How I Plan and Where I Book

I've talked about how I travel and why I started this blog — now here's the practical bit: the actual sites I use every single time I plan a trip.

Every trip I've ever booked, mine or a client's, starts in the exact same three places. Skyscanner, Booking.com and TripAdvisor are my non-negotiable sites when I start travel planning.

This post contains affiliate links. If you book through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you — it genuinely helps support the blog, so thank you if you do.

Flights:

First order of business is always to check flights using Skyscanner, the best search engine for flights since sliced bread. My favourite feature on Skyscanner is the 'multi-city' search. It helps streamline complex trips when travel plans involve different cities or countries. Whilst I appreciate that searching for multi-city flights on your phone is possible, I still prefer to use my laptop for bookings - what can I say, I'm a millennial!

Skyscanner is a brilliant search engine for comparing flights, as someone who does this for a living, it's always been my go to. I've done this job long enough to know that I can't find any better discounts for short-haul European trips that are on offer on Skyscanner.

However, once we start talking about long-haul destinations, now I have to shamelessly plug my access to a wider range of platforms to find better flights for myself and clients, but Skyscanner is always the first site to get a scope of available flights so that I can tailor a flight booking to my needs.

Check flights using → Skyscanner

The Discerning Difference

It's worth mentioning that the cheapest flight via a third party may not always be the best way to go, as you're not guaranteed ATOL protection, which is always a risk.

I believe in being efficient and having peace of mind with bookings. There's no point spending endless hours trying to find great value flights on different platforms for a simple European trip. I use Skyscanner to compare flights because it gives me the option to book flights directly with an airline which are ATOL protected, which is a win (stay tuned for future blog posts about other partners I've confidently booked flights with).

Accommodation:

For a quick search for accommodation prices I like to use Expedia. No sign up is required and I can easily apply my filters while I browse and compare available accommodation in a particular area. It's a major public booking platform that also includes flights, car rentals and packages.

Browse with → Expedia

Full disclosure, there have been times my booking portal was cheaper because of agent-only discounts and anyone can create an account and access the same rates. It's why I always check my own portal, for good measure. For example, my portal rates on many occasions have been cheaper than booking directly with hotels and other booking platforms.

Check hotels with → My booking portal

Last and by no means least, I always have a Booking.com tab open when travel planning. There's been times when nothing beats the price I get on Booking.com, thanks to the discounts that come with Genius Level 3. I take my loyalty to Booking.com very seriously because I didn't spend all this time earning my rewards for nothing! Luckily, you receive free lifetime access to your earned rewards on Genius, which honestly more people should know about.

Sign up for free to Booking.com's loyalty program → Genius

Already have an account? Browse with → Booking.com

I'm a girlie who loves options, so travel planning always means comparing across platforms. It's rarely just about the cheapest price — one site might win on room rate alone, another might offer breakfast or a room upgrade for a couple of pounds more, and that's always worth taking into account.

The Discerning Difference:

Being able to be flexible with where I book means I get the best of both worlds, I can cross-reference my portal, Expedia and Booking.com and pick whatever actually works best, for myself and for clients. That's the whole ethos of Discerning Travels.

And there it is. Step one and two of any trip, flights and accommodation sorted. Yes, sometimes this process means I have 27 tabs open, some (my husband) may say it's chaotic, but I like to think of it as organised chaos and one of the secrets behind how to book better travel.

Thanks for reading,

Discerning Travels