After months and months of putting it off, I have finally got around to booking our trip to New York!
It’s just going to be me and Miss Frugal for four nights in April and we’re ridiculously excited about it and I thought today that I’d tell you a little bit about our booking experience because there really is a huge amount of choice out there and it can get confusing with all of the advice that everyone gives you…..
We ended up booking the full package (flights and hotel) direct with British Airways for a couple of reasons. Firstly, we wanted to go with a reputable company who I know we could rely on because poor Mr Frugal is more than a little worried about us travelling all the way to New York without him.
He asked that I take this into account as much as the cost factor when I was choosing who to book with and where to stay and I have to respect that so rather than look at the many, many online companies that I’ve never heard of but who were all offering *unbeatable* prices, I stuck to the main operators that I’m familiar with from my time working as a travel agent before the kids were born.
During the last few months, I’ve checked prices almost weekly and British Airways has been consistently cheaper than the other companies I’ve checked with prices been around 40% less than companies like Virgin for the dates we wanted to go and this week, when I was ready to book they were still massively cheaper than any company offering a package deal that I could find.
Another reason we chose to book with British Airways is because they offer an add-on flight from Newcastle which is cheaper than I would pay in petrol to drive to any of the bigger airports. This way, Mr Frugal can drop us off and pick us up with no bother at all (other than him getting up in the middle of the night to take us).
We’ve chosen what looks like a nice, but basic hotel on Lexington Avenue and it looks perfect for what we want although Mr Frugal has been trying to persuade us to upgrade to a better one. We decided we’d rather have the extra money to spend while we’re there and who wants to spend time in a hotel room when there’s a whole new city to explore anyway?
He’s also trying to talk us into coming home premium class on the flights as he says we’ll be more comfortable and they’re available at a very good price right now but we’ve resisted so far as again, we’d prefer having the money to spend while we’re there.
(He’s a total bad influence when it comes to being frugal at the moment although that could well be due to the fact that he feels guilty about the car repair costs after he hit a kerb and exploded the tyre and killed the tracking!)
Travel Insurance is booked through Asda as they were the cheapest policy covering what we needed when I used a comparison site through Top Cash Back. I’ll not get too much cashback as the policy itself was quite reasonable but a few pounds is better in my pocket than anywhere else. We haven’t booked our airport transfers or excursions yet as I want to shop around for them now that the break is booked and we have or definite dates.
New York isn’t a frugal break by any means but it’s through being frugal in other areas of our lives that gives us the chance to do things like this. We now have the task of researching as much as we can so we can find so everything we want to do whilst spending as little money as possible!
Any suggestions would be gratefully accepted!
Added: I’ve been asked a couple of times why it’s just me and Miss Frugal going and I wanted to tell you all about that but in a separate post. I’ll add the link here as soon as I’ve written it. 😉
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