USA multi-centre hols???

1399steve

Hi all,

Looking at going to US next April/May, originally were going to go to NY but thought while we're there maybe go to some other places as well.

We've seen a multi-centre package with Virgin going to Las Vegas, Mexico and then New York which we like the look of. The other thing we're thinking is to have a week in New York followed by a week in Miami.

Has anyone been on a hol like this? Any top tips? Also any recommendations of companies that do packages like this - we've only really found Virgin who offer multi-centre hols in the US?

niceday999

That sounds fab....have you a link I can check out
thanks

Vikki_74

Are you dead set on buying a package holiday? If you can decide where you want to go you should be able to book everything separately yourself which would let you go exactly where you want and usually works out cheaper :money:. It is a bit more complicated and time consuming than letting Virgin or whoever sort it out for you but having gone down the DIY route this year for the first time (we're doing a tour down the coast of California then over to Las Vegas) I would definately do it again. I know it doesn't suit everyone though.

ferf1223

agree on going DIY - you can easily search for multi-city flights at any of the standard places (kayak, expedia, etc) and then book hotels separately directly with the hotels. Anytime we've looked at anything on Virgin Holidays it was shocking how much more expensive it was to book through them rather than booking the exact same components yourself. Plus US airlines might be less expensive for similar flights as more flexibility with stops in the US...though I know some people are paranoid about booking with US carriers due to the potential issues if there's another ash cloud incident.

It may be more work, but you get to choose exactly what you want - you aren't stuck with the options Virgin offers you.

If it were me, I would look at the package price you've seen, then check the prices of booking the component parts on your own (I assume with the package you have seen you know what hotels are being offered). Booking direct with the hotel in the US is normally the cheapest option (though not always). And normally you only pay a deposit of the first night up front and the balance at check-out - and you can cancel normally up to 24-72 hours before arrival if you find a better deal (with Vegas this can happen quite often).

neilbond007

I'll third the DIY option.
Planned 4 or 5 myself. It is time consuming.. but great fun!!

https://www.kayak.com for the flights
https://www.travelaxe.com for hotels

ferf1223

also should note that if Vegas is still one of the choices it's waaaay too early for the best deals to be out - and most of the best deals won't be accessible through any 3rd party search engines. But you could at least get a worst case scenario pricing now and then wait for the deals to come out.

johnnyroper

1399steve wrote: »

Hi all,

Looking at going to US next April/May, originally were going to go to NY but thought while we're there maybe go to some other places as well.

We've seen a multi-centre package with Virgin going to Las Vegas, Mexico and then New York which we like the look of. The other thing we're thinking is to have a week in New York followed by a week in Miami.

Has anyone been on a hol like this? Any top tips? Also any recommendations of companies that do packages like this - we've only really found Virgin who offer multi-centre hols in the US?

the virgin multi centre tours/twin centres are normally fairly good but what i did before was get the inspiration from vhols but book identical trip seperate worked out substantially cheaper.

1399steve

Cheers all for your advice.

Niceday, here's a link to the holiday I've got my eye on http://www.virginholidays.co.uk/brochures/usa/tours/tours_by_air/las_vegas_mexico_new_york/options.aspx#hd

Sounds like it's better to book direct - whilst I've done this before in europe with no bother, I must admit I'm a bit daunted by the prospect of booking this for 3 seperate locations in the US and Mexico with flights as well but I'll defo look into it and see what the potential savings are!

ferf1223

it is a bit daunting but it can be done.

Ideally you would book all the flights on one ticket...so if something goes wrong with one flight (say it causes you to miss the next connection) the airline will have to sort it out for you...if you book everything individually you might not have that sort of protection.

We have done multi-centre holidays in the US before without booking all on one ticket - we've done LON-ORD (few days with family) and return LAS-LON with Virgin and booked the internal ORD to LAS flight with another airline, but in that case, we were flying to Vegas for 8 nights there - so we had a big gap between our ORD-LAS and our LAS-LON flights so no real worry there about missing a connection. So it really depends on how much leeway you have between flights.

LondonDiva

Really easy to do if you fire up the Excel spreadsheet

We planned about 5 weeks across Canada, with trains, internal flights, car rentals, rv.

It's great to go with the flow, and decide when to spend more and where you want to skimp. They were so helpful over there when we asked questions by email or phone, and we even did a mini internal package deal for three days to Vancouver Island as the ferry & hotel deal was far better than we could have managed internally.

Give it a go costing it out before you book

mookybargirl

I recently booked, London to Vegas, Vegas to Mexico (connecting in Dallas) and Mexico to London (connecting in Miami ) all via BA for April. Although they don't run the route from Vegas to Mexico, they booked us onto an American Airlines flight. Everything however booked and paid to BA, so if anything went wrong with connections etc, we have only 1 company to deal with.

I had to book everything over the phone with them, as their website isn't equipped to book you onto other carriers routes. I'm sure other companies can piece these things together, in the same way that a travel agent would....

Volcano aside, all went quite well. I also checked the price via AA myself and BA charged me virtually the same (maybe £1 difference).