There may be a recession on, but we all still want to go on holiday. The media might think that staycations are the newest craze and holiday makers will be flocking to British holiday locations, but if you still want to jet off abroad you can do it. And on the cheap. Here are our top tips for cheap travel this summer.

1. Get online

The first port of call when booking a holiday has to be the internet. Whether it’s a package holiday or you’re booking accomodation and flights separately online deals outstrip those available on the high street or with telephone booking services. This is simply because these services involve having a sales team which the company has to pay, so their salaries are added to your holiday prices.

The trick to getting the best deals is to look everywhere. Do not just use one search engine, use as many as possible. It’s time consuming, but you must know if you’re getting a good price or not.

For FLIGHTS click these links:

• The Moneymagpie flight comparison service
• Expedia
• Cheapflights
• Kayak

This is our flight comparison tool – it’s very easy to use. Just enter the destinations you want to fly between, the dates on which you would like to fly, and the number of people who are flying.

For HOTELS click these links:

• Lastminute (offers extremely cheap ‘secret’ hotels which are really worth considering)
• Expedia (has great deals including extra nights for free)
• eBookers (offers a wide range of holiday deals from family trips to skiing breaks and cruise adventures).
• Laterooms (great for last minute bargains)

For CHEAP CAR RENTAL try an aggregator site like one of these

• easyCar
• CarRentals.co.uk

Once you’ve looked around and found the best prices available you can go back and book with wherever you found it. Make sure you clear the cache on your browser before you do. This stores a record of what you are looking at online and if a site detects that you’ve been offered one price it often automatically raises the price when you return to purchase it. If you clear the cache it cannot do this.

2. Get the best insurance deal

Shop around for your travel insurance instead of taking the first policy offered to you by the travel agent- the chances are you’ll be able to get a much better deal elsewhere.

To nab yourself a top insurance deal take a look at Moneymagpie’s travel insurance comparison tool. Do this before accepting any policy offered to you by a travel agent- it could save you a fortune.

Tip! There are two types of travel insurance: Single trip and Annual (or multi-trip).  Single trip only covers you for a week and annual covers you for as many trips as you take in a year.  Annual cover is usually around two and a half times the price of single trip so if you go away three times a year it’s better to get annual insurance than to take out new cover for each trip.

Your annual premium depends on whether you want your family covered, what extent of cover you require, where you’re going and how much excess you’re willing to pay. #link text or image goes here” target=”_blank”>Ski Insurance cover from just £11.99.

3. Claim your discount on airport parking

APH has kindly offered Moneymagpie readers a 5% discount on airport parking. APH has over 60 car parks around all the major airports, so wherever you’re flying from you should be able to park your car for less.

Just click on this special link right here for a free quote, and your 5% discount will automatically be applied. As pre-booking your space early with APH can save you up to 25% on standard airport parking charges, even without the 5% discount you’re still on to a winner!

Pre-book today and take the sting out of airport parking fees.

4. House exchanges are free

You can arrange to swap houses with another couple or family and get your holiday accommodation completely free. House swaps are organised through agencies who either have internet sites or member catalogues. To join you give information of where you would like to go, dates when you could possibly go (being flexible will facilitate finding a swap), how many bedrooms and bathrooms you have in your house, as well as appliances and any extras you have like a big garden, garage or swimming pool.  You can also opt to exchange the use of your car with the use of the other family’s vehicle to save you having to rent one.

Most of the house-swap agencies charge a one-off annual membership fee of less than £100 and will refund this if you do not manage to organise a swap during that year.  Paying the money often means that you deal with people who are genuine about house-swapping and will respect your property as they will want you to respect theirs.

The Moneymagpies recommend HomeExchange.com (a personal favourite of Moneymagpie founder Jasmine) and HomeforExchange.

5. Group travel is cheaper even without the discounts

Renting a large villa/cottage/holiday house with friends will save you money. The more people the place sleeps, the cheaper per head the accommodation will be and so joining up with friends and their families (as long as you can stand them for a week) will save you money. A bigger property also means better facilities like a pool or bigger gardens.

James Villa Holidays are a good bet when it comes to finding villa based accomodation, as are Belvilla for cottages and chalets. For closer to home trips take a look at Dales Holiday Cottages as they boast an impressive range of cottages throughout the UK.

If you use Holiday Rentals you can book directly with the landlord rather than through an agent, which is often cheaper.

Click here to see if there is a great bargain.

6. The small hours are the cheapest

Fares early in the morning and late at night are generally cheaper than those that are conveniently during normal waking hours. Brave dragging yourself out of bed at two in the morning to catch a 4a.m. flight, and you will probably pay less. This is especially true on ferries that run throughout the night.

Click on this link and do a price comparison on Expedia between off peak and peak flight times.

7. Get insider offers

Signing up for travel website newsletters will mean you get told when sales are starting, when they are running offers and when you can get big travel discounts. Hotel chains all have them and will send you special deals and vouchers. Open a separate free email account to have them sent to and you’re laughing.

Sign up for these sites to get started:

• Expedia
• Accor Hotels
• Holiday Inn
• Trailfinders

8. Book well in advance

Booking early (i.e a few months in advance) will save you money on transport and accomodation. Planes, trains and buses all have a certain quota of seats that they will sell for the lowest price. Once these seats are booked up, the next lot of seats will be a bit more expensive and so on. This goes for hotels, theatres and ferries too.

However, if you do want to book late, the later the better. This year there will be fewer unsold holidays on the market simply because travel agents will have anticipated a fall in demand and bought fewer to sell. However if you aren’t fussy about where you go, potentially you can still get a very good deal last minute.

At Moneymagpie we like Lastminute.com’s last second deals. Go to their site to see just how cheap you can get a holiday.

Click this link for a cheap last minute deal.

9. Get cheap holiday extras

The cost of getting to the airport can mount up. Save on parking, hotel stays and shuttle services by booking with a specially designed site like Holiday Extras. Through them you can book budget transport and parking services to save you big money.

If you are getting public transport to the airport be clever about it. Make the most of the offers that are around, like the ones we’ve found below:

• If you’re travelling in a group make sure you take advantage of this current offer from Gatwick Express. You can get 3 or 4 tickets for the price of 2, as long as you’re group are all travelling together at the same time. This deal has to be booked online, so take a look now and save yourself some pennies.
• If you’re flying from Stansted be aware that National Express are offering £2 off their train journeys to the airport. Over 60`s can also get up to 50% off their National Express coach fare during off peak travel times, and up to 30% off during peak travel times. Not bad eh!
• If you want to park at the airport then take a look at Cheap.co.uk, a website which compares how much you’ll be charged to park your car at the various different sites airports provide. Well worth a look.

Just make sure that you visit  Holiday Extras so that you don’t end up spending all your holiday money before you’ve even made it to the airport!

10. Get cashback on your holiday

If you find your holiday on high profile online search engines like Expedia, you can get paid to buy it through a cashback site.

On average, the payout will be roughly 2.5% of the price of the holiday, but some providers pay up to 10% cashback giving you a 10% discount on your holiday.

There are many sites to choose from. For booking a holiday, Rpoints has a large amount of relevant merchants. Click this link to buy your holiday through them and earn cashback.

11. Try alternative transport

Planes are not the only way to travel – taking a bus, coach or train could be cheaper.

Low prices offered by the Megabus has forced other bus companies, especially National Express, to offer competitive fares so you can now travel to lots of UK destinations in a really nice coach for just £1 single.

National Express also have a 2plus2 annual family Coach Card for £16 a year. It allows two full paying adults to take two children for free. If it’s just you and your child they also do a 1plus1 deal on the same basis for just £8. National Express also own Eurolines which operate all over Europe and have fares to Ireland, Paris, Amsterdam and other destinations for just £15 single.

14. Get out of the Eurozone

The pound is weak right now so to get the most from your money avoid countries that have the Euro, and also the US dollar if you can. Places like Turkey or Czech Republic are great tourist destinations and don’t have the Euro, plus the cost of living is generally much cheaper. So you don’t just get more currency for your sterling, but more for your money once you’ve exchanged it.

15. Grab family discounts

Loads of tour operators run offers that allow children to travel for free with a paying adult. If you’re booking online you should always look out for them. This applies for hotels and transport too. Here are just a few examples.

• First Choice let you take your first child for free
• Disneyland Paris is letting children under seven stay and play for free to celebrate their 15th anniversary
• Not only do kids go free on Legoland Holidays (for every one paying adult, one child goes free), but you’ll also get a second day at the park free of charge.

16. A bundle can be cheaper

If you are booking a car, flight and hotel together, a travel agent will probably be able to get you the best all-round deal, even better than if you spent ages searching for prices on the internet. This is even more true in the current economic climate as they will be trying even harder than ever to make a sale. They can also sort out all your activities and excursions for discounted prices whilst you are away.

To get a discount, try bartering with a travel agent. You can ask them to match a price you have been offered elsewhere and, now more than ever,  you should be able to negotiate a really good deal.

17. Get free guide books

Your local library will let you borrow a guide book completely free.

You can sort out extended loans on books if you are going to be away longer than the loan period, or just renew online.

If it’s recommendations you want there are tons of online travel guides you can look through before you go.  Check out:

• Trip Advisor
• Virtual Tourist
• Worldreviewer

18. Get discount vouchers

Online voucher and promotional code sites are not the most reliable, but they do sometimes have functional codes that can get you money off your flights, hotel booking or even holiday package.  The big names are:

• myvouchercodes
• vouchercodes
• voucherstar
• latestdiscountvouchers

For the ins and outs of voucher codes, from the best ones to use to the ones to avoid, see Moneymagpie’s Guide To Voucher Codes: Being Clever With Codes.

Give us your tips

Do you have some great tips for getting a cheaper holiday? Tell everyone else in our forum.