by Dream Vacations on July 1, 2014

best vacation deals 2Part Three and the final installment of “Looking for the best deal on your next vacation.” If you missed Part One or Two, click here to take a look. If I were to say to you; “So I want the Presidential Suite for less than the Standard room, is that possible?” you first thought would be to say no, that doesn’t make any sense. How could I get the best room for a lower cost than the standard room? Well you can’t and neither can you get more nights on a vacation for less money than few nights…. unless….

If you stay for longer, you can get a better price: I hear this question more often than you would think and my initial reaction is the same as I think yours would be if I posed the same question to you as above right? Well this scenario can and does happen but only in about 1 in a 1000 times (remember the Odds and Averages?) So you call in and ask for a price on a 5 night vacation, then you ask “if I stay for 7 nights, will that be cheaper?” How could that possibly happen? Any guesses…. This can happen one of three most common ways.

First of all, if your 5 night flight price is much higher than the 7 night flight price, then adding 2 nights in a resort can make it seem as if your rate is lower for 7 nights. Such as the 5 night airfare was $700 per ticket but the 7 night airfare was only $400 per ticket and your room rate is $100 extra per night. You add two nights for $200 but you save $100 because your flight cost went down by $300.

best vacation dealsSecond, if there happens to be a promotion at a particular resort where they are offering “free nights” when booking 7 nights or more. I have seen a few cases where a hotel offered 2 free nights when booking 7 night stays so adding 2 nights was the same price as booking 5 nights. This is probably the least common occurrence and typically seems to happen more with NON-All Inclusive Resorts.

And Lastly, when we have charter packages with Apple Vacation and Funjet Vacations. These such companies really risk the fact that they are going to fill their planes when they offer these special charter flight packages. If they don’t fill the seat, they still have to pay the airline for it. So, maybe there is a big sale price on a 7 night charter flight because those are actually “packages” that is less expensive than your 5 night flight on a commercial airline such as American Airlines. This is more common than you might think because everyone wants a “package” but true packages only happen on these type of charter programs. If your booking a commercial flight with connections for example, you are truly buying a flight and then booking a hotel. They are combined as one purchase not discounted because of booking together.