If you went to the trouble of booking yourself how much can you actually save. Honestly, it will vary but I can tell you on our last holiday we saved at least £4000 and here’s how we did it.
As a group of 4 adults we did a tour of Asia including Singapore, Bali, Kuala Lumpur, Koh Samui, Chiang Mai and Bangkok.
High Street Travel agents package deal was £3600 per person a total of £14,400. We then contacted a Far East specialist travel agent for a quotation which came in at £2300 per person a total of £9200. So far we were looking at saving £5200 with little to no effort. The question is how much can we save by doing it all ourselves.
From Experience we knew to get a good deal we would have to book 6 to 7 months ahead (see table below) and the long-haul flight would be the most expensive to book and we’d have to book early to get a good deal.
| Book Ahead by | Best Day to Depart | Best Day to Return | |
| 2 to 3 Weeks | North America | Wednesday | Thursday |
| 1 to 2 Months | Europe | Thursday | Sunday |
| 2 to 3 Months | Africa | Monday | Thursday |
| 3 to 4 Months | Central America | Thursday | Tuesday |
| 3 to 4 Months | South Pacific | Tuesday | Wednesday |
| 4 to 5 Months | Caribbean | Thursday | Thursday |
| 5 to 6 Months | South America | Thursday | Monday |
| 5 to 6 Months | Middle East | Wednesday | Monday |
| 7 to 8 Months | Asia | Tuesday | Tuesday |
In this way booking each element separately it cost us £1500 each a total of £6000 which was a total saving of £8400 from booking with a High Street Travel Agent and a £3200 saving from a specialist Travel Agents tailor made deal. The breakdown of what we paid per person is detailed below.
| Manchester to Singapore returning from Bangkok Etihad (skyscanner) | £432 |
| Singapore Hotel Marina Bay Sands Room only (marina bay sands) | £270 |
| Singapore to Bali Flight with Air Asia (kiwi.com) | £66 |
| Bali Hotel Kajane Mua Bed and Breadfast (Hotels.com) | £138 |
| Bali to Malaysia Flight with Air Asia (kiwi.com) | £66 |
| Malaysia Hotel Fraser Place Bed and Breakfast (booking.com) | £75 |
| Malaysia to Koh Samui Flight with Thai Airways (Opodo.com) | £105 |
| Koh Samui Hotel Coco Palm Beach Resort Bed and Breakfast (booking.com) | £56 |
| Koh Samui to Chiang Mai Flight with Bangkok Airways (Opodo.com) | £100 |
| Chiang Mai Hotel Nimman Mai Design Bed and Breadfast (Hotels.com) | £44 |
| Chiang Mai to Bangkok Flight with Vietjet Aviation (Opodo.com) | £100 |
| Bangkok Hotel Bed and Breakfast (Hotels.com) | £15 |
| Travel Insurance with coverforyou.com | £15 |
| Airport Parking (manchesterairport.co.uk) | £18 |
We will use live data when booking our next holiday to illustrate the savings in real time and details will be shared in a future issue. As with the above illustration, we use comparison and non-comparison sites to find the best deals and will talk about this in depth in our next issue.