S/O all inclusive ideas - how are you booking?

We book a couple of different ways, depending on where we are going.

If we are going to a Unico/Planet Hollywood resort, we book directly because we are a member of their legendary club and you have to book that way to use your membership.

Otherwise, we book the resort thru the website + flights ourselves. I've never used a travel agent for any trip other than Disney.

oh good question! I've wondered about this because of thinking about doing one all inclusive for a week and then switching islands to a different resort for a second week. But as cakediva said, here they are usually sold as packages including fights

And as a separate rant - prices have gone up so much since Covid, it's ridiculous!!!! Prior to you could find deals in the off seasons. Not any longer

I book through WestJet Vacations. I've done all inclusive that way and Disney and Hawaii (for just the flight and rooms as a package). I've also booked a flight and accommodations on my own for Hawaii if I don't like the places offered through the vacation package and if the price is similar. I don't care for using a travel agent.

For the past 30 years I have done all of our travel arrangements. We are planning to use a local travel agent for our next big vacation though, as they can get upgrades/perks more easily as well as handle issues that arise. In the past that wasn't a big issue but with the current state of travel it's something to consider. It's always worth doing a cost comparison to DIY a trip vs using a travel agent.



Sorry you were stuck in the fiasco last week. I've seen reports that United was giving passengers 30,000 miles for the snafu last week. Unless you have other miles to add to that, don't get your hopes up on doing much travel with those miles. Do a quick check on their website, search for pricing with miles, no money, to get an idea of how many miles it will take. Also keep in mind that they use dynamic pricing and those miles can go up and down, and mostly up IME.

Air Canada Vacations for my all-inclusives.  I usually go to Cuba, as it is so beautiful, the people are wonderful and I love it there.

I have used Costco travel for my cruises and then book my flight with Air Canada (Toronto) or SouthWest (Buffalo), depending on price, flight times and availability.  I tend to use flights out of Buffalo to do domestic travel in the USA.  The airport is closer and less busy than Toronto.

We use Expedia for packages, including all-inclusive. I shared this on another post, but this spring we had a crazy price from a travel agent that the rest of our group booked with (we decided to tag along last minute) to go to Mexico. Prices with the agent were getting crazy and after spending hours and hours working on it, they could only get us 3 our of 4 needed flights together to get back, so I said forget it. Then a few days later I decided to check Expedia and got the same dates I originally wanted for $2k less and no problem with flights (in fact, we shared the flight home with the group we went with).

I use Expedia for almost all of our travel and still compare prices - I've never paid more than booking direct (but get my Expedia reward points) and usually pay less, plus we have gotten quite a few VIP-type upgrades with them for cheap. Personally, we have never had a single travel issue using them and it's so convenient to have them capture all the travel info in one place.