orbitz travel: Who has the best site to book a trip for 10 people to Las Vegas?

Ten of us want to go to Pool Tournament...How can one of us book hotel and airfair without a travel agent. (cheapest, right?) Who... Orbitz, Hotwire, etc? Please Help me!

The best way to get the cheapest air and hotel rates is by booking them separately.

For airfare, use Kayak.com and Southwest.com. Kayak surfs other websites for you and gets the best prices. However, Southwest is not in their database and Southwest has the most Vegas flights. Pick out whichever is cheapest but ask if there are group discounts.

Kayak.com also has a lot of hotels in their database. Just check out their rates but don't book through them. When you get the cheapest rate, call the hotel directly. Ask them to meet or beat that rate.

Hotels have become more aggressive about cutting out the middleman which happens to be the travel sites. Be sure to let them know you are booking a group.

If you want to compare features of hotels and ratings, the best sites are hotels.com and tripadvisor.com. They are the most accurate.

Another factor that you didn't ask about is when to book. Usually you save the most money when you can go in between a peak in daily visitor counts. Often this is Sunday to Thursday but a big convention can screw things up.

If you have any flexibility at all in the schedule, check out the only website that has a graph of estimated visitor counts to Vegas. They also have a listing of any sporting event, convention, etc. that might spike up the visitor count. If you can book a room when there is less competition for that room, you will save a huge amount of money.

Booking without a Travel Agent may not be the cheapest. Plus a really knowledgable Travel Agent will get you on the right track. Book on your own and who knows what to expect, unless you have been there before.

Orbitz, Hotwire, Hotels.com, and Expedia are "consolidators". They buy blocks of rooms at prenegotiated prices. Sometimes they are a good deal sometimes they are not. It's up to you to check.

Keep in mind their goal is not just to book your room, but to book your "Package". That is where the profit is as they can start to bundle things and it becomes difficult to determine a good deal or not. Also you need to read the "fine print". Can you cancel? Is there a fee to cancel? What kind of room will you get? There are a lot of unknowns.

Booking Direct is Usually the best way to go. Booking Direct with a Promotion Code is a better way.

Go to the Hotel Websites you are considering and sign up for their email promos so they send them right to you.

Search the web for Hotelname Promotion Codes.

That's pretty much the formula.

I'd call a Travel Agent, but not commit. Let them do their job, you may be suprised.

Then I'd check the consolidators. See what they can do.

Then hit the Hotels with Promotion Codes.

You could do all of that in about an hour.

I would use one of the popular travel sites for booking the flights like Expedia, Travelocity or Orbitz and then use the special promotions that are only availiable online to book from the official hotel websites (this was if prices drop you can adjust them by calling the hotel). You can find a list of current promotion codes at http://www.smartervegas.com/hotels.aspx

Search here for cheap hotels and flights

http://www.jetsetgotravels.com

It provides search option like near a landmark etc

Also it provide searches from more than one source.

But beware ... cheap hotels can be trouble some times so check reviews of the hotel you are going to book.

Check the exact location of hotel from google maps.

I suggest you try Southwest Airlines Vacation, United Airlines Vacation, US Airways or Priceline.

On the other hand, If you get a cheap flight then I suggest booking your room directly from the hotel using a hotel discount code. These codes will give you the best deal on room. Here are a few codes.

http://www.lasvegas-how-to.com/special.html

HI FRIEND,

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I would try kayak.com for flights and I would try to get a good hotel promotion for the rooms. Check http://www.vegas-hotels-online.com for the newest Las Vegas hotel promotion codes.

I think you'd be better off contacting a hotel there directly, the LOVE large bookings.

My wife is a manager in the hotel industry.

To book the hotel to get the best rate you need to book direct with hotel on the internet and unfortunatly you can only book one room at a time you can however either book multiple times or you can send the link to all the people who want to come. If you book directly with the hotel you can usually cancel up tyo 48 hours checkin so if people drop out no one is out of pocket, also by booking dircetly with the hotels you only pay the first night so its not too much money to pay out at time of booking.

I am sorry I dont know your date range but I have listed some of the best current internet offers below

Mirage this is our favourite hotel up market and great value from $72 per night

https://reservations.mgmmirage.com/bookingengine.aspx?host=promo&pid=160&code=RRDLUX08&kbid=542076

Excalibur from $41

https://reservations.mgmmirage.com/bookingengine.aspx?pid=EXC&host=promo&code=eBook&kbid=542076

MGM from $49 - you need to be ammeber to get this offer the second link is for membership which you can do online but this may complicate things

https://reservations.mgmmirage.com/bookingengine.aspx?host=promo&pid=001&code=sdm055&kbid=542076

If price is any issue you will not find any better rates than the ones listed here they are direct with the hotels no middle man

Hope this helps