Booking your Holiday
How to make the most of your trip through our booking partners.
Here at DIYdly we provide links to a number of booking services for you to book up your holiday accommodation, transport and activities. Our primary partners are booking.com (hotels), getyourguide.com (tours and private transport), and 12go.asia (transport tickets). All three are leaders in their respective areas of specialisation and booking through them provides a number of benefits to the DIY traveller.
Life is what happens when plans go astray.
The best laid plans often come unstuck, and while we don’t want to sound negative, we all know that in life shit happens. Having flexibility enables us to change when change is needed. The reasons for changing plans are many and varied, you might be indecisive, have a friend that gives you some last minute advice that you want to act on, or an emergency means you need to change everything and take care of the emergency. Whatever the reason, the ability to easily make changes to your travel plans is one that we think should be a priority when you make a booking.
Booking.com
Our preferred tool for booking accommodation is booking.com, probably the biggest hotel booking website on the planet. What this means for you and us is that there is a massive range of choice available - everything from backpacker hostels to 5 star luxury. Their prices are amongst the best available. Yes, you could probably spend a few hours researching hotels and find a deal elsewhere to save yourself $2 or you could just go with the leader and get consistently good prices and when they have them, excellent deals.
To make the most of using booking.com follow these simple principles:
Join the loyalty program. The booking.com loyalty program is call “Genius”. We think it’s a pretty dumb name but it’s the features of Genius that matter, not the name. There are three levels of membership: and by signing up you automatically start at Level 1:
Level 1 is acquired simply by signing up to the program and gets you up to 10% off room rates at many hotels.
Level 2 gets you 10-15% off select hotels, free breakfast and/or free upgrades on select stays. To get to Level 2 you need to make 5 stays in 2 years with booking.com.
Level 3 requires 15 stays in 2 years and gets you the same as Level 2 but with bigger discounts and ‘priority support on all stays’, whatever that means.
By being a member of the Genius loyalty program all your hotel bookings will be stored within a single system that you can easily view and change as required.
When you book your hotels, check our recommendation for the room type. For some hotels we don’t suggest the lowest priced room, usually because it doesn’t have an external window (feel free to ignore us if you don’t need that window) or some other feature lacking.
All hotels we recommend have free cancellation. They may have cheaper rooms without the ability to cancel so decide for yourself how you want to deal with this. If your plans are solid you might want to save a few dollars. Most bookings you will make will not require any upfront payment and allow you to cancel right up until close to the date of your stay. Did we mention flexibility?
Some hotels allow for a room to be booked without breakfast for a cheaper price. Decide what works best for you. Many hotels have amazing buffet breakfasts that set you up for a day of exploring and allow you to try a whole range of foods, so if you like a hearty breakfast do the buffet.
An important note on money and payments. Prices on booking.com will be quoted in your home currency but when it comes time to pay you will be paying in the local currency of the hotel. Because of this the price quoted and the price charged will usually be different due to movements in the exchange rate. Usually the variation is small but in rare cases an exchange rate can move a lot in a short period of time - sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Don’t blame the hotel, blame international money markets!
GetYourGuide.com
You might not have heard of this website but we have been using it for many years. GetYourGuide.com, or GYG as its known in the industry, is a worldwide specialist in day trips. When you are travelling independently sometimes you need a tour to access certain places, or you just want to get some intimate local knowledge that only a local guide can provide. GYG brings together all the best providers of day tours along with flexible booking conditions making it a great tool for a DIY holiday.
To make the most of using getyourguide.com follow these simple principles:
As with all our partners we recommend signing up for an account so that you have all your bookings stored in one place.
Take note of the cancellation policies with each booking. Usually these are very generous and you can cancel up to 24 hours before any booking.
You can often get away with booking day trips quite late, in many cases even the day before. In peak season you might want to get in a bit earlier than this, but if you want to just ‘see how you’re travelling’ before committing to any tours just book them as you go. You might be tired one day, sociable the next. There’s no need to book every minute of every day - you are on holiday afterall.
12Go.asia
It used to be very hard to prebook tickets for transport, particularly in Asia. But then our friends at 12Go.asia came to the rescue and set up their amazing booking service, initially in Thailand, then spreading around the world. 12Go cover trains, buses, planes, ferries, vans and more. With transport tickets probably being the most important part of preplanning a fixed duration holiday, booking online in advance has made independent DIY travel so much easier.
To make the most of using getyourguide.com follow these simple principles:
Again, as with all our booking partners, sign up for an account so all your ticket are stored in a single location.
As 12Go deals with a range of transport companies, including state owned railways, the process for getting your ticket can vary depending on the ticket. It is important to read the process for each ticket so you know what is going on. We mention in our notes if there is anything important you should know.
For most train tickets you cannot booking a long time in advance. Most state railways do this to stop agents buying up all the tickets and reselling them at a higher price. Advanced booking times are provided in the details for each ticket. If you book when tickets are first released you should have no trouble getting a ticket apart from big national holidays like Tet in Vietnam or Songkran in Thailand.
The cancellation policies differ for different tickets, and generally they are not like the flexible cancellation policies you get with tours and hotels. So keep this in mind but also accept that it’s not yet possible to have every part of your holiday 100% refundable at the time of booking.
When you make a booking the tickets are sent to your email address once they are confirmed by the operator. There are two types of confirmations: instant and manual. Operators who confirm bookings instantly are connected directly to 12Go’s systems with confirmation done automatically shortly after your booking is placed. Such operators have an instant badge (little lightning icon) on their trips. Manual operators need to be contacted by 12Go so the process takes a little longer.
From all our time working in tourism we have many friends operating small businesses that offer a quality of personal service far greater than anything you could possibly achieve in a larger business. We love recommending these businesses to you, so for some of our booking suggestions we we direct you straight to a small business website where you can book direct.
Sometimes these websites aren’t as schmick as other websites. These friends put their energy into delivering the best tours in the business, not into paying for the latest whizz-bang website. Often you’ll be dealing with the owner of the business who is also your guide - personal service doesn’t get any better than this.
So you’ll need to trust us on these bookings. Our friends will look after you like family. If you want to let them know that we sent you that would be great. It’s always nice for our friends to know we are thinking of them.
Empower your inner adventurer and DIY an awesome holiday.
