CATHERINE DONOHUE, a reader from Dublin, got in touch with a money-saving tip
I recently returned from a lovely week in Tenerife, made all the sweeter by the fact I saved €250 on accommodation by shopping around online.
I booked return flights with Ryanair three weeks before departure, at a cost of €140, including taxes and charges.
With the help of TripAdvisor reviews I picked the four-star Iberostar Torviscas Playa hotel (iberostar.com), on the Costa Adeje, which appeared to tick all the boxes: it was three kilometres from the madness of Las Americas, in an upmarket part of the island, only 15 minutes from the airport, three minutes from the beach and in easy reach of sea walks and top-quality restaurants.
I rang the hotel and asked for its best rate for a single room for seven nights with breakfast. I was quoted €620, including taxes. I went back online to see if I could get a better price. 1800Hotels quoted €440 for the same deal – an immediate saving of €180. Hmm, I thought, maybe I could do better.
Venere.com quoted €10 more, but then Alpharooms.com offered the room with breakfast for €371, a saving of another €69! To secure the room at this rate I had to pay the full amount by credit card immediately, with little refund if I cancelled. Not thinking I could do any better than this, I booked the room.
Half an hour later I checked the price with Expedia.ie, sure it would not be cheaper than the price I got. But it was, quoting the same room for only €315. And it didn’t require full payment until arrival. This was €305 cheaper than the original quote I got for the hotel.
A few days later I went back to Alpharooms.com, to see if the rate was the same – and groaned when I saw it had dropped to meet the Expedia price of €315.
The hotel was incredibly good value for what I got. The buffet breakfast was spectacular, offering a huge variety of food – enough to keep you going all day – and the room, while by no means plush, was spotless and roomy. The pools were clean, with plenty of sunbeds and an excellent poolside bar and restaurant service.
Oh, did I mention that the sun shone every day, with temperatures reaching 27 degrees, dropping to a cool 20 degrees at night? Bliss!
The moral of the story is, especially off season, to check lots of websites to get the best deal when looking for a hotel – and hold off booking as long as you can before your departure date.
E-mail your experiences to Go@irishtimes.com