Cheap holidays to Ireland are easy to come by as long as you know how to look and where to book. Your best ally is the internet and its thousands of online travel booking sites. Here are some travel tips as well as a look into some of the travel booking sites and the perks that they can give to provide you with cheap holidays in Ireland.
- Flights and accommodations are cheaper during off peak seasons. Dates outside school, work and all those national holidays and festivals are always cheaper, simply because people will be tied up with school or work and therefore won’t have time to go on holiday. Since the country is expecting a dip in the tourism numbers, travel companies will be looking to give discounts and promos to encourage people to take advantage of the sale and go on a vacation.
- Fall – prices start to drop by September to Early October; from airline fares to accommodation, and even menu prices. It is great to visit Ireland during this season because the clocks haven’t yet gone back so you get to have daylight up until about 9pm and also avoid the hordes of tourists that can be most annoying at the more popular tourist hotspots during the spring or summer time.
- Winter -Prices are at their lowest because almost everybody is heading away to warmer climes like Spain for those on a budget and like the Caribbean for those with some deeper pockets. You can still enjoy the beautiful landscape of Ireland because winter is not as harsh compared to other northern European countries. Ireland does get the odd really cold winter but they are few and far between. Don’t forget to pack your umbrella though as winter can be very wet in the Emerald Isle.
- Always rely on real customer reviews and discussions on customer forums to gauge the reputability of any online travel agency. Here are some agencies that provide great deals on cheap Ireland holidays according to customer reviews.
- Cassidy Travel[i] is an Irish travel company that specializes in golf and villa holidays. According to customers, this agency always find the best deals on Ireland cheap holidays based on your given budget; they have an excellent customer service as well.
- Club Travel[ii] is Ireland’s largest Travel Management Company known mainly as the travel company that looks after the Irish government. It provides some of the cheapest deals for airfares since it is affiliated with one of Ireland’s major airline, Ryanair. Ryanair is Europe’s largest low-cost carrier.
- Authentic Ireland[iii] is a travel agency that is solely dedicated to arranging Ireland holidays, cheap travel within the borders of the country. It has some of the best reviews on the net and many customers have said that Authentic arranges everything to your specification at the rates that you can afford.
Although travel agencies dedicated to one country can give you the best advice when it comes to holidaying in that country when it comes to packages based on your specifications, itineraries, activities, and such, the larger, more international travel agencies that can give you bigger discounts on your cheap holiday to Ireland. This includes companies such as, but not limited to TripAdvisor.
When it comes to flights, the cheapest deal you can get are going to be with the low cost carriers like Ryanair and Easyjet. Be careful with these companies though because there can be plenty of hidden charges. A website that allows you to compare fares from any city in the UK, Germany, the USA and Canada to Ireland is Cheap Flights[iv].
When booking flights, accommodation or the whole package for your cheap holiday in Ireland, play with dates and try different days of departure and arrival (it’s surprising what 1 day before or after can do to the cost) so you can see the difference in the prices and maybe adjust the date of your travel if the difference is significant. For flights, check for different airports because oftentimes the point of landing or point of departure can affect the price (like an airport in the city would cost more than an airport out of town). This is one of the ways the low cost airlines reduce the costs.
Once you type cheap holidays Ireland into the search engines, thousands of results will pop up, be aware that these travel websites need to earn money too, so they will most likely charge you a booking fee. They may either drop a fee on top of the actual rate or they make money through advertising on their website, which for you means no extra booking fees are charged. The smartest move to finding cheap Holidays to Ireland is to scout different websites and when you find the cheapest price, get the hotel or airline name and go directly to the airline/hotels website to compare if you can get the same price or even lower. Even better, pick up the phone and make the call. Person to person can save you a fortune. Also compare the prices among different sites before you book your flight and accommodation because there is no one website that can guarantee you the best deal as prices often fluctuate.
