Hawaii Vacation Packages – Best Package Deals to Hawaii

Ok, so you are planning a vacation to Hawaii, and you want to buy a vacation package deal – probably because it will both save you time, and save you money.

On this page what I will do is break down how to tell if you are getting a good package and a good price, and that way you can look at any package and figure out for yourself if it’s a good deal or not.

This will take more time than just going to a website and pulling out your credit card, but if you are on any sort of a budget, this is important. You want to spend as little as possible on air, room, car so you can have tons left over for activities and souveniers and massages.

How to Search for Good Hawaii Packages

A Discussion on When to Book for the Best Hawaii Package Deals

What is a Good Deal on Hawaii Vacation Packages?

How to Search for a Good Hawaii Package

The first thing I recommend you do is go to my favorite booking engine, expedia and click on Deals and Offers just to see what kind of prices are available off the bat.

You probably won’t see exactly what I am talking about here, because these change all the time, but I’ll pick them apart in a way that lets you look at whatever deals and offers are there right now and evaluate them in the same way.

So let’s go to http://travel-hawaii.com/ and look at their deals. In order to work out a true package that covers everything with them you might need to call them, but lets just look a their hotel rates.

The first hotel I see is the Outrigger Waikiki on the Beach on Oahu. great hotel. They have some free nights deals. The first one that pops up is an ocean front room, with breakfast and 2 free nights, for 7 nights. The price that comes up is 2580.60 with taxes. They tell you right there that the average price is $323 per night or $369 per night with tax. Let’s see if this is a good deal or not.

So I go to the website and check rates for an oceanfront room plus breakfast there: Although the hotel is also offering the two nights free, the total cost at the hotel reservations page is still: Total Cost: 2843.35 USD – so you save about $263 total. Ok, good deal here. And you’ll probably save even more if you add a car. Flights it’s a little harder to shave money off of, but sometimes the travel agents can pull it off.

Going to Expedia, for the same hotel, I get $2,816.80 for the same time frame. A little less than the hotel website, a little more than travel-hawaii.

Now let’s add a car:

• at travel-hawaii, for a full size car I get a rate of $336, which is $48 per day and includes all taxes and fees. Total price it seems is now: $2,749.85
• at expeda for a full size car plus the same room class, I get a total cost of $2,749.85 …. hmmm, interesting, so if you book at expedia, the total price actually goes DOWN if you add a car, and down to exactly what I get at travel-hawaii
• and at the website … wow, ok, I get … $2,749.85 !!

(just a note here – the hotel will probably charge you an extra $20 a day parking garage fee if you do get a car and use their parking garage, I don’t see those fees here)

I’m pretty sure I’ve said this before, the internet has leveled the playing field for all travel, not just vacation packages, and this is what happens. This $2749.85 is the best rate you are going to get most times.

That is not to say that you won’t run into travel agents or individual sites trying to charge you MORE for the same package, and that is not to say that you can’t find deals, because you can find deals. Sometimes there are buy one airfare and companion flys for $50 deals. those are awesome. I’ve seen that at pleasant holidays, and I’m not sure how they do it.

So here’s my advice – here’s what you need to know you are getting a great deal:

1. Decide what island you are going to
2. If you have a hotel in mind, great, start searching prices for it
3. . if you don’thave a hotel in mind, that’s fine too, start searching what’s available on the island
4. Write down prices you see that you like – write down where you found it (what website), and what the hotel and price was
5. When you find something you like, check at least one other site to be sure the price is a good one.
6. buy it wherever you find the best deal or if all prices are the same – wherever you want! I like expedia, that’s the one I use all the time

What is a Good Deal for Hawaii Vacation Packages?

Well, that totally, 100% depends on your car class, your hotel star rate, the type of hotel room you get, and when and where you are flying from.

Let me give an example here:

Ok, for ease-sake, lets pick an example of the most expensive package possible, and the least expensive package possible

Most expensive

Let’s say flights, deluxe oceanview room at a very pricy hotel on Maui, add a car, and then talk about flying from east and west coast for 7 days

Summer East Coast: Ok, booking through expedia, I chose the Ritz-Carlton on Maui, in July, with a full size car, from New York, 2 people. $6,847.79 (booking this in the winter could probably save at least $1000 just on lower hotel and flight costs – see my article on when the cheapest time is to fly to hawaii)

Least Expensive – or budget package

Let’s say budget hotel plus flights, in Waikiki on Oahu, no car, in July for 7 days

Searching on Expedia, with the least expensive options coming up first, the best price I see right now is Maile sky court, no car, with a price of $2270, and that is for 2 people. – again you could knock almost $1000 off this trip going in October or maybe September, plus if you were traveling from the west coast (LA, san francisco, san diego, …) your ticket prices would be even better. I did the search again in the last week of September and got air and room at the Hawaiian Monarch for 7 days for $1581. Wow.

So again you ask, well what’s a good deal – and where can I get a good deal to Hawaii?

I say you just start looking around – I like to start at expedia, then check hawaiian airlines, then maybe pleasant holidays. Basically, you can follow my cheap hawaii flight strategy, but look for vacation packages instead of just flights.

If you want me to check out your package I will .. just leave me comment here with the details and I’ll tell you what I think!

If you want to KNOW if you are getting a good deal, all you really have to do is go to the hotel website or any booking website and type in the hotel seperately and see how much it comes up for, and then go to any airline booking site and type in just your flights info and get that number. Add them together and you’ll have the actual numbers of is your vacation package a good deal or not!

Here’s some sites to get started with:

• Top Vacation Package Deals at Expedia.com
  
  
  Expedia is my favorite engine – I always book my travel and packages here. I like that you can compare air fare and they always seem to have good prices in Hawaii.

• Hotel Deals & Travel Specials from Marriott. – their top deals page. definitely worth a look, especially if you are a marriott fan, which I am. They have some great hotels in Hawaii.
• Cheap Hawaii Tickets
  Local travel agency specializing in Hawaii vacation packages, wholesale
  airline tickets and discount car rentals on Kauai, Oahu, Maui, Lanai,
  Molokai and the Big Island. Professionally prepared quotes produced with
  personalized customer service and backed with 30 years of local island
  experience.

• All-Travel Hawaii Packages
  
  This seems to be all cruises these days.

• Aloha Hawaii Travel
  
  Many hotels to choose from, and the room and car packages offer good deals. Here are the packages for Maui, Oahu, Kauai, Big Island, Lanai and Molokai.

• Escorted Hawaii Tours
  
  Hawaii packages, pre-selected tours, and cruises. Several options available.

• Hawaii Vacation Discounters
  
  Check out their web specials. They search a database of available packages from several suppliers.

• Pacific Golf Adventures
  
  Golfing packages on the major islands. Hawaii offers the most unique golf courses in the world, including one on an active volcano, and many ocean-front courses.
  

Castle Resorts vacation packages

These are always different – I’ve seen Free night deals, car packages, coupon books, kids eat free, kids get in free to sea life park – check it out.

When to Book for the Best Hawaii Package Deals

This is a question I received about how to get the best price on a Hawaii vacation deal. My answer is at the end of this quoted info. – Basically I think the answer is to discover what a good price is and then book when you can get that price.

I’ve been reading your website a lot lately, thanks so much for all the info you provide! My fiancee and I are trying to plan a Honeymoon June 6-11, 2012 in Oahu, traveling from Las Vegas. Per your help, we have been looking at Hawaiian Air for their packages. Here are the basics:

• $1500 total for flights only ($333 Las Vegas to HNL, $333 HNL to Las Vegas) x2
• $1100 total for 5 night Ocean Front at Aston Waikiki Beach Hotel

$2200 total for “package” at Aston Waikiki Beach Hotel in Ocean Front Room from Hawaiian Air

I suppose my question is, we save $400 with that package. But are the flights too expensive for June 2012? There are also no hotel specials for June 2012 yet from Aston, and we are wondering if we should wait for those to release.

You are welcome! I try!

Ok, so here’s what I think.

$333 is a FABULOUS price from vegas to hnl. Especially these days. If you check the current specials on Hawaiian there is nothing below $400 from the west coast. That’s because of gas prices.

Now, if I check Aston Waikiki Beach Hotel in a few weeks, I can find an oceanview room for about $170 – but that’s in October, not June. June is very busy.

Honestly, I think you are getting a good deal and I think that anything you save in sales will be eaten up by your airfare, especially if gas prices are how they are now (or HIGHER gasp!) (which they could be next year).

Here’s the rub. If you book it, maybe you can get a guarantee that they’ll refund your money if a better deal is found. And if so it’s a good idea to check prices frequently. If they won’t, then don’t ever check a price after you buy. that way you can believe in your good deal (I think it’s a good deal).

One more thing you could try is taking your price to a travel agent (or pleasant holidays) and saying “can you beat it” and just see what happens. Personally, I don’t think they’ll be able to, but there’s nothing to be lost by trying.

Either way – let me know what you do! I’d love to hear. And have a great trip! Aloha, Lisa

Check best hawaii package deals at Hawaiian here