How to combine your flight booking with a hotel and save money!

Using Expedia's Add-on Advantage, we managed to score great flights and a hotel in Vienna (pictured is the Summer Palace in Vienna).

Thank you Expedia for sponsoring this post. Book your travel on Expedia.ca to save with the Add-On Advantage!

Currently we travel about half the year- this frequency has definitely increased over the last couple of years, specifically after we both quit our full time jobs- before this we’d travel about two months out of the year with no trip lasting much more than three weeks at a time.  These days we’re usually on the road for a couple of months, sometimes with no return ticket or itinerary. It’s such a crazy and fun adventure, at times a bit scary not knowing where we’re going or if we’ll have a place to stay, but it always seems to work out!

Because of our travel frequency it means it’s not only important to watch our budget, it’s also imperative. Thankfully there are some tips and tricks on travel booking websites to help, and Expedia offers just that with their Add-on Advantage.

How it works:

It’s simple, book a flight or rent a car using Expedia and you’ll automatically be able to use the Add-On Advantage.

Once you've booked your flight (or car rental) you automatically qualify for hotel discounts, so you can search and book as soon as you're ready.

An added bonus, there is no need to rush, this discount works up until the day before your travel.

So if you’re not ready to book that hotel yet, want to do some research you don't want to pay for everything all at once- you don’t need to rush.  After you book you’ll get a notification from Expedia that you qualify for a hotel discount.

But if you happen to close that window, they also will send you handy reminders. When you’re ready to book (or just search) click the link in the email.

Here is the key to really taking advantage of the good discounts- as you scroll though the hotel listings- Expedia labels every hotel that has the Add-On Advantage, and lets you know how much you’re saving. Still confused? - essentially because you booked through Expedia- they’ve done the work for you by getting you additional discounts at hotels.

You know what’s an even better bonus- say you’re flying to London but immediately hopping on a train and going to Brussels- you can still use that discount for hotels in Brussels- it doesn’t apply to just hotels where you landed.

How we used it:

As we previously mentioned, we often have one way tickets and very little in terms of plans. So we recently found ourselves in Greece, island hopping for a full month. We knew we’d finish our Greek travels in Crete, and that we’d at least slowly make our way back towards somewhere in Europe where we could fly home to Canada. So what we did is go to Expedia and start doing some flight searches to see where we could end up. We immediately came across a very well priced flight from Heraklion, Crete to Vienna, Austria (via Athens).  A major bonus was that it was on Aegean Airlines, part of the Star Alliance Network and therefore not a low-cost carrier- but essentially for the same price as we’d pay on Ryanair, Vueling, etc.

Vienna, Austria also meant a whole new city and country for us, and it’s so close to Budapest which is a city we’d had on our radar for quite awhile.

After booking our flight we spent a few days searching through the hotel listings. We also prefer to do some research in advance to make sure we’ll be in a neighbourhood we’ll enjoy, while getting the best hotel we can for the best price. After researching for a while we came across Ruby Hotels (a chain of hotels we’d never heard of before). In the photos the rooms at Ruby Marie Hotel Vienna looked pristine, clean and modern, and the public spaces, including the bar/restaurant looked exceptional. It was also in a area we’d been eyeing and the price was great- in the middle of summer, central Europe, in Vienna, plus with a 12% discount with Expedia’s Add-on Advantage, we figured this was the hotel for us!!

The Results:

The hotel actually surpassed our expectations. Upon arrival we discovered a self check-in desk, which we’d honestly normally feel hesitant about but it worked seamlessly, took all of about 2 minutes- printed off two room keys, and we were on our way. We went for the Cosy room which we found surprisingly roomy considering the description on their website. The public areas in the lobby included bar space and an outdoor area, all immaculately decorated and very Instagram worthy!

The Lobby/Bar area of Ruby Marie Vienna

They also had some shared work spaces, and a movie room which plays retro films each night (we were unfortunately too busy exploring the city to take advantage of this). All-in-all we have to say we were pleasantly surprised by this hotel, especially given the really good price and would happily stay at another Ruby hotel again!

Lastly, the location was amazing, in a quieter area of Vienna with loads of shopping, great restaurants and bars but also gave us easy access to the rest of the city!

Trevor enjoying beautiful city views of Vienna.

A vlog of Vienna will be coming soon to our YouTube channel and we’ll add it here when it’s ready!

Last Thoughts:

Booking through Expedia and being able to utilize their Add-on Advantage not only helped us out with planning and booking very last minute, it also helped us save money- a much appreciated perk! It also allowed us to book an amazing hotel in the perfect location so we could easily explore the beautiful city! Vienna was a major surprise for us and we can’t wait to get back to discover more of it!

Have you had success using Expedia’s Add-On Advantage? Or have any great tips for booking hotels and saving money? Comment below!

We were selected for this opportunity as a member of CLEVER and the content and opinions expressed here are all our own.