The sky of Belarus almost entirely belongs to Belavia. Therefore, the easiest way to save money on a vacation in Turkey is to fly from Moscow. There are more departures and more destinations. For this reason, it is this city that we will take as a starting point today.
We started looking for the ticket itself on the Travelata website. For interest, you can take a look at their section with burning tours (here it is). There are quite a few good offers out there. But if desired, this price can be reduced even more. And I’ll tell you how to do it today. But first, a little spoiler.
A couple of lines about our own trip (for those who are too lazy to read big texts)
For our vacation in Turkey, we paid 143,000 rub or approximately 1,430 euros. This is the cost for 3 people and a week’s stay in Side at the extra all inclusive hotel. The calculation here was as follows:
- We left Minsk by train at 6 a.m. and were in the Russian capital at 13:00. The ticket price is 202 BYN (57€/5812 rub). Alice rides trains for free so far (like other children under 5 years old).
- For an overnight stay in Moscow we paid another 3000 rub (30€). As a hotel, we chose the Ibis hotel at the Dynamo metro station. For a transit stop, this is a great option.
- We gave another 300 rub + 300 rub for a trip to the Cosmonautics Museum to find out that the Squirrel and the Arrow were actually called Drop and Wilna. And immediately after that we went to the airport.
- The flight with S7 on the route Moscow – Antalya cost us 69,590 RUB, but I returned another 2093 RUB in the form of cashback. Total: 67,500 RUB (675€ or 2265 BYN). I think it’s not bad for 3 tickets “There” and 3 tickets “Back”.
- Transfer from Antalya Airport to Side – 42 euros one way. For this money, we rented a car with a driver (despite the fact that a regular minibus costs almost the same).
And finally, the hotel itself. The price for 7 nights is 53,139 RUB (531 €). The hotel was called Arnor De Lux. You can view his photos here. Please note that he still has very good reviews.
The same thing, but in more detail
I rarely go all-inclusive and do not consider myself an expert in this field. But while preparing for a trip to Side, I still found several ways to buy a cheap tour to Turkey and save a lot. I will tell you how to do this below. I hope my ideas will be useful to some of you.
Tip No. 1. Pay for the flight and accommodation separately (not the whole tour)
In our case, it turned out to be cheaper. The entire tour to Side from Moscow cost 130,000 rub (1300€) on the Travelat website. And the hotel + flight cost us 122,729 rub. Plus, I returned another 2093 RUB as cashback. Savings of almost 10,000 rub (100 euros).
Tip No. 2. Do not forget that the same flight may cost differently at different sites
I checked my flight from S7 first on the official website of the airline, then I ran it through Aviasales, and in the end I also compared it with the prices on the website Tinkoff Travels. It turned out that on the S7 and Tinkoff Travel website, tickets cost the same. But the latter was ready to return 3% of the cost in the form of cashback.
Savings: another 2093 RUB (21 euros).
I paid for the tickets using the Tinkoff Black card. If you don’t have it yet, you can apply for it here at this link. Then the release and maintenance will be completely free. For calculations in Russia, it is a very convenient thing.
Tip No. 3. Saving on a hotel
There are at least three large sites in Russia where you can watch tours to Turkey and other countries. These are:
- Travelata
- Level Travel
- And Online tours.
Having decided that we would live in Side at the Arnor De Lux Hotel, I alternately compared its cost on these three sites.
The cost of the hotel on the Travelat website
The cost of the same hotel on Online Tours
As a result, the best price was found on Online Tours. But I emphasize right away: this does not mean that this site ALWAYS offers the best rates. Travel is an inexact science. And all we can do is compare all the available options one by one. The savings in our case were about 5000 rub.
Tip No. 4. Don’t forget about promo codes
When you see the figures on the Travel website, remember that they are not final. If desired, they can be slightly reduced using various promo codes. I have seen the most “fat” discounts on the Travelat in honor of Black Friday. Then for a fewYou could save 10,000 rub in clicks. But discounts are usually less – from 500 to 3000 rub. For example:
- traveldiary300 works for all bookings without restrictions, but gives a very small discount – 300 RUB;
- traveldiary500 works for trips more expensive than 20,000 RUB and “cuts off” from the cost of 500 RUB;
- AF1000traveldiary. Discount 1000 rubles – from 60,000 rubles;
- traveldiary1500. It will help you save 1500 rub with a total amount above 80 thousand.
- 2000AFtraveldiary 2000 RUB discount on tours from 100,000 RUB.
You can check everything yourself on this page.
Let me also remind you that its competitors have their own discounts. I collect the promo codes for Level Travel here. And on the website Online Tours you can get 1000 rub bonuses if you just register here at this link.
Tip No. 4,5. About hotels in Moscow
If you need a room for a transit overnight stay in the capital of Russia, look for it on the Islet website. At least during our trip he showed the best results. As I said, we spent one night at the hotel Ibis Dynamo.
It usually costs 3800 rub, but with the promo code TPOAPR30 you can book any hotel with a 30% discount. You can view all available offers here. The discount is valid until April 30, 2024.
Tip No. 5. Carefully choosing hotels in Turkey
I repeat, we ourselves had a rest at the Arnor De Lux Hotel. And if you are too lazy to search and study, you can also choose this hotel. In terms of price/quality ratio, this is an excellent option.
Also, before the trip, I constantly watched hotel reviews on the Banka Travel YouTube channel and flipped through various thematic collections in the Onlineturs blog. Both of these resources helped me a lot with my choice.
Tip No.6. For those who are easy on the upswing…
If you live on suitcases and are ready to fly to Turkey tomorrow evening, then you can also look at the websiteru.pirates.travel or in the telegram channel t.me/piratesru . Every day they post super-last-minute deals with cheap airline tickets and tours to different countries of the world. Most of the offers are with flights from Russia.
Other sites work in a similar way. Например:
- Vandrouki.by
- Fly4free.pl.
But they are more focused on flights from Belarus, Lithuania and Poland.
Example shares from the site vandrouki.by .
Tip No. 7. About airport transfers
If you need a transfer from the airport, take note of these two sites:
- 724transfer.com – organizes group transfers. Tourists are met at the airport by a driver with a list of names, and then in turn takes everyone to the right addresses. You need to book a seat in advance, but you can pay for the trip in cash (in lira, dollars or euros). BUT (!) children over 3 years old are already considered full-fledged passengers. Therefore, if you are traveling with three or four people, you can already book an individual transfer. For example, on the website…
- Kiwi Taxi. Then a person with a sign will meet you right at the airport, help with your luggage and take you to the hotel door as quickly as possible. There will be wi-fi and free drinks in the car. On the way back, the driver even offered me a beer. But I do not know if it is in every car or only in some.
The fare from Antalya airport to Side is 14 euros per person (for the company 7/24) and 47 euros for a car for 6 people (for Kiwi Taxi).
Tip No. 8. A few lines about the weather on the southern coast of Turkey
I happened to live there, and I watched with my own eyes how the weather changes in different months. Already at the end of February, there were several days when the weather rose above 20 degrees. And in April it rarely dropped below +24 at all.
I understand this is a subjective thing. But in my opinion, the best time to travel to Turkey is spring and autumn. Don’t ignore them. It’s still warm in April or October, but there are fewer tourists and the prices in hotels are much more pleasant.
And if you want to be safe, look for a hotel with a SPA or a heated pool. In the evening, when it gets cooler, you can always hide in the sauna.
Bonus
At first, I wanted to write about a few more ways to buy a cheap tour to Turkey. For example, about the “burning departures” from Poland (which can be found on the websitebiletyczarterowe.r.pl ) or low-cost cruises (from the websitemsccruises.com ). But then I decided to leave them out of the brackets. Since I only know about both of them by hearsay. And here, first of all, I wanted to share my own experience.
I hope my article will help you in preparing for your trip. At least this way you will have something to compare the options that are offered to you in travel agencies. As I said at the beginning, travel is an inaccurate science. Therefore, there are no universal solutions here. Just go through all the options one by one and see which one works best in your case.
