Save money by booking your holiday online

Hotels
Hotels are notoriously tricky to book online, with rates for the same room varying wildly from site to site, and the hotel’s site rarely offers the best deal.

If you don’t have a specific destination in mind, try searching Lastminute.com, Expedia.co.uk and ebookers for deals. If you do have a particular destination, suss out the best deals on a price comparison website such as Traveljungle, Hotelscomparison.com and Travelsupermarket UK are the best.

If it’s a specific hotel you want, it is worth visiting the hotel’s website, as ‘lowest price’ promises are becoming more common. Otherwise, name your own price at Priceline – you select where to go, and how much you’re prepared to pay, and they do the web legwork for you, while Late Rooms will often find a room when other sites show it as fully booked.

Family packages
Although they seldom advertise the fact, the cheapest way to get a typical high-street package holiday deal is to avoid rushing to an agent.

Booking online with the major operators that once colonised the suburban shopping centre: Thomson, Thomas Cook and First Choice, can save you upwards of £50. Teletext Holidays – long renowned for its cheap, last-minute packages – also offer deals on the web.

Searching for holiday vouchers and discount codes on sites such as Vouchercodes.com and Voucher Heaven may nab you further discounts on already reduced holiday rates.

Long-haul packages
The notion of package deals is also alive and well in long-haul travel, with the largest travel agencies securing the cheaper flight and room rates to offer as a package. Again try Trailfinders, Expedia.co.uk or Opodo. Gap year round-the-world flight deals are offered by STA Travel, but for complex trips you’ll need to send STA a query via its website.

By land and sea
The best Eurostar deals are only available online, and booking online with France’s new high-speed iDTGV can bag you cross-country tickets for as little as £13. For trips to southern Europe use Raileurope and for northern Europe Deutsche Bahn UK is tough to beat. For general rail advice, try The Man in Seat Sixty-One.

Eurolines offers coach tickets to cities across Europe from as little as £13, and Brittany Ferries is the first to have embraced the potential of web bookings, by offering a £10 discount.

On a shoestring
The internet is an excellent resource for those on the road with a handful of euros. For example, Hostelworld.com offers recommendations from more than half a million backpackers and Hostelz.com features candid snaps of hostels across the globe, taken by former guests. The site Couchsurfing enables you to exchange a night on your sofa for an offer overseas.

Car hire
The key to getting good car-hire rates is to shop around, as suppliers that offer bargain rates from one franchise, are poor elsewhere. Weed out the best rates with a web broker, such as Holiday Autos and Car Rentals UK.

Bargains to almost any destination decorate the web – the only limit is your imagination. Put in the webwork by cross-checking websites and you’re bound to net the sort of bargain that would make your local travel agent splutter into his Nescafé. Bon voyage.