Groupon is the place you can start to search when you want to buy just about anything, anytime, anywhere. By leveraging the company’s global relationships and scale, Groupon offers consumers a vast marketplace of unbeatable deals all over the world. Shoppers discover the best a city has to offer on the web or on mobile with Groupon Local, and enjoy vacations with Groupon Getaways.
According to Victoria Xcape, Groupon offers great pricing at a discount price and sometimes unbeatable. It saves on the time of hiring a travel agent or putting your trip together yourself. Everything is done when you purchase that getaway. Each one is connected to the travel agency that is listed in the advertisement. All you have to do is purchase and call the travel agency to redeem your Groupon voucher code that was given at the time of your booking. The getaway will usually list the itinerary for that specific trip. You can purchase your optional excursions to add for extra fun ! They allow free days but usually include at least one guided tour in your pricing. Feels like you have your own personal tour guide.
If the trip is international PLEASE BEWARE of the display of how many “days” they advertise the trip for. So for example if it says “8 days in Italy”, understand that it is very misleading. With international flights they usually leave late in the night like 10 or 11 pm which will count as DAY 1. Now we know thats not a full day. Also know that it will usually be a major time diffference, so if you leave a 10 pm CST time then you get to Milan and its 7 hours ahead after a 8 hour flight you have now lost another 15 hours. Please understand that day one is your flight, day two is usually when you land in the evening with the time change, so Day 3 will be your REAL first day and now you only have 5 days left. It can mislead customers, because it definitely did for us. Sometimes they offer the chance to extend your trip however it depends on each vendor.
Every traveler doesn’t research and thats fine because your agency does the research for you, and puts guided tours together for you to purchase based on highly recommended things to do in that particular location. You usually have up until 7 days to purchase these excursions. Don’t feel rushed to purchase immediately after booking your trip. VX would suggest you do your own research to see if its worth buying. If you do decide to purchase then they usually provide tour bus that picks you up from your hotel lobby and lunch for that tour. But don’t purchase every tour, trust me you will want some free days to explore your location at your own leisure. They have specific times that you must be ready which usually are in the early AM hours. Do you want to be up everyday at this time on your vacation? Probably not, so decide whats most important. We saw many people waste money on these excursions because they were to tired to get up everyday.
Groupon usually gives multiple departure dates and locations. Most commonly LAX, JFK, HOU, and BOS. You are free to purchase what works for you. Dates are usually selected but sometimes they will have open a range of dates where you can select your specific departure date. If you’re like me and from Chicago, then you won’t see Chicago often as a departure city. So you must take into consideration when you purchase Dubai for $1800 with a departure from JFK that you still have to pay for your round trip flight to NYC as well. Also 9 times out of 10 you cannot select your own dates.
Some tips:
_ Don’t rushed, consider the details and read the fine print carefully
_ Check cancellation policies
_ Ask Groupon’s customer service as many questions as you want to make sure what you think you can have is what it actually will be
_ Read trip reviews, check hotel or air airlines
_ Check other travel websites as well. Groupon does have some of the best prices out there. But that doesn’t mean they have the best deals for you. Expedia, Kayak, Travelocity, and Orbitz may have deals that are similar, but not quite the same. Maybe the flights work better for you. Or maybe the stay would be one day longer, and that’s more appealing. Thus, do a bit research to save your money!
_Use Groupon Coupon
The Miles 101 