Posted on Friday, 16 May 2014

Most Brits would rather leave a travel shop empty handed than ask for a discount. But doing this – the first rule in the art of haggling – can mean you have more to spend on food, drink and excursions while you are away.

Of course, the Internet already provides access to low-cost holidays: you just have to find them. A wealth of sophisticated search engines ensure this task is fairly easy – although a certain amount of time does need to be invested.

But haggling can reduce this price even further.

Firstly, you should research the ballpark cost for your destination, flight and hotel type. Next, find a handful of operators specialising in that holiday type – since specialists tend to have bigger margins to play with, they therefore have bigger discounts to give out.

Select one of these agents, call them and request a price for the package you want, then ask for a discount. Armed with their best price, call a second agent and ask them if they can improve upon this initial offer; you can back the quote up with the agent's contact details – which the second agent may well request.

Use the lowest of these two quotes to haggle with a third operator and try to get an even lower price.

There is always room to manoeuvre, whether it's found in the profit margin or the agent's commission.

Not a fan of haggling over the phone?

You can use the same process to get quotes using email – each time listing the previous price with exact details of accommodation, flight and hotel – along with the agent's name.

Fancy Person-to-Person haggling?

Asking for a discount in person is perhaps one of the trickiest haggling scenarios for many Brits – including many of our annual travel insurance customers – but it can work just as well. And high street travel agents – not forgetting the smaller outfits – may have more autonomy on the discount front, when compared to larger agencies where sales advisors may not have so much discounting clout.

Hotel Haggling?

And when it comes to independent hotels there is no harm in asking for a discount. In fact, many hotels may get a poor deal from using hotel booking websites and so would prefer to cut them out and give a – perhaps more modest – discount to you personally.

Be Flexible

While we can't all do it, if you can be flexible by a day or two, you may be able to save even more.

Be Friendly

With all these techniques, being friendly and polite is crucial; after all, that's how the travel agents sell holidays to us. There's nothing wrong with a bit of shameless ‘buttering up' before you pop the 'discount question'.

Remember It's Just Business

Finally, remember that the agent is trying to extract the maximum possible price from you - so your job is to cut that price back as far as possible. While politeness and a little banter are necessary for a successful haggle, note that underneath it all is cold hard business...so just ask for that discount!

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