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Autumn Brings a Host of Italy Travel Deals

Italy is beautiful any time of year, but for those who have some flexibility of travel time, Italy travel deals are superb in the pleasant autumn months. Gone are the families with children who head to Europe in the summer months when the kids are on school break. Gone are many of the college students who decided to spend the summer backpacking through this marvelous country. Therefore, that flexibility provides you with far fewer crowds, especially at the most popular tourist destinations in places like Rome, Venice, and Florence and, indeed, throughout the rest of the country as well.

If you’re searching for Italy travel deals throughout September, October, November, and early December, you’ll find that this “shoulder” season means lower prices on everything from hotel rooms to organized and custom tours. The discounted prices can lower your output substantially, leaving a little extra money to splurge on that great pair of shoes in that shop in Milan, that extra bottle of wine with dinner in Tuscany, and perhaps that unique work of art you’ve spied in a gallery in Florence.

In addition, autumn puts travelers in Italy during a time when festivals are abundant. Italy travel deals in the fall months might include a visit to Calabria, for example, where there are at least three notable festivals occurring during that season. September brought the “Pizza Chef Champion of Italy 2010” competition to this town located on Italy’s “toe”. It October there’s a quirky gathering of accordion players that’s part of the Festival of the Madonna of Constantinople. To cap off the season, an annual Mushroom Festival is held in the town of Mammola, celebrating the harvest of mushrooms from the thousands of acres where they grow around the town. All sorts of mushroom dishes are prepared in a variety of ways, and there’s plenty of singing and dancing as well at this day-long celebration.

In general, autumn in Italy presents plenty of opportunities to get to know the local products. For example, the Euro Chocolate Festival in Perugia features well-known Baci Perugina candies and other chocolates from the area. You might even be there to celebrate Chocoday! What could be better! Of course, you may even stumble on a truffle festival or two as well as some excellent wine tasting events. If you’re booking a custom Italy tour, visits to these events or any others can often be arranged as you organize your itinerary.

Italy travel deals are also abundant in the late winter and early spring when the weather may be a little iffy in parts of the country but just divine in other regions. Ask your travel consultant about the nicest places to visit in both fall and spring and where you’re likely to find the best prices as well. The money you save on these Italy travel deals might even leave you with enough spare cash to return next year!

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Are There Any Cheap Travel Deals Left?

With the current economic turmoil being felt all over the world and the ‘R’ (that’s recession) word is heard on the news and on display in every newspaper, there’s no getting away from the fact that everyone is trying to save money. Does this mean you can’t afford a vacation? Not necessarily.

Words we commonly associate with travel are luxury, air fare prices, spending, extravagant and the like. However, just like any other business, hotels, restaurants and airlines can’t stay in business for long if they can’t get customers willing to part with some money. These businesses are getting hungry, so it’s not surprising that they’re putting on their marketing thinking caps and thinking hard. The result is a panoply of cheap travel deals!

Perhaps it’s a lack of publicity that’s driving prices down so radically. Most people are scratching travel right off their wish list, believing a cheap travel deal is not to be found. Au contraire! Let us give you a few clues on the current cheap travels you’ll find, if only you look!

When fuel prices were at their highest, some of the smaller airlines closed down, unable to meet the stiff costs of operation. Others were bought up by major airlines, consolidating their hold on the flying public, while whining loudly. They may have taken this story board too far and have now sustained a shot to their bread and butter customer base. Then, along came the extra baggage fees, no in-flight meals or blankets for free. The airlines apparently did an admirable job of convincing the average traveler that they could no longer afford this pricey luxury called travel vacation. Business dropped off sharply. So sharply that they are now begging for your business. Now they’re finally coming to the party, with some cheap travel deals on airfare prices, up to half off to high season destinations! The trouble is, no one’s listening. On the other hand, you, armed with the inside scoop, can find some of the best airfare deals we’ve seen in a long time!

So here’s your chance to search out the dirt cheap travel deals that are now available. In addition to the major travel sites, like Expedia and Orbitz, check out the other, lesser-known travel sites, brimming with deals on hotels, tour packages and last-minute deals. Hotels are suffering a dip in business, due to the extra baggage charges. The smart ones are offering an array of discounts, ranging from restaurant and bar credits to waivers on booking fees.

If you’re starting to feel that a vacation might not be out of the question, try this search. Google ‘air fare deals’, ‘discount airline tickets’ and ‘hotel promotions’, followed by the name of your destination. The results might get your blood circulating, dreaming of a tropical beach getaway or a drop-dead fare to Europe, as you rethink your budget.

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Best Travel Deals – Learn How to Use Travel Agencies

Why travel agencies will never have the best travel deals?

There is something that will always be against them. They need to win money from your bookings and no suppliers want to lower their prices and at same time give commission to travel agencies for the bookings. Both things will not happen at same time, so you will never be looking at the best travel deals when asking to a travel agency. Then, why should I go to find my best travel deals to a travel agency?

Travel agencies probably don’t have the best options but they do have information. Information is power, and you want this power in order to take the best decision possible to make your dream holidays. How to find your dream holidays? In travel agencies. How to get the best travel deals? Using the information travel agencies give to you. So, how should I use travel agencies information in order to get the best travel deals for my dream holiday?

Pretty easy in fact. Go to the travel agency with a piece of paper and something to write on it. Travel agents are good professionals but as everybody they commit mistakes. Most of the times this means that they will mention the name of a supplier if you insist in order to know it. Don’t be pushy or aggressive, but they need after all to satisfy their customers and avoiding to answer any of your questions would create a bad feeling to you that they want to avoid at all costs.

After you get some relevant information on this way, the best you can do is to smile and ask them to prepare a plan for your holidays with an estimated total price of the package. You’ll get some kind of document specifying the different parts of your trip with costs involved. Sometimes you’ll get supplier names such as airlines or hotel names or tour operators. Some other you won’t have this names and you’ll need to find out.

How to get the best travel deals using all this information?

Internet has the most erroneous information you can find in the world, but at same time is a powerful tool if used properly. Google in this case will be your intimate friend. In case you have supplier names, the task is very easy. Get to the web-page of these airlines, hotels or tour operators and check the prices for the exact dates the agency was proposing. You will notice they are always cheaper than booking directly from the agency. Be aware that you should never use a travel search engine, as they have affiliates and all the trips you can find will have an extra $10 fee to pay to the affiliates.

What happens then with the suppliers that are not mentioned by the agency?

Well, that part can be more tricky but usually it works in an easy way. Look at the parts of the document the agency gave to you where it appears information about this supplier, as many times travel agencies simply copy and paste the web-page information of their suppliers.

Get different sentences and copy them into Google between quotes. Almost probably you will find different places that offer this tour and one of this pages will be the mother page. You will know that because their prices are cheaper as no intermediate travel agents add commissions on them. If this does not work, any alternative in order to find the best travel deals?

Travel certificates is the answer, as there are a couple of places on the net that offer travel certificates for free simply for registering or making little purchases. And I don’t mean places that offer travel certificates for a determined price, because this is pure fraud. This guys are making a lot of money offering something that is free for a high price. In any case, in the places that are not fraud and offer them really for free, you will get discounts between 70 and 95% in hotels and flights.

So, which are those places?