Flexible vs. saver rates

I usually book a flight first to get my dates set but most of the time I am using frequent flyer miles for my tickets so it's a little tougher than just buying the ticket outright. Once I have my flights, I then figure out where I will be going (e.g., London, Bath, etc.) and develop a good, logical itinerary. Once I know where I am going, I start booking hotels. If you use a site like booking.com, you can usually get a good price and be able to cancel the reservation if your plans change. I rarely ever pay in advance.

I think it depends how long your trip is and how flexible your dates are. In my old job I had to work with my coworkers to determine dates for time off. Since my dates were locked, I could then book flights and rooms. If a particular hotel or experience was booked I couldn't change my dates anyway.

Now I have more flexibility at work, so when I go to Lillehammer in the winter, it's more important to book my favorite place to stay. It's often full, so I book that first and then book everything else arond that.

i think trip insurance only covers you if you have a doctor's note or something else significant to prove why you couldn't go.

Stephen--Have you had good luck with booking.com? I was a little afraid to use them as I had read some bad reviews about the service itself.

What bad things have your read about booking.com ?

Something about a phishing scam in the UK.

I use booking.com regularly for hotels in Europe, and until now I've never had any problem at all.

I haven't heard or read anything bad about booking.com, but I usually try to book directly with hotels so they don't have to share my payment with booking.com.

Like the first poster, I start with flights, defining the start and end of the overall trip. Early flight booking can mean serious savings and a better selection of flights and seats. We usually get the cheapest non-refundable tickets we can, taking schedules and connections into account (fewer connections = better, avoid northern US cities in winter). Then we spring for "economy-plus" or whatever the airline calls it for the transatlantic segment. If we have to change plans, as we did this year, we pay change fees. The prepaid fare is still usable on different dates.

Hotels come later, after more research. Usually they let us cancel up till shortly before our stay. We might take a saving on a non-cancellable reservation if the place is in high demand or we're staying so long the saving is significant. But there are many hotel choices and we don't want to get locked into one unless there's a good reason.

As for trip insurance, we usually forego it except when booking a whole tour plus airfare. That kind of trip means big outlays well before traveling, and we see insurance as useful protection. We've had to use it once or twice. This kind of insurance covers your losses if you have to cancel a trip for specified reasons, notably health. It may also cover medical costs overseas if you don't have other coverage. Generally you have to buy the insurance within a short time after first booking the trip. This website has good information and comparisons to help you shop if you decide to go this route. This link takes you to Rick Steves' advice, which is good.

Thanks for the links re: insurance. I'm checking them out right now.

Good idea, SandraL. Both my husband and I have health issues. He's not going on the trip to the UK in May, but we make sure to get the "pre-existing condition" thing on our travel insurance. If you buy it within X (and X may vary by company) days of making your first payment on your trip, it is effective for cancellation before you go, even if you are not the sick one. At least that's been the case for the policies we bought in the past. We also get repatriation of remains and coverage if we are so sick we have to be flown back to the US urgently.

One of the issues for me is that many types of insurance start costing dramatically more if you're going to be gone over 30 days. And of course, the older you are, the more it costs. I'll be researching those issues and more and the answers I get may affect how long I'll be gone and/or what I'll have to cut for this trip.

Update on above.

Today I spent about 4 hours with Squaremouth, searching online and online chatting with 2 different agents. I learned a lot to use for this trip and for others in the future. Squaremouth is often mentioned as a good place to find travelers insurance, but this was my first time to use them.

1. They had good options for stays longer than a month that had the same premiums for 4 or 6 weeks. This means I can stay longer than 30 days. Hooray!
2. Because I might not exactly be going "door to door," the best option for me is the Emergency Medical, Medical Evacuation & Repatriation, and Accidental Death & Dismemberment coverage. This also will allow me to stay over a month. In fact, that's probably all we needed for most of our trips in the past.
3. Pre-existing Condition is not possible with most medical only policies. That's okay because you can buy medical only policies at the last minute for the same price.
4. I need to get detailed information in writing from my Medicare supplement provider to see what they will cover before I buy anything.

Always before we have used Insure My Trip, and I will go through the same drill with them, but after being told last year that only one company, the dreaded Travelex, would insure us for a trip over a month long, and paying through the nose for it, I'm not so happy with them anymore.

I find the insurance thing a real pain to deal with, but for those of us with health issues, it simply must be done.

We've used insuremytrip.com our last two trips, and were well pleased with the rates, but we got medical only. I'll look at Squaremouth, though.

We usually book our hotels before our flight, because it's easier and cheaper to change a hotel reservation. For our trip next spring we have one hotel (used by our RS South England tour) that charges 20 GBP for changes, but that seems to be rare. We also had to pay an actual deposit with the first and last RS hotels for pre- and post-tour stays. That was a first for me. One was in Cantebury, the other in Bath.

I usually research both flight and hotels options. After, I have determined which airline and flights I want, I go ahead and book them. I always book directly with the airline and the hotel. I have a trip planned for May, and I have already purchased flight tickets and booked hotel room.
I don't normally use traveler's insurance. Although, I purchased some for my last trip. For this trip, I haven't determined whether I will or not. I don't have any preexisting conditions, so no worries about purchasing within a certain number of days.

Debra, we never used to buy travel insurance either, but a few years ago one of our guides told us that if you are seriously ill or injured and have to be airlifted back to the States, you must fly first class, and pay for an accompanying medical aide as well. Even if this is not always true, we decided it was time to start buying travel insurance. I actually had a chance to make a small claim last year, except I forgot to ask the hotel doctor for a receipt.

I'm a bit confused at the moment. I was just on Squaremouth, and the rates seemed to change as I was going through them. I tried sorting by price, low to high, and that made the prices change.

Having gone through this yesterday with changing airline prices, I'm wondering if this is common in the travel insurance industry as well.