Cheaper / better to book hotel and flights separately?

We re looking for Christmas 2016, which a lot of the holidays and flights aren t out yet here, probably in the new year.

I find booking separately is much cheaper than booking as a package.

Some tips.

Use Trivago to find the hotel you would like to stay at and then select best value booking site. Also try to find some discount codes for the booking sites, e.g. Expedia 10% off, which helps to save a few hundred pounds depending on the cost of your hotel.

Open a Virgin Atlantic Flying Club account and try to earn around 3,000 miles. This will then allow you to receive a £30 discount of return flights when booking a miles + money fare. Another tip is to book when VA have their next sale, as a miles + money fare will bring the cost down even more.

At Christmas time you re likely to find a better deal staying at a privately owned villa /apartment. Last January we used Homeaway and paid £150 per night for a luxury two bedroom apartment at Sugar Hill. This included beach club access at the Fairmont. The equivalent of staying at a luxury hotel was approx £5-600 per room per night.

Most US Hotel sites tend to have better deals also and still allow UK customers to book. E.g. Cheaptickets, Orbitz, Travelocity. They also tend to have discount codes ranging from 15-25% off. Make sure to book using a 0% currency card as it will make the cost cheaper.