A European vacation is a trip many of us dream about. Art, history, culture, architecture, food — there’s something for everyone in Europe. As you can imagine, that all comes with a hefty price tag.
While a trip to Europe can be expensive, there are ways to save money. One of those ways is to purchase a vacation package. When you purchase a package consisting of flights and hotels (and even rail tickets, in the case of Europe) there’s a good chance you’ll save money. While it’s not a guarantee, we’ve found the prices of packages are usually less expensive than purchasing flights and hotels separately.
Since there are lots of places to purchase vacation packages, we wanted to narrow it down for you. These 9 websites all offer European vacation packages and will be a great starting point for planning your vacation.
1. Eurailing Packages
Eurailing Packages is a little different than the rest of our featured websites because instead of a traditional hotel and airfare package, it offers packages that bundle accommodations and train tickets. This will be handy for vacation packages within Europe, but not necessarily for getting to Europe.
Eurailing Packages is a helpful website if you’re looking for European vacation packages that include train tickets. Image Credit: Eurailing Packages
Since train travel is very popular in Europe, we thought this was a great option to include in this list. You can choose from the site’s predesigned packages and current deals, or you can build your custom accommodation and rail package.
Something thing to keep in mind when using this website is that the price includes a hostel, not a hotel. You’ll have the option to pay extra for a hotel when you’re finalizing the details of your trip but you won’t know the specific hotel or room type until after your booking is complete.
The prices you see from Eurailing Packages include a hostel. You’ll need to pay extra if you’d prefer a hotel. Image Credit: Eurailing Packages
Hot Tip: Use points and miles to fly to Europe when your vacation package only includes accommodations and rail tickets.
2. Grand European Travel
Grand European Travel might be a good place to search for a European vacation package if you’d like the planning done for you. This website offers lots of predesigned trips but doesn’t have the option to make your own. For someone who doesn’t want to do the legwork of planning a trip, that could be a welcome benefit.
Grand European Travel offers predesigned packages. Image Credit: Grand European Travel
If you decide to book a vacation package through Grand European Travel, keep in mind that solo travelers will default to a shared room. If you’d rather have private accommodations, you can select that during the checkout process for an additional charge.
Another nice thing about booking through Grand European Tours is that in addition to only needing to pay a deposit to reserve your trip, you can get a full refund if you need to cancel within 30 days. You can also change your departure date or destination free of charge until 60 days before your trip.
3. Costco Travel
Costco Travel is another great site that can help you find the perfect European vacation. You can choose a curated package or design your own.
You can choose predesigned vacation packages or make your own. Image Credit: Costco Travel
While you have to be a Costco member to purchase Costco Travel, you can search for a package without a membership. Often, packages purchased through Costco Travel will come with a Costco Shop Card or extra perks which can more than make up for the price of the membership. Plus, Executive members earn 2% back on purchases, including those from Costco Travel.
If you’re an Executive Member, be sure to keep an eye out for extra perks on your vacation package. These can often make up for the additional cost of an Executive Membership.
Take a look at some of the member benefits we found on a London and Paris vacation package:
$400 London tour credit
Daily breakfast
£35 food and beverage credit at the London hotel (Executive Members)
Fruit basket and chocolates at the Paris hotel (Executive Members)
Bottom Line: You have to be a Costco member to purchase a vacation package from Costco Travel, but you can check prices without being a member. Often, a package will come with perks or even a Costco Shop Card that can more than make up for the cost of a membership. For more information, check out our guide to using Costco Travel.
4. Delta Vacations
Booking a European trip through Delta Vacations can be a great way to earn lots of Delta SkyMiles.
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Package PriceBonus SkyMiles Earned (Per Person)Up to $4,9991,000$5,000 to $9,9992,000$10,000+5,000
You’ll also want to keep an eye out for deals that will award you extra bonus points. At the time of writing, you could get up to a $400 Delta gift card or up to 75,000 Delta SkyMiles for booking a flight and hotel package.
Keep an eye out for deals offering discounts or extra Delta SkyMiles. Image Credit: Delta
You can earn an additional 2 to 3 SkyMiles per $1 spent when you use a Delta co-branded credit card, too.
If you’d rather use Delta SkyMiles to pay for your vacation package, you can do that, too. You can pay for all or part of your vacation with your miles at 1 cent each in value. That’s just about what we value Delta SkyMiles at, so this can represent a good use of miles.
You’ll have the option to pay for any part of your vacation package with miles at the side of your screen during the booking process. Image Credit: Delta Vacations
Bottom Line: You can either earn or use SkyMiles for a vacation package purchased through Delta Vacations.
5. Expedia
Expedia is a tried-and-true website for booking travel because it’s easy to use and often has great deals. Your European vacation package can be customized to include flights, a hotel, and even a rental car.
The map feature is a great tool for finding a hotel in the perfect location, and there are lots of filtering options that will help narrow your search results even more.
Use the map and filtering options to find the perfect hotel in Europe. Image Credit: Expedia
Expedia participates in the One Key rewards program which allows you to earn and use points on eligible trips and access special member pricing. This is a good way to earn rewards when you don’t participate in a hotel chain’s loyalty program or are booking a hotel that doesn’t have its own loyalty program.
For more information including how to use the One Key program, check out our guide to using Expedia to find great deals on travel.
Hot Tip: If you choose a hotel that has its own loyalty program (Hyatt, Marriott, Hilton, etc.) you won’t earn hotel points when you book through a third-party website, nor will your elite status be recognized. If hotel points and elite status are important to you, you may want to consider booking direct.
6. Kayak
Kayak is a great tool for finding hotels, flights, and vacation packages. It’s a metasearch engine so the prices you’ll see will be from other websites most of the time (though you can occasionally book directly through Kayak). It’s a great way to compare prices from lots of other sites at the same time.
You’ll be able to see different prices and packages at one time. Image Credit: Kayak
You can use the handy map feature to search for hotels by location or use the filtering options to find a hotel that offers a perk that’s important to you like free breakfast or free parking. There are also options to choose any property type — from apartments to hostels to resorts and everything in between.
Hot Tip: For more information, check out our guide to booking travel with Kayak.
7. United Vacations
United Vacations is a great website to use to search for European vacation packages, especially if you like flying United or live near a United hub that will have lots of flight options.
United Vacations offers hotel and flight packages for lots of destinations in Europe. Image Credit: United Vacations
It can also be a great option for anyone who wants to earn more United MileagePlus miles — you’ll earn them on your vacation package if you provide your membership number at booking. Unfortunately, you can’t redeem United miles for your trip.
This site has many of the sorting and filtering options you’d find on other sites, and you can even add extras like trip insurance or airport transfers to your package.
Bottom Line: You’ll earn United MileagePlus miles when you book a package through United Vacations, but you can’t redeem miles for any part of your trip. Instead, check out these ideas when you’re ready to spend your miles.
8. CheapTickets
CheapTickets is a popular online travel agency for hotels, flights, rental cars, and vacation packages. It’s owned by Expedia so it has the same functionality as that site, but it often has different pricing, so it’s worth checking them both out.
CheapTickets is owned by Expedia and has similar functionality. However, the 2 sites can have different package prices. Image Credit: CheapTickets
During the booking process, you’ll be able to add extras like airport transportation, a rental car, activities, and trip insurance.
Hot Tip: Before you add trip protection from an online travel agency like CheapTickets, be sure to read up on the policy for your credit card with travel insurance so you don’t end up buying something you may already have. You might also want to price out a policy with a few travel insurance companies to compare plans and prices before you book your trip.
9. Priceline
Booking a European vacation package through Priceline is a straightforward and easy process. You can search for any combination of flights, hotels, and cars under the Bundle + Save search tab on the home page. The search results will quickly give you hotel information including the price and how much you can expect to save on the package.
You can often save money by booking a vacation package through Priceline. Image Credit: Priceline
Priceline has its own loyalty program called Priceline VIP that offers discounts, a best rate guarantee, and Express Deal coupons. While these perks are available as soon as you join, the discounts get bigger and better as you reach new status tiers within the program.
Hotel savings start at 10% for all members and go up to 50% on over 45,000 hotels for top-tier VIP Platinum members. Additionally, those with VIP Member or VIP Blue status will get a 5% Express Deal coupon after every trip, VIP Gold members get an 8% Express Deal coupon after every trip, and VIP Platinum members get a 10% Express Deal coupon after every trip.
Hot Tip: Make sure you’re earning lots of points by using a credit card that’s great for purchasing vacation packages.
Price Comparisons
Now let’s get to the important part — price comparisons. Since it’s hard to compare prices head-to-head for custom packages and ones that include rail tickets, we’ll only be looking at the sites where you can design your own.
Package #1: 6 nights in Paris at Sofitel Arc de Triomphe plus round-trip airfare from Atlanta (ATL) for 2 adults.
Package #2: 6 nights in London at St. Ermin’s Hotel, Autograph Collection plus round-trip airfare from Dallas-Ft. Worth (DFW) for 2 adults.
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WebsitePackage #1 (Paris)Package #2 (London)CheapTickets$6,291.43 (breakfast included)$4,738.73Costco Travel$6,470.44 (breakfast included)$4,936.82*Delta VacationsN/A$4,736.52Expedia$5,795.93 (breakfast included)$4,948.19Kayak$6,056.55$4,080.31Priceline$6,320.02$4,139.84United Vacations$6,176.53$5,575.38
*Includes daily continental breakfast, airport transfers, and a guaranteed room upgrade.
For the first example, Expedia has the lowest price by far and the package even includes breakfast! Costco Travel was the most expensive. In the second example, Kayak and Priceline were the lowest-priced options with United Vacations coming in as the most expensive.
As you can see, there’s not a single website that always has the best prices, so it’s always a good idea to price out your vacation package on a few different websites to see where you can get the best deal.
Final Thoughts
Booking a vacation package for your trip to Europe can be a great way to save some money on a hotel, flights, and even train tickets. Since no single website will always have the best prices, it’s a good idea to price out your trip in a few different places to make sure you’re getting the best deal.
