cheap that's what everyone's looking for
these days right well i'm here to help
with that hey everyone it's vanessa and
welcome back to my channel and you guys
all love my annual top 10 cheapest
all-inclusive videos but i get a lot of
questions wondering how i get the rates
i'm quoting what tips and tricks i use
many of you even ask if i can do your
bookings and while i'm not a travel
agent i can help you guys out with my
best booking secrets that i've learned
by trial and error over many years so
stay tuned and let me help you get the
best possible deal on that next vacation
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so my first tip kind of goes against our
usual way of thinking we've all been
trained to think bigger anything means
more expensive but that's not true when
it comes to resorts which is why i urge
you to book big as a general rule the
bigger the resort i.e more rooms the
better your rate will be because the
all-inclusive property can compensate
their rate in volume or number of guests
now for some of you this might be an
obvious conclusion but many guests tend
to hesitate about booking bigger resorts
especially all-inclusives because they
assume the quality will suffer as a
result of having so many guests and
while yes that's true of some resorts
there are also some mega all-inclusives
that give you some of the best quality
of stay and value for your money of any
resort places like the hard rock punta
cana which i've talked about many times
has almost 1800 rooms and they can keep
the rates down based on volume while
still giving you a good quality of stay
so don't dismiss those bigger
all-inclusives there are definitely some
great ones out there that i'll continue
to highlight for you guys that will give
you the best bang for your buck
now as travelers we all tend to be
guilty of focusing so much on the same
handful of all-inclusive resorts that we
forget to look for all those wonderful
hidden gems there's no question that in
everything especially travel demand
drives price and when you have resorts
that are talked about and pushed over
and over those are the same handful of
all-inclusives that people are likely to
book if for no other reason then that's
all they know
and this is why i always say in my
reviews and countdowns
i'm hesitant to share this hidden gem
with you guys because i know that will
drive up interest and eventually the
price but i end up telling you anyway
but resorts like cobbler's cove or soco
both in barbados are just the best
underrated kind of finds and in the
interest of building up a customer base
they will keep the prices down to
attract more guests and a bonus of these
hidden gems is since they tend to be
smaller and lesser known properties you
get much more personalized and attentive
service from the staff
far better than what you'd normally
expect for the average nightly rate so
again i usually hesitate to mention
specific hidden gem resorts as a
customer myself but of course i want to
help you guys out with finding those
great hidden deals so i will be doing a
video on all my favorite underrated
all-inclusive soon because there are
some really wonderful finds out there
that you should definitely check out
another thing we all tend to do when
booking is to look for those older more
established resorts they tend to be more
reliable we can find tons and tons of
reviews about them so we know what we're
getting into before we plunk down a
bunch of cash but they also tend to be
pricier which is why i urge you to book
new
booking new resorts all inclusive or
otherwise can be a bit of a gamble but
resorts tend to open to much lower and
cheaper rates compared to the
competition especially locally in order
to lure in new guests so barring some
initial glitches that the properties
need to work out you get a brand new
property with everything in pristine
condition and these are usually some of
the best vacation stays you can book for
a very discounted rate before they
inevitably start going up i will give
you a word of caution
make sure not to book too early so more
specifically these new properties tend
to open up booking about three to six
months before the grand opening and i've
seen many situations come up that almost
always delay these dates everything from
hurricanes to land disputes with the
local government that weren't fully
settled so i'd suggest booking the first
month or two after the grand opening so
you still get a low rate and can rest
easy knowing that the resort is open and
your plans won't be derailed
so the next couple of booking tips deal
with calendar times your experts and
customers alike always talking about
when is the best time to book and i'm
just going to share with you when you
can find the best rates in my personal
booking experience for the resorts that
i review and love and that's by booking
september through the beginning of
december now i've talked about these
months being the best in many of my
videos but i honestly think many viewers
are still unsure or confused about this
because they tend to confuse it with
ideal cruise booking months i can't say
this enough cruises and all-inclusives
are very different animals and this is
one of the ways that they differ
most cruises have great deals the
beginning of the year january february
even march and then rates start to go up
from there the summer is very expensive
for cruises especially family cruises
like carnival and royal caribbean which
is peak season when kids are out of
school and families travel
it's actually the opposite for resorts
in mexico and the caribbean especially
the all-inclusives i review because the
priciest months of the year are in the
winter months when everyone wants to
escape the cold and of course march in
april during spring break and then as
demand goes down you'll start to see
rates begin to come down in the summer
as most of these resorts are adults only
or not family friendly but the best
months of all will be in those fall
months before the holidays as travelers
do not want to risk booking during peak
hurricane season and i won't repeat what
i've said a million times on my channel
about fall travel other than buy travel
insurance it's a must but this is when
we usually do most of our traveling and
you can get some really great bargains
and as an added bonus emptier resorts
they're much quieter so if you're
looking for the cheapest rates book your
trip during those months
so now that we've talked about what
months of the year to book the next big
question you might be wondering which is
the main mistake that i see many
travelers make is how far in advance do
i book
and in my experience there's a booking
sweet spot to get the best rate and
that's four to six months out and again
very different from cruises or travelers
tend to book 18 to 24 months out because
you can usually get a lower rate the
earlier you book
not so with all-inclusives
booking extremely early like a year out
is going to usually run you much higher
rates as is last minute bookings as well
your best bet is to book in that middle
range and the nice thing is you won't
have to wait forever for your vacation
in terms of international travel this
range means you can book that trip
you're craving without having to wait
too long to enjoy it so picking up for
my last booking tip if you're looking to
book in september or october i'd plan to
book in the spring april or may to get
that best all-around deal
so the next thing i want to talk about
has to do with the location of your
resort and how that can save you quite a
bit of money and if you watch my videos
this won't be a surprise to you because
almost all my reviews focus on the same
locations so my next booking tip is to
book the three hot countries for all
inclusive resorts which of course are
jamaica the dr and mexico
not only do these three countries have
huge all-inclusive properties but they
have tons of resorts the most in fact
and because these are such high traffic
vacation destinations what you lose an
exclusivity you can compensate for with
great deals and bargains in your nightly
rate so these are the best countries to
target for price comparison there's
always some kind of special or incentive
going on and that's why i focus my
reviews in these countries if you want
to go cheap for an all-inclusive or any
resort for that matter these are the
best
so in a recent poll in my community tab
i found out that most of your hesitation
in traveling currently has nothing to do
with the pandemic and everything to do
with the economy which was very helpful
and revealing so i really hope this
video can help you guys still get that
dream vacation on the cheap these are
very stressful times we're living in
making the need to escape all the more
important and i hope i helped with that
this is vanessa for passport pages thank
you so much for watching and i hope to
see you all very soon bye everyone