Hotel only or Hotel and Air?

[Ayslinn]

Hey all,

It's been awhile since I've been on here... we weren't sure when we were going to be able to come back to Couples, but now we're shooting for 8 days or so at CSA in October... for our belated HONEYMOON. =D

So I'm going to ask you a question that I KNOW has been asked on here, a million times, but I never paid attention because it didn't apply to me, and now it does and I can't find the thread! So sorry for the repeat question... but is it better, in general, to book air through Couples or separately? And also, if you do book air through couples and you pay the $1500 deposit, is that refundable or no? We're starting to look into booking our trip, just to get an idea of prices and such, although I don't think we'll actually book for a few more months.

Thanks for the info- so excited to have a timeline again for getting back to Couples!

[bthomp11]

I just booked and did the comparison shopping for a month. I compared booking hotel only with couples and air only direct through the airline. Then I checked pricing on Travelocity with hotel and airline. Then I looked at couples for both hotel and airline. The prices were the same +/- $50.00. So I booked everything through couples.

I paid the whole thing at once so I can't comment on the deposit/refund question. I do know that once the flight is paid for it is non-refundable.

[Coloradojuli]

I think it depends on your needs. The flights offered by Couples are not ones that we like so we book separately. The deposit for the hotel is refundable, but the airfare is not. It's just like booking any other airfare. The only other option is to that would be getting the trip insurance and then you would be able to cancel and get your refund except for the cost of the insurance.

[cleversole]

I'm with bthomp11, we looked over and over at booking separate vs together and found a $1 price difference both years. I'm sure there are sites you can use that are much different in price, but just to compare airlines alone and hotel alone vs. booking together, it was almost identical. Last year we booked them together. This year we did book separately only because they didn't have the combination we wanted...the right flight times together. It doesn't really make much difference either way I don't think though.

[dirtleg]

The only difference may be the selection of airlines available on the Couples site. You may have a greater choice of ailines to price compare if you book your air seperate. That was the case for us. The price for the airline selected by Couples was the same as we could book ourselves, but we have gone with a different carrier and saved some money by booking seperately. I suppose it depends on where you are flying from.

Good luck. Have a great trip!