Travel for Less this Summer With Discount Travel Sites

Ah, summer! How long do we, as Canadians, wait for the long, lazy days of summer? The kids are out of school, the office is a little quieter, and many of us just can't wait to get away. In fact, these are peak travel months. Last summer was a bit of a downer for the travel industry (not surprising, considering what the economy was like at the time), and many airlines and hotels were offering deep discounts to entice travellers. That's not the case this year. A recent Travelocity study showed that 49% more people plan to travel this summer than last. This increase in travel means we can say goodbye to those wonderful discounts.

If you're hoping to travel for less, there is an option. Discount travel sites like Hotwire, Travelocity, and LastMinuteTravel.com are easy to use and offer better prices than you'll get directly from any hotel or airline. Like travel agents, discount travel sites have partnerships with hotels, airlines, and rental car companies. Unlike travel agents, these sites are mostly selling excess inventory. In other words, hotel rooms, seats on flights, and rental cars that would otherwise be empty because nobody bought them. Ideally, everybody wins with these sites. The travel partner gets to unload the excess inventory, you pay a discounted price, and the discount travel site makes a sale.

By far the best discounts you'll find on these sites are the "opaque" hotel deals. They may be called "undercover" hotels or "top secret" hotels. Whatever the name, the idea is the same. You select a star rating and a city, and the site will return a list of hotels with discounted room prices. You select the one you want and pay for it. You won't know what hotel you're staying at until you're payment has gone through. That's because the hotel doesn't want to advertise the fact that they're selling $150 rooms for $85, for example.

For many people, opaque hotel deals provide a way to stay in great hotels that they may not otherwise be able to afford. However, there are drawbacks. You could end up in an area of the city that you're not crazy about (if you use Hotwire), or you could end up in a sleazy hotel, although that's less likely if you're searching only for four-star hotels. WalletPop has discovered a loophole on LastMinuteTravel.com that will show you a picture of your "undercover" hotel, but the loophole doesn't work with Hotwire or Travelocity. With those two sites, however, you can at least narrow down the part of the city you want to stay in. For example, if you book a four-star hotel in Downtown Toronto West, you won't get stuck in a hotel way out by the airport.

And again, if you want to lower your chances of getting stuck in a bad hotel, try looking for hotels with higher star ratings. Good luck, and happy travels!