed.

Also on VRBO et el. I found that when you got down to the nitty gritty the cleaning fees were ridiculous and some of the security deposits were also huge! It usually ended up the same amount as booking through a hotel/resort direct and a lot of the airport transfer companies wouldn't drop off to a lot of the condo/rental places unless they were a resort. This would mean a cab fare which can be costly. If you a hire a car no problem!