How to find cheap tours. How to look for a cheap last minute tour

Hi all! Today I will tell you in detail about how to buy a tour online from all tour operators (forgive the author for this clumsy SEO design: D) and along the way I will share my thoughts on why going to a travel agency in our time is not a panacea. But first, a small digression, which you can skip by going straight to the story about how, in fact, to buy a tour on your own without a travel agency.

Why are Russians afraid to buy tours online?

A few words about what we are doing here in general. So, we write travel guides, blog about our travels, and also share airline ticket sales and last-minute tours with readers. In addition, we personally provide assistance in selecting tours in our public on VKontakte and on . This is not our main activity, we are still not professional management consultants, but if people more or less know what they want, then it is not a problem for us to find them a tour at the lowest price on the market. However, after a year and a half of selecting tours, we came to the conclusion that 8 out of 10 clients are really scared by the fact that the tour is offered to be booked online, and not in the usual travel agent’s office (the naive ones are not at all embarrassed by the fact that all these numerous travel agencies regularly go bankrupt. and tourists are simply abandoned).

And the point is not that our site has some particularly timid audience, but that, quoting the well-known industry publication Travelhubr.ru - “According to market participants, in Russia only about 3% of tours are sold online to the end client. Whereas in Europe, the share of online tour bookings in 2015 averaged 25%. Such a low figure for the Russian market indicates a technological lag behind developed countries.” In my personal opinion, the lag here is not in technological development, but in the development of Internet literacy. People simply do not know what tools to use in order to select and buy a tour on their own without a tour operator (travel agency), and in general they are distrustful of the procedure for purchasing something online.

But once upon a time there was a similar situation with air tickets - people went to ticket offices, but then Aviasales and other online services appeared and the queues at the ticket offices thinned out sharply. Now more than 50% of air tickets are purchased online. So the migration of package holiday lovers online is inevitable, since all the conditions for the high-quality provision of this type of service via the Internet already exist.

Well, another important reason, in my opinion, is that a certain part of tourists are simply not ready and do not want to take responsibility for the quality of their vacation. After all, if you refuse the services of a travel agency and work out your vacation yourself, there will be no one to mentally blame for the suddenly unsuccessful vacation (the hotel is crap, the place is crap, whatever is crap). It turns out that you yourself are to blame, because you were too lazy to spend a few hours and figure out which hotels in the desired direction are ok, which are garbage, etc. 🙂

But let's try to understand why do we need travel agencies at all? and is it really possible to do without them (spoiler - you can).

Why do we need travel agencies?

To exaggerate, the entire activity of a travel agency (TA) comes down to issuing documents for you for the desired tour from a specific tour operator (TO). If you build a more detailed chain of relationships between the tourist and the TA, it will be like this: contacting the TA -> receiving advice -> booking a tour with the TO -> receiving confirmation for the tour from the TO -> issuing documents to you.

Those. in fact, a travel agent is an ordinary intermediary, who is engaged in administrative and advisory activities, for which he adds his commission on top of the cost of the tour. This margin is used to rent an office, pay salaries to managers, etc.

Yes, for some, the opportunity to get a consultation and pay for everything in the office is a very useful option. For example, if you are with a computer, it’s not just like you, but like you. If you have ever bought something online, then booking a tour online will be easy for you. And even if not, everything is done for the first time. 🙂 The main thing is to figure out where they sell tours online and which services you can really trust.

Where to buy a tour online?

There are plenty of options, but we recommend using The three largest and most popular online services in Russia for selling tours are, and. All three companies have existed for several years, have proven themselves well and, importantly, have high-quality and understandable websites through which even your grandmother will figure out how to buy a tour online.

IT IS IMPORTANT TO KNOW: all 3 services search for tours AT ONCE ALL reliable tour operators. Some have more, some have less, but everyone has the main ones, such as Anex Tour, Biblio Globus, Tez Tour, Pegasus, etc. This, by the way, is what distinguishes them from your favorite travel agency around the corner, which is unlikely to have such a variety of offers.

Each of these services is good in its own way, but we would highlight it separately for two reasons:
1) As you know, there are fuel surcharges for some popular destinations, such as Turkey, Greece and some others. So, both Level Travel and Travelata initially show the cost of the tour without fees, and only when you proceed to the booking process will they show you the final price with all the extras. Onlinetours, in turn, initially shows the cost of the tour with the fuel surcharge included. This is very convenient, because if you fly in a group, fuel surcharges can reach up to 15-20 thousand rubles.
2) Despite the fact that prices for tours for all three services may vary, lowest cost for identical offers, taking into account a discount of 3,000 rubles (how to get it - below), in 97% of cases, it will be from Onlinetours.

How to buy a tour online from all tour operators yourself?

Well, now let’s move on to the main topic of the post - how to buy a tour online. We have long wanted to write detailed instructions, but... Most people buy tours through our website on their own, and the site’s editors are used to vacationing in non-package ways, so to write this case, we had to wait for the moment when one of our close relatives was going on vacation. 🙂 In addition, the average bill for tours purchased through our website is in the region of 40 - 70 rubles, and we wanted the budget for the purchase of a tour to be at least 100,000 rubles, so that the reader could clearly see that that such services can be trusted with more impressive sums of money.

So, given:

• Group of 4 people: 65, 61, 31 and 7 years old
• Budget: 120-140 thousand rubles
• Accommodation: 5 stars, all inclusive, children's entertainment available on site
• Departure in 3-4 days

Compare prices from online services and travel agencies

I’ll say right away that none of my relatives have ever bought a tour online and although they didn’t experience any particular skepticism in terms of reliability (I wouldn’t advise them something that can’t be trusted), however, they had doubts that prices offered by online services can be competitive with travel agencies. My task was not at all to sell them a tour by any means - I just wanted to demonstrate to them and myself (once again) that the prices when buying online are at least not higher, but most likely lower, than with TA. Therefore, we agreed that they would go to their usual TA, where my sister had taken tours before and find out the prices for tours to those hotels that interest them, after which we would immediately compare them (I was in touch at that time). And then, depending on where the prices are lower, a decision will be made on who to buy the tour from.

That same evening, my sister and her parents went to TA and the following exchange of messages ensued between us on Whatsup:

An inquisitive reader will note the late time of correspondence and think - “Yeah, they’re trying to screw me - what kind of travel agency is open so late! Everything is fake and staged.” In fact, the author of these lines lives in Krasnoyarsk, while my sister lives in Moscow - given the time difference, everything is ok.

As you can understand from the correspondence - the prices that I looked at Onlinetours were either the same (taking into account the 3 tr discount, in fact, cheaper) or significantly lower - to the Raymar hotel in Side Onlinetours found a tour for 125 tr, and in TA they offered for 165 tr. The thing is that this travel agency simply did not work with the tour operator Intourist, who at that time had such low prices. Just like that, simply due to the wider coverage of tour operators, online services are able to offer more profitable options. Yes, you could probably find the same price in another TA, but that’s the advantage of online - you don’t need to run around to different travel agencies comparing prices🙂 Of course, I looked at the cost of this tour on both Travelata and Level Travel, but taking into account the discount, OT had the lowest price. Therefore, it was decided to buy a tour online through them.

Step-by-step instructions on how to buy a tour online

Basically, I just needed to buy a tour to a specific hotel, but... For most of you, this procedure will be new, so I will describe the entire process in as much detail as possible.

Step 1: go to and enter data to search for a tour. We select the departure city (Moscow), the desired destination (Turkey), the number of nights (7-8), the number of vacationers (3 adults + 1 child) and departure dates (from August 2 to 4). Click - “FIND A TOUR”.

After the search is completed, you will see all available tours in your destination.

Be sure to wait until the search bar reaches the end and disappears - the cheapest tours are often loaded at the last moment.

Step 2: Use filters to narrow down your selection of hotels. In my case, I checked the boxes in the “Food” section, opposite “All inclusive” and “Ultra all inclusive”, and also set the hotel’s star rating - 5 stars. If you click on “detailed filters”, you will have access to even more options for a more precise search. Also, do not forget about the function of sorting prices for tours by price and popularity.

Step 3: We have received a selection of tours that more accurately reflect our needs. Now it's time to find out more about the hotels offered to us. What is needed for this? — Read ratings and reviews. IMPORTANT! If you are a person with requests, then you don’t even have to look at those hotels whose rating is below 7-7.5 points; as a rule, there are a lot of complaints about them. If you are not very picky or the quality of accommodation plays a nominal role for you, then you can consider all accommodation options.

You can check hotel reviews on Onlinetours itself, but I noticed that the ratings there are usually somewhat inflated. Therefore, for more relevant reviews, I always turn to Tripadvisor and Booking. If a hotel has a rating above 7.5-8 on these resources, then you can take it after first reading the negative comments in order to understand what kind of complaints are being made against it. If they are not critical for you, book them. If the hotel rating is higher than 8-8.5/10, then this is already a very good hotel where you can safely go. Of course, this algorithm is slightly exaggerated; in fact, you can thoughtfully read a huge number of reviews, look at true photos from tourists on Tripadvisor, etc.

For some, the process of choosing a hotel can be a rather tedious task, so apparently many people want to delegate this procedure to a travel agent, but I personally sincerely enjoy doing this every time. 🙂 After all, no one but yourself will choose a better hotel for you.

Step 4: Let's move on to booking. So, after reading the reviews, I decided that the Raymar Hotel was best suited - I proceeded to booking. To do this, click on the orange button with the price, which is 125,402 rubles for everyone.

Next we see a complete list of all possible tours to this hotel from different tour operators, with different accommodation options (standard room, with mountain view, sea view, etc.) and types of food (in this case only ultra all inclusive, but usually in In the “type of tour” column there is a choice of different types of food).

Here you can click on “show all offers with flights to this hotel”, then even more available options will open to you. You can also click on the “low price chart”, which shows the prices for tours to this hotel for neighboring dates. It may turn out that prices are lower for upcoming dates.

note, that the cost of the tour between Intourist and Anex Tour differs by almost 10,000 rubles, although the offers are identical.

Because I was given the goal of buying a tour online at the lowest price, so the option for 125,402 rubles was chosen. Click the orange price button again.

Step 5: Get acquainted with detailed information about the tour. Here you need to once again check in detail all the information on the selected tour. If everything is in order, click “book”.

Step 6: We enter data about tourists and apply a discount on the tour.

So, now to complete the paperwork you need to enter passport details for everyone who is going on vacation. However, if suddenly someone still does not have a passport ready, then the data can be filled out after booking the tour.

Also at this stage you need to apply a discount, which can be obtained using. In order for the discount to be activated, you need to check the box in the “Your bonus miles and discounts” section.

The new price will be displayed immediately after the discount is activated. In my case, it became 122,402 rubles. After applying the discount, click “Book” again.

ATTENTION! Despite the fact that medical insurance is already included in the price of the tour, if your company includes people over 65 years old, you will have to pay an additional 500 rubles for insurance. Since my father turned 65 just the day before, this amount had to be added to the cost of the tour.

Step 7: Now all you have to do is enter your card details and the tour will be booked. We especially note the fact that after this your funds will only be frozen! The actual write-off will be carried out only after the tour has been confirmed by the tour operator. If the tour operator does not confirm the tour, then they will be unfrozen in the near future.

After entering all the data, an SMS with a code will be sent to the phone linked to the card, which will need to be entered, after which the amount will be frozen.

As a result, you will receive a notification that the payment has been made.

Well, that's all - the tour is booked. An official legal contract for the provision of relevant services will be sent to you immediately by email. It can also be downloaded from your personal account.

After this, within 1-2 hours, the Onlinetours manager will call you and discuss all the details of your order again. Next, within about 24 hours, you will receive information from the tour operator about whether your tour is confirmed or not. As soon as this becomes known, the manager will call you again, and the corresponding information will appear in your personal account - see the “Order Status” section.

What to do if the tour is not confirmed? Usually in such cases the manager contacts you and tries to offer an adequate alternative. If it suits you, then, depending on the cost of the new tour, you either get the difference back or you pay extra for the missing part. If a compromise is not found, then the money will be returned to your card in full.

If everything goes according to plan and the tour is confirmed, then approximately one day before departure you will be sent all the necessary documents (tour voucher, insurance, etc.), which, among other things, will indicate the exact departure time. Previously, documents were not sent due to rules according to which passenger lists are formed only on the eve of departure.

All procedures, in terms of confirming a tour with a travel agent, preparing a package of documents and receiving them, are no different from those practiced by ordinary travel agents. In fact, in this case, Onlinetours acts as a travel agent, bearing exactly the same legal responsibility in the event of failure to provide its services, so there is no need to worry in this regard.

That's all, actually! We hope that from our example you understood how to buy a tour online from all tour operators and that it is no more difficult or dangerous than buying from any offline travel agency. And no matter what the cost of the tour you need, the procedure is in any case as transparent and safe as possible.

If you still have any questions, be sure to write in the comments or

At the height of the summer season, most conversations are devoted to vacation: how and where to spend it. The dream of each of us is to relax in comfort in a decent hotel with a decent level of service and, preferably, pay half the price for it. Then we can consider that the vacation was a success. Usually, this becomes possible when purchasing a last-minute ticket. The appearance of such tours is almost inevitable, because travel agencies buy seats on planes and hotels even before the start of the holiday season.

The number of these purchased seats is calculated based on forecasts and calculations for the previous season, i.e. it is purely approximate. And probably not a single company knows how many vouchers will be sold.

A few days before the arrival date, the travel agency begins to significantly reduce prices on unsold trips in order to somehow justify the investment. The closer the departure day, the more “the tour is on fire”. Therefore, in the very last days before departure, you can purchase a ticket with a very significant discount - up to 50%. But not everything is so simple; there is a large list of nuances that you should be prepared for when counting on a last-minute tour.

• Internet
• list of hotels that suit you based on the quality of services provided
• readiness to fly the very next day after purchasing the tour
• information about the country of residence and the hotel
• Tune in to the fact that the “last minute” tour is a roulette. You may be lucky and have a wonderful rest, saving a lot, or you may even miss your vacation and end up sitting in a stuffy apartment, because... The tickets you needed were not available. We can say that last-minute tours are for those who are used to making quick decisions, are not afraid to take risks and are not very sensitive to errors in service.
• Last minute trips are usually sold to almost all countries. But no one has canceled visa restrictions. No matter how attractive a trip to France may be, 3 days before departure you will not be able to obtain a Schengen visa, without which the trip will be impossible. Therefore, you need to either think about getting a visa in advance, or choose visa-free countries and countries where a visa will be given directly upon arrival at the airport (Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia, etc.).
• There are traditional dates when last-minute travel packages are simply not available. These are the New Year holidays, May holidays and the peak tourist season in a certain country.
• A last minute tour is definitely not suitable for you if you are limited by the departure date and cannot vary it; if it is important to you which hotel to stay in (this does not mean star rating, but a specific location or the availability of specific services, such as a spa); if you are not at all indifferent to which airline to fly.
• The main question for people purchasing last-minute tours for the first time is when to buy a ticket. During the week? In 3 days? The evening before departure? There is no correct answer to this question. After all, the timing of special offers cannot be predicted. It is possible that profitable options will appear only the day before departure, or perhaps prices will begin to fall even 10 days in advance, and they may gradually decline or hover at a certain level.
• At what point is it best for you to buy a tour, a travel agency employee can guide you. He has much more knowledge and experience in this area than you. But there is a big pitfall here too. It is much more profitable for the seller of tours to convince you to buy a tour right now, even if he is well aware that the price will fall further in the near future. After all, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow you can easily contact another agency and purchase a ticket from them.
• The process of buying a last-minute tour is akin to the proverb “who gets up first gets the slippers.” Therefore, we must act quickly. In advance (several weeks in advance), select sites offering last-minute tours. Study all the offers on the Internet, draw up a list of hotels that suit you. But be prepared that it will have to change. After all, by the time you get from home to the travel agency that will book your room and plane ticket, everything may already be sold out.
• You should not go to a travel agency, as they say, unprepared, i.e. without imagining anything about the place of future rest. Remember that travel company employees are mostly interested in one thing - selling as many tours as possible. They won't be able to fuss with you for hours while you read reviews and research the hotel. In the best case, you will have to rely on the knowledge and taste of the employee, in the worst case, you will not buy anything at all.
• The cost of the same tour in different travel agencies may vary. Take the time to compare tour prices from different travel companies. Sometimes a discount is given on a tour that was initially too overpriced. But there is no point in calling two dozen travel agencies. As a rule, their offers are 80-90% identical. It will be enough to compare offers from 4-5 companies.
• It is better to contact a travel agency whose partners are several tour operators at the same time. This way, the chance to buy profitable travel packages increases significantly, because the list of countries and hotels offered is wider.
• Think about the reason for the unsold out vouchers to this or that hotel. Maybe the lack of demand is due to the low quality of the holidays offered? Be sure to read information about the hotel on the Internet: go to the hotel’s website and carefully look at all the photos. Read reviews from tourists. Of course, the reviews may be custom-made, but you will still make some impression for yourself.
• Often managers offer you the cheapest hotels so that you are guaranteed to like the price, tactfully keeping silent about the insufficient level of service or other problems existing in the hotel. For example, the expression “the animation is not up to par” may mean that only one person in the hotel speaks Russian, and he ate, and the phrase “renovations at the hotel are almost finished” may hide active construction under the windows of your room. Therefore, you should not completely trust the manager with the choice of the hotel in which you will relax.
• Take an interest in the political situation in the country where you are going (after all, you don’t want any problems with your return flight or worse). Don’t forget to check the weather conditions (otherwise the sea temperature may turn out to be +15). Another important point regarding exotic countries is the need to get vaccinated.
• On the other hand, thinking for a long time about buying a last-minute tour is an unforgivable luxury. This is not a T-shirt in a fashion boutique that you can try on 10 times. The same tour is sold by several tour operators, and it is offered to a huge number of potential buyers. Moreover, it is offered very actively. And, naturally, no one will wait for you. Often, you have just taken out your phone to consult with your relatives, and the tour has already been purchased.
• Please note that the price of the tour greatly depends on the season. The hotel where your friends vacationed at the end of May may, even at a last minute price, cost twice as much in mid-August.
• Another nuance - the biggest discounts are on the most expensive hotels. Those. You can save $500 by purchasing a tour costing more than $2,000. And on an initially $600 trip, you shouldn’t expect a $400 discount.
• Before signing an agreement to purchase a tour, be sure to check the star rating of the hotel, the availability of a round-trip air ticket, accommodation conditions, and type of food.
• Get ready to buy a good tour, then, along with the gentle overseas sun, you will also be warmed by the thought that you bought this trip much cheaper than the people around you.
• Surely many of your friends successfully went on vacation on last-minute packages, but some, on the contrary, were terribly dissatisfied with the hotel, service, and infrastructure. Remember that any option is possible when purchasing a regular tour. Well, just bad luck or luck, that's all.
• For those who are used to clearly planning their lives and can name the date of their vacation six months in advance, there is early booking, when you buy a tour for July-August in March-April. At the same time, the travel agency usually also provides discounts, although less significant.
• It happens that, while waiting for last minute prices for tours, people are faced with the completely opposite phenomenon - prices begin to rise. This happens when demand for certain flights was initially very high and tickets were selling like hot cakes, so in recent days, when there are only a few seats left on the flight, travel companies are raising prices for these seats. After all, they will still be sold out.
• One of the varieties of last-minute tours is tours such as “Bingo 5*”, “Bingo 4*”. In general, this is a lottery when you know that you will be vacationing in a 5-star (or 4, or 3) hotel, but you will only find out its name after meeting the guide upon arrival in the country.

Buy the best

Rubles. These are real examples of cheap travel deals I've found over the past year. Find out where and how to find such last-minute tours.

This guide is already three years old. Being an avid traveler and cheap tour hunter, I have outlined my experience and knowledge of finding inexpensive tours. Learn how to relax without extra costs!

Rules for searching and purchasing the cheapest tours:

I vacationed in Turkey in June/July 2019 on a last-minute tour for 33,500 rubles for two. Great!

1. Buy tours online

Travel agencies on the street sell tours at a higher price than online tour search engines. The last time I bought a ticket at a travel agency office was back in 2012. Then convenient and reliable online tour search services appeared - now I only use them. I no longer go to the offices of greedy travel agencies - it’s more convenient and profitable to buy tours on the Internet.

Why are travel agencies more expensive? The reason is the human factor - cunning managers in travel agencies use every possible means to encourage the client to buy a more expensive tour package. They fundamentally do not want to sell tours for 5, 10, 20 thousand - the percentage from such transactions is not enough for them, they need more gold!

Where to look for cheap tours online? I use three search engines: , and . All three are reliable and very comfortable. Choose which one you like best.

Install the mobile application. Travelata has an excellent app: download it for or and use the current promotional code when purchasing a tour AF600MOBmake-trip- you will receive a discount of 600 rubles on any tours costing over 50,000 rubles.

How do tour search engines work? They compare prices among 130 popular tour operators and find the cheapest tours. Finding and booking a tour yourself is easy. You see complete information on the package: hotel, flight, meals, tourist reviews, and so on. You choose the tour that you like. Do you have any questions? Ask them to a consultant via chat or phone. Secure online payment by credit card. The tour can also be purchased in installments.

Offices and consultants. All three search engines have offices in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and other large cities. There is also a hotline support line. So it's easy to interact with them.

Pros of buying tours online:

1. Big choice. Compare prices from all tour operators to find the cheapest tour. Compare - save!
2. Convenient and fast. There is no need to go to travel agency offices, waste time on travel, waiting and communication. You can find and book a tour in 15-30 minutes at home or at work. When buying last-minute tours, speed is especially important: if you find a cheap tour, buy it in a couple of clicks before it disappears.
3. Safely. Search engines work only with reliable tour operators. Payment takes place using a secure protocol. There is a 24/7 support service.
4. Independence. I recommend searching and purchasing tours on your own. It’s more reliable this way - you know better than anyone what exactly you need and at what price. No interference from others - no opportunity to confuse you. In offices, managers are often cunning or simply incompetent.
5. Documents - immediately. When purchasing a tour online, all reservations and confirmations will be sent by email immediately after payment. In a regular agency, employees like to delay the issuance of documents - they did it, we know.
6. Reliable. I trust large online search engines, and with a large customer base and a well-known name. Travel agencies with motley names like “Cactus”, “Sea of ​​Dreams” or “Marina Travel” scattered along the streets of Russian cities - no.

Our holiday in Greece on the island of Rhodes in June 2019 on a last-minute tour for 27,000 rubles for two. It was possible to take a tour for 21,000, but we chose a cool and cozy hotel a little more expensive. We really enjoyed:)

2. Be flexible with deadlines and dates.

We often have many restrictions: strictly fixed vacation days, personal matters and obligations. However, try to achieve as much freedom as possible in choosing dates - this will save money.

See different departure days. Your vacation starts on Monday and you found a tour for that day for 50 thousand? Check flights on Tuesday or Wednesday - maybe there will be tours for 30 thousand. I encounter this regularly.

Change the length of rest. Often (not sometimes, but often!) 7-night tours are cheaper than 5-night tours, 10-night tours are cheaper than 8-night tours, and so on. Don't limit yourself - check out all the options!

Take a look at the site's price calendar. Often, 7-night packages are cheaper than 3-night packages:

Sailing on the Indian Ocean. Photos from my trip to the Maldives in the spring of 2019. We had a super cheap vacation on the paradise islands - for the price of a trip to Crimea!

3. Be flexible in your choice of resort

If you are a monogamous person who prefers to go on vacation to the same place every year, then choosing a destination is not a question for you. I recommend everyone else consider different resorts - your chances of buying a cheap tour will increase.

How does direction affect price?

1. There are traditionally expensive destinations (,). There are cheap destinations (,).
2. Seasonality plays an important role: it is cheaper to fly to some resorts in the summer, to others in the winter, and to others in the spring or autumn.
3. Random factors also work. For example, a tour operator sold few tours to one of the destinations and decided to reduce prices - last-minute tours appear.

Do you want to buy the cheapest tour? Look at as many destinations as possible. Compare not only countries, but also individual resorts within the same country.

Our holiday in the Maldives, Thoddoo Island. The beaches there are luxurious!

4. Buy tours from Moscow

It is for flights from Moscow that you can find the cheapest tours. Competition and a developed air transportation system are driving prices down. Sometimes the difference in price compared to other cities is colossal.

What should a non-capital tourist do?

First, check if you can find a cheap tour from your city. Found it? Great - let's take it! If not, then it is worth expanding the geography of departure cities.

See if there are cheap tours from neighboring cities or from Moscow. You can get to the departure point yourself: by bus, train or plane. Pobeda flies to Moscow from many Russian cities - tickets cost from 1000 rubles. I myself live in the provinces, and fly from Moscow on vacation.

Every situation is different - there is no one solution. Compare prices and decide what is better for you: pay more and fly from your city or save money but spend time traveling to another city.

Look at the examples below. I compared the cost of trips to Cyprus from Moscow and Yekaterinburg. A tour from the capital can be bought much cheaper. If you fly to Moscow on your own, you can save a lot of money.

We are flying on a charter trip to Turkey. We ourselves live in Perm, but in 90% of cases we buy tours and tickets from Moscow - it’s much cheaper, even taking into account the cost of traveling to the capital.

5. Use Smart Search

(Photo © club-med-discover / flickr.com / License CC BY-NC 2.0.)

6. Trust in fortune

For those who want to buy the cheapest tour, prudent tour operators have come up with the “Fortune” system.

How it works? You do not buy a tour to a specific hotel, but only choose its level: 2 stars, 3 stars and so on. The tour operator himself decides which hotel of the selected category to accommodate you in. You don't need to be a psychic to guess your future hotel. Just find the cheapest one in the list of options and they will send you there. There is one exception - the hotel is already full. Then you will be accommodated in the next cheapest one. Tour operators do not always offer “Fortune”: if tours through this system are available, you will see them in the search results.

How much can you save? A tour of Fortuna usually costs 2-3 thousand rubles cheaper than other tours. Look at the description and reviews for the cheapest hotel in the desired resort. If the hotel suits you, buy a tour of Fortuna.

Is it worth the risk? My opinion is no. It’s better to overpay a little and choose an adequate hotel without surprises. Usually the cheapest hotel has a bad location and many shortcomings. But often does not mean always! If you want to save money and are not too pretentious, then you can go on vacation along Fortuna. Look at reviews of cheap hotels and decide according to the situation.

(Photo © Unique Properties (UP) / flickr.com / Licensed CC BY-NC 2.0.)

7. Book in advance

Buy a tour in advance or catch last minute? This question is asked by many tourists. Both early booking and last-minute tour purchases provide an opportunity to save money. Each option has its pros and cons.

Early booking. Minus: discounts are usually not as big as when buying last-minute tours. Plus: you can choose any hotel to your taste, relax beautifully and pleasantly. This is a winning option in terms of price and quality.

Last minute tours. Buying a tour at the last minute is often very profitable. Pros: big discounts, sometimes trips are even sold for pennies. There are two minuses. Firstly, there is no guarantee that a cheap last minute tour will appear for your destination on the dates you need. At the last moment, prices can either decrease or jump significantly. This game is quite gambling. The second drawback is that during the high season, all the best hotels will already be booked, so you will have to choose from second-rate options.

Conclusion. If you need a tour anywhere and as cheaply as possible, grab last-minute tours just before departure. If the quality of your vacation is a priority, then buy a tour in advance (optimally - 2-3 months in advance). You will receive both a discount for early booking and a wide selection of hotels.

Friends, I travel a lot and willingly share my experience and knowledge with anyone who needs it. Join

I, like any other traveler, understand that a competent approach to choosing a tour, hotel and air tickets directly affects the overall quality of your vacation and its final cost. To travel a lot, you need to learn how to choose travel packages correctly. And this is not as difficult as it might seem at first glance. You just need to know where to look for them and what to look for when choosing. This will be discussed below.

Criteria for choosing a cheap tour

When planning a trip again, I always try to consider several options, both independent tourism and purchasing a voucher. There are a lot of nuances and features here. The travel option largely depends on your region of residence. For example, tours are more suitable for Siberians, since they are the easiest way to get to the right place. Yes, and much cheaper.

When purchasing a tour, I personally do not trust the agent to choose certain parameters. Namely: country, hotel and resort. I consider all the options on my own, and this saves me from many unpleasant situations while traveling.

To save time on finding the sites I needed, I bookmarked them in advance. From some sites I periodically receive mailings with different offers. In addition, even your mobile phone has a special application. And as soon as a vacation trip appears in my plans, I carefully begin to prepare for it. I look through absolutely all resources, this helps to find the best option.

Services for selecting available tours

Travelata.ru (the best, first, in my ranking)

One of my favorite resources. You can go to it using the link. An excellent portal that searches for the best offers from 120 operators. I've used it several times and I'm happy with it. Information comes almost at lightning speed. The customer consultation center is open 24 hours a day. And you can choose tours with a time interval of “plus” or “minus” three days. Thanks to this, the most optimal prices are selected. Another unique feature of the portal is the presence of a separate page for travelers with children. Here you can choose the ideal option based on your preferences. For example, babysitting services, availability and quality of entertainment for children, and so on.

Level.travel (excellent search engine, have used it more than once)

These two services can be successfully used as search engines, but not only. They are convenient for online ordering and payment (by card). For a modern person, a fairly important point, colossal time savings, and ease of use make these portals quite popular. And I have them in my bookmarks. If you are still afraid to buy a tour on the site, just use it as a search resource.

Popular, inexpensive destinations from Level.travel

Onlinetours (I use it often)

Quite a popular portal for purchasing tours online. Works exclusively with trusted tour operators. There is a very convenient system for searching for trips. On this portal you can even rent a go pro camera. A special service department monitors the quality of your holiday and guarantees 100% results. By visiting the “Relaxation Ideas” page you can get a lot of useful information. Including weather, entertainment on beaches, visa-free countries and much more. Overall, the portal is amazing – I definitely recommend bookmarking it.

TourBazaar (a great option to spend a cheap weekend)

This option is ideal for people who want to have a great time in Russia. An excellent resource for purchasing a promotional tour in the form of an auction. What’s most interesting is that the minimum price per lot is only 1 ruble. Therefore, you can rest for practically nothing. More than 40 regions of the Russian Federation are offered to travelers.

Misto Travel (departure from Ukraine)

“Misto Travel” is a portal for selecting tours from all travel agencies departing from Ukraine. Convenient online booking saves a lot of time. The tourist himself chooses the desired destination and the best offers. Departure from Kyiv to any selected country. Be it Türkiye or Greece, Spain or Italy and many other countries. Thanks to the service, it is possible to choose a last-minute tour without visiting an agency. It is not only convenient and fast, but also the most profitable. Current prices, maximum discounts.

Dreamlines (sea and river cruises)

This portal is most suitable for those tourists who prefer sea tours. There are a lot of them here. A Russian-language website that allows you to book river or sea cruises online. It is possible to choose the most suitable not only the liner, but even the cabin number. Thanks to this resource, you can choose your own air ticket and place of accommodation for the start and end of the cruise. And even excursion programs. And the most interesting thing is that you can buy not only the cruise itself, but also other tourist services on credit. On the portal you can order a variety of cruises from popular resorts, for example, Sochi, St. Petersburg and so on. The cheapest tours can be found on the special page “Popular tours at affordable prices.”

Tourdom

This is a professional travel portal. I have it in my bookmarks, I even visited it several times. But I didn’t really use it. Basically, data on last-minute offers, canceled tours, and tickets for charter flights is collected here. By the way, the latter option has a unique feature - tickets can be purchased directly on the website, without paying the hotel in advance.

Triphunter.club (Instagram)

This resource is especially useful for Instagram users. There is a lot of useful information and interesting offers. As for me, this one resource is quite capable of replacing all of the above portals. Here you can find the cheapest travel packages and plane tickets. True, they are mainly for Moscow and St. Petersburg, but still...

Instagram Uletimru

This is a blog of sorts run by avid travelers. Every day they view various offers on different resources and post them on their page. There are not many tours here, mostly air tickets. But, there are interesting offers for travel packages.

Application Sletat.ru

An excellent option for people who are constantly on the go; there is no need to put off finding the right tour. That is, wait until you get to the computer. I once booked a luxury hotel in Rhodes on this site for a fairly reasonable price. The application is quite convenient. You can put filters on the number of stars in the hotel and operators, on the hotel rating, and so on. There are also reviews, people who have already visited this or that place, and much more. It even happens that the price of a tour (already purchased) is reduced. In this case, the client receives an SMS notification on his phone. By the way, our friends therefore changed their hotel to a more expensive option. True, the operator had to be persuaded, but still. Website sletat.ru or download the application

Piratesru.com

The resource is especially popular among independent travelers; almost all of them subscribe to it. On this portal, information is updated not just daily, but several times throughout the day. For example, I am pleased with their offers for air travel from Moscow and St. Petersburg. Special attention should be paid to the “Tours” section. You can find a very good option here. True, as a rule, proposals are mainly laid out for Moscow. But if you look here often, you can find options for other settlements.

Rules for choosing a good last minute tour

1. Subscribe to all mailings, even if the departure date is not yet known, the travel budget has not been planned and there is no idea of ​​the duration of the vacation.
2. Don't cling to one country. Believe me, you can have a great time anywhere. Try to look through all offers.
3. You are considering different options for the duration of your stay in a particular state. Sometimes you come across offers where the cost of a tour for 13–15 days is significantly lower than for 10.
4. If there are no cheap tours from your locality at this time, look in neighboring regions. For example, you live in Omsk, but there is no suitable option, but it could be Novosibirsk and so on.
5. Hotel ratings are an important point and there are several features here. A good enough hotel does not always have an excellent rating. But the whole point may be in his “youth”. When the rating has not yet been developed, but you need to attract tourists. Such establishments will do everything possible and even more to ensure that the client is satisfied and recommends this place to his friends. Hotel reviews are not always true. This also applies to negative reviews. Therefore, look through them on different sites. Believe me, on a purely intuitive level you can understand how much truth there is in a particular review.
6. When looking for a suitable option, pay attention not only to “All inclusive”, consider both “FB” (three meals a day) and “HB” (that is, breakfast and dinner). If the price difference is significant, this option may be simply ideal. In addition, if you are traveling to Europe, you should know: not all hotels operate on an all-inclusive basis.
7. Do not discard the “Fortune” options, that is, when a tourist can be sent to any hotel with a certain number of stars. But it’s not really worth the risk, especially if the difference in price is noticeable. And one more thing - you should only go on a trip under this offer with a tour operator that has been on the market for a long time and has an excellent reputation. In my opinion, this option is ideal for people who do not plan to spend most of their time on the hotel premises.
8. In general, tourism operators are a rather serious question. You should not contact operators that few people know in certain circles. Especially if they offer very tempting prices. Believe me, I know this for sure.
9. In some situations, you can do this - buy the cheapest tour, choose a hotel yourself, but be sure to notify the travel agency about your decision.
10. The season of departure for travel also greatly affects the cost of tours. Typically, the most affordable options are in mid to late spring and fall. During the high season, the cost naturally increases significantly.
11. Last minute tours are another great option for saving on tours. Take care of your Schengen visa in advance and keep an eye on the offers that appear on the relevant market. There are also subtleties here. For example, if you are going on a Schengen trip for the first time, you only need to go to the country that issued the permit. And if you are interested in a free and fast visa option, use the Cyprus multiple visa, which gives you the opportunity to visit Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania.

P.S. Well, that’s basically all I wanted to tell you today. Of course, everyone has their own taste, this or that resource that I like may not be to your liking. And at the same time, every person has the right to choose. Look, decide, choose the ideal option for yourself.

To travel as often as possible, you need to be able to find the best prices on tours, flights and hotels. I’ve already written more than once about searching for tickets and choosing a hotel on your own, but I haven’t talked about vouchers yet. Today I’ll give you all the services and sites that help me look for cheap tours, and I’ll tell you how you can save money on a vacation organized by a tour operator.

How to look for cheap tours?

When going on vacation, I always consider both options - traveling independently and purchasing a tour. It is cheaper and more convenient to get from Siberia to many places by tour (although this limits your choice of hotel and length of stay). At the same time, I do not trust the choice of country, resort or even hotel to a travel agent - I select everything exclusively on my own and very carefully. To do this, I have several sites bookmarked, special newsletters are sent to my email, and an application is installed on my phone. As soon as another trip appears in my plans, I start studying all the offers in all services - looking for cheap tours, and in the end I find the ideal option.

• Subscribe to all mailings in advance, even if you have not yet decided on dates, budget and vacation period
• Don’t limit yourself to any one country - you can have a good rest everywhere, so keep track of all possible resorts
• Play with timing - often a 13-day tour costs only a few thousand less than 10
• Consider neighboring regions - are there any cheap tours from Omsk? Look at Yekaterinburg or Novosibirsk
• In your search, enter not only your favorite “All inclusive”, but also “FB” (breakfast, lunch, dinner) or even “HB” (tomorrow + dinner) - with a sufficient difference in price, this option may well pay for itself. Also, some good hotels in Europe are not all inclusive, so you may miss out on them
• Keep an eye on hotel ratings, but don't get stuck on them - often new hotels without ratings are offered at a good price, and in order to earn a good reputation, they will try to please their first customers. Also check the rating on several sites, and be sure to read negative reviews (often people give low ratings completely unreasonably)
• Do not discard options with (when you are sent to any hotel of a certain star rating), but also do not take risks if the price difference is low. You should travel around Fortuna only with tour operators with a good reputation, and be prepared for the fact that you may not like the hotel. This is a good option for countries where you spend most of your time away from the hotel.
• Don't mess with , especially if they offer suspiciously cheap tours
• Sometimes it is profitable to take the cheapest tour and use it as a ticket, and book the hotel yourself. Just keep in mind that often you need to show up to the tour operator so that you are not removed from the return flight. In general, tell the guide you meet at the airport that you are planning to stay at another hotel, and he will tell you what to do in this case.
• From my experience, good prices for tours usually occur at the end of April-May and after mid-September-October.
• Vouchers to visa countries are often on hold, so it makes sense to make Schengen tickets in advance and keep an eye out for offers (just keep in mind that if this is your first entry into Europe, you must definitely go to the country that issued the visa). And by the way, you can enter Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania using a Cyprus multiple visa, which is done for free in just a few days

9 services for finding cheap tours

1 Moihottur.ru

Last minute travel website Moihottur.ru

I’d like to start with my favorite site - www.moihottur.ru When I have free time, I like to go to it and even just see what the current situation is in terms of prices for tours in my and neighboring cities. It was on this site that at one time we found our mega Fortuna, and then a trip to Dubai for 8,000 rubles per person, which we used simply as tickets (although according to reviews the hotel was not bad, but it was in Sharjah, and we needed be in Dubai). It’s convenient that this site, in addition to ready-made selections, also has a search engine, with which you can search for cheap tours according to the desired parameters. That's exactly how we looked for ours this year. I would also like to note the very good support service - I asked a question, they called me back quickly, and then they emailed me several hotel options based on the parameters I mentioned. At the same time, the service cannot be called intrusive; the girl called back once, but having found out that we had already purchased a tour elsewhere, she very nicely said goodbye to me.

More last minute tours on bankturov.ru

The Bankturov.ru website is similar to Moihottur.ru, but personally I find it less convenient and, to be completely honest, less beautiful. Both sites post approximately the same tours, but the price may differ by a couple of thousand. It’s convenient that Bankturov.ru has an e-mail newsletter that allows you to receive all last-minute offers directly to your email every day.

3 level.travel

Selection and purchase of tours online at level.travel

Nowadays, online tour booking services are becoming increasingly popular, thanks to which you don’t even need to leave your home and go to a travel agent. You select a tour on the website and immediately pay for it using your card. All necessary documents are sent to you by email. It seems to me that such services are the future, at least for those people who can choose their own hotel. But it will take time before the sites earn a strong enough reputation for themselves to be able to safely buy trips through them. After all, it was also once scary to buy air tickets on the Internet on “some strange sites.”

I currently have two services in my bookmarks - and When we were looking for a tour to Rhodes, I noticed that the results on these two sites are different, so I recommend viewing both. Even if you do not dare to buy a trip online, you can use these services simply as search engines.

4. Mobile application and website Travelata.ru

I recently installed an application on my phone for searching and purchasing - I used their website before, but the application is much more convenient. I love services that are constantly developing and supplemented, at the same time they look stylish and, let’s be honest, help me find cheap tours. Go ahead and download the application (or use the website, whichever you prefer).

It is very convenient that on Travelata the cost of the tour is shown immediately with the fuel surcharge (unlike, for example, the same moihottour) - it irritates me wildly when, after loading a tour, its price increases by several thousand due to the surcharge.

And one more pleasant bonus - a tour with Travelata can be paid for in two payments of 50%. One payment is made when booking a tour and the second - within 3 days from the date of confirmation. Not the biggest delay, of course, but still convenient. I personally haven’t bought tours through this service yet, but since I decided to participate in their lottery for 100 rubles and received a 1000 rubles coupon for any tour, I may soon try to buy a tour on Travelata.

5 Application Sletat.ru

This is a version for computers, but I like the Sletat.ru application

It was with his help that we found our super hotel in Rhodes for quite reasonable money, although before that, of course, we had to look through a whole bunch of options. It’s convenient that the application is always with you on your phone, and you can tinker with your vouchers at any convenient time. You can sort the results by hotel names and, for example, remove tour operators that you do not want to fly with. Each hotel in the application has a rating and reviews, which is very convenient at the initial stage of selection (then, of course, you need to read reviews on other services). In addition, you can sign up for a tour and if the price for it decreases, you will receive a notification on your phone. By the way, this is also true for already purchased vouchers; for example, our friends talked the tour operator into changing their hotel to a more expensive one after the price of the purchased voucher had dropped by several thousand rubles.

The main assistant to independent travelers Piratesru.com

Almost all independent travelers subscribe to the site, as the most interesting offers on air tickets and tours are posted here several times a day. Personally, I really like their flight collections from Moscow and St. Petersburg, but more on that another time. For those looking for cheap trips, it is very useful to view publications in the TOURS section. Most of the offers, of course, come from the capital, but sometimes there are interesting options from other Russian cities.

Not very convenient professional travel portal Tourdom.ru

I have the exchange of the professional travel portal Tourdom in my bookmarks and occasionally look at it, but I have never really used it. Here, information is collected every day about last-minute and canceled tours, as well as charter tickets that can be purchased without paying a hotel. Some tours can be purchased online here on the website.

8 Triphunter.club (Instagram)

All interesting tours and tickets in the Triphunter.club profile

I follow these guys on Instagram, and they often replace all of the above resources. Every day, the cheapest tours (and air tickets) are posted on the website and on their social networks, although mostly with departures from Moscow or St. Petersburg. Many offers are clearly taken from the same Piratesru.com, but if you are most often on Instagram, then subscribing to this profile will be very useful.

9 Instagram Uletimru

And some more tours here Uletimru

Travelers Anton and Irina Konstantinov maintain a very useful Instagram account (as well as a Telegram channel). The guys themselves look through airline promotions and tour operator offers every day and post interesting finds. Most of all here, of course, are air tickets, but tours often slip through the cracks, so I highly recommend subscribing.

Bonus: Instagram travel_price.ru

Since I look at all these services every day, my head is bursting with the variety of cheap tours and air tickets. Recently I realized that I couldn’t keep it to myself and launched an Instagram profile. travel_price.ru. Here I post offers for residents of the “trans-Urals”, and I look for many of them myself specifically for my Instagram. Subscribe and travel cheap!