West coast.

[damaged]

Me, the oh & my mum are looking to go to the west coast of the states next year, for two weeks. So, san fancisco, la, las vegas, & possibly new york either at the start or end of the trip. Just wondering how to go about it, ie travel companys that do multi city? would it be cheaper to do it diy?

Thanks!

[Rio]

I am looking to do New York, San Francisco, Hawaii and Mexico next year and Virgin do multi centre trips. Also check out Premier and Funway.
Love Rio

[BUD62]

I think you are far better off doing it as a DIY job,you will be able to taylor your holiday to suit your needs and it will be cheaper. I am booked to go to the West coast in September and the nearest comparable tour is nearly a £1000 more for both of us.

[tomnj]

That's a lot for 2 weeks. Research heavily and make a list of priorities for each city. Then decide on driving or flying routes.

Lots of books available in the libraries.

[ali-s]

I've gone the D.I.Y route, the organised tours I found were far more expensive and didn't cover what we wanted to do. I started off playing around with the Expedia site - do 'flight only' 'more option's to find the multi city flights. You can find out who flys where and get an idea of how much. Do the same with Virgin and B.A. Same thing for the hotels - have a look around Trip Advisor and Expedia for an idea of prices and what's available.

[stteb1]

We did it DIY Sept '06, flew into Vegas, stayed the night drove up to San Fran (via Bakersfield) Then drove down to L.A. / Anaheim, over to Laughlin, then back to Vegas, spent 17 days and loved every minute of it, if I were you definitely DIY.

[damaged]

We did it DIY Sept '06, flew into Vegas, stayed the night drove up to San Fran (via Bakersfield) Then drove down to L.A. / Anaheim, over to Laughlin, then back to Vegas, spent 17 days and loved every minute of it, if I were you definitely DIY.

I was thinking that. Can i ask how much spending money you took?

[Dissuziq]

When I did NYC LV and San Fran we booked through Airline network who for a travel company put together the holiday with lots of options and pricing which was a lot better than I could do DIY, its definiately worth getting a quote from them.

[bookswin]

Hi from Chicago.

Those cities you mention are all served by Southwest Airlines. Check their website for fares and schedule. As you get closer to departure, download their "DING" program to your computer for daily bargain fares. My #1 choice by far for flying within the US if possible. Best benefit is you can buy a ticket and if you alter the reservation there is no $100 change fee.

In general, "do it yourself" will work out better for you in the US. So many more choices.

There's a website called Flyertalk that has immense amounts of info that would be useful to you on hotels, cities, airlines, etc. Any conceivable question will be answered quickly.

Are you going to Disneyland?

[Simplyton]

We did a multi centre holiday in 2004 through United Vacations - Which I would throughly recommend

For us United allowed us to tailor the holiday exactly as we liked

United allowed 2 free stopovers (as long as you took 2 night accom in the resort through UV)
Each additional stopover is £50pp

So our itinerary involved (* booked outwith United)
flying to NYC,
3night accom in NYC
Fly to LAX
5 night accom in Anaheim *
Car Hire LA*
Fly to Vegas
2 night accom in Vegas
Fly to MCO
11 night Accom in Orlando*
Car Hire Orlando*

I cant remember the exact figure but I think the whole thing came to around £2000 (including non-united stuff)
Register for United card and pick points for travel and accomodation and you can almost manage another transatlantic trip for free :)

Basically with United we flew from Glasgow to Orlando with 2 free stopovers in NYC and Vegas, a £50pp stopover in LA.
We filled the bits in between ourselves

One other thing - We booked our United Vacations through my wife's Union travel agent. Some union's, even banks etc. will offer to beat the cost of any package holiday

We near on finalised the details with UV direct then took the United Itinerary to TGWU travel agent who guaranteed 7% but in the end knocked 10% off UV price :)

Sorry for the the lack of details - upcoming FL trip (1st with DD) has my brain swiss chessed.

If you check out UV and want more info on my trip drop me a pm

[Dollar_Bill]

Try these for internal flights (http://www.virginamerica.com/va/home.do)
We are flying between Vegas/San Fran/LA in Sept when we go for 3 weeks.
Bill

[damaged]

Hi from Chicago.

Those cities you mention are all served by Southwest Airlines. Check their website for fares and schedule. As you get closer to departure, download their "DING" program to your computer for daily bargain fares. My #1 choice by far for flying within the US if possible. Best benefit is you can buy a ticket and if you alter the reservation there is no $100 change fee.

In general, "do it yourself" will work out better for you in the US. So many more choices.

There's a website called Flyertalk that has immense amounts of info that would be useful to you on hotels, cities, airlines, etc. Any conceivable question will be answered quickly.

Are you going to Disneyland?

No, no disneyland this trip. Would of done it twice by then. So want something different.

[stteb1]

I was thinking that. Can i ask how much spending money you took?

To be honest I can't remember, asked the wife and she reckoned £1,500, but that's not including what went on the Visa :spin:

[Gaz]

Me, the oh & my mum are looking to go to the west coast of the states next year, for two weeks. So, san fancisco, la, las vegas, & possibly new york either at the start or end of the trip. Just wondering how to go about it, ie travel companys that do multi city? would it be cheaper to do it diy?

Thanks!

we have always booked DIY. i find it is so much cheaper to do it this way, plus having more control over he time we fly. (its seems everytime we attend at TA they only ever offer up certain flights.)

If your happy to pay straight out then thats the only way to go IMO.

we have used VA and ticked the multi city option (but for our internal US flights we book them direct with other airlines as it works out cheaper)

[Gaz]

Hi from Chicago.

Those cities you mention are all served by Southwest Airlines. Check their website for fares and schedule. As you get closer to departure, download their "DING" program to your computer for daily bargain fares. My #1 choice by far for flying within the US if possible. Best benefit is you can buy a ticket and if you alter the reservation there is no $100 change fee.

In general, "do it yourself" will work out better for you in the US. So many more choices.

There's a website called Flyertalk that has immense amounts of info that would be useful to you on hotels, cities, airlines, etc. Any conceivable question will be answered quickly.

Are you going to Disneyland?

Thanks for posting this, we are still looking for our internal flights for this august.