I admit it—I’m a package traveler. What I mean by that is that I love me a good package deal travel Website— Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity—I’ve used ’em all.   Well in today’s New York Times, yours and my favorite, The Practical Traveler, debates whether or not vacation packages can actually save you money, and whether or not the concessions you sometimes have to make (ickier hotels, early morning flights, etc.) for those savings are worth it.

Personally, I’ve found these Websites to generally be very helpful. Usually when I search for hotels or flights on their own, I always come up with a much more expensive trip. One difference—Chris’s upcoming marathon in Chicago. When he told me how much he was spending per night for just the hotel (somewhere around $120 per person, if I’m remembering correctly), I thought I’d be sure to find a better deal on a package site.

But then I checked Expedia. Flight plus hotel for the 7th thru the 9th are somewhere around $450-$550.  And a quick Kayak search tells me that flights are currently lingering around somewhere around $243 for the same weekend. So with the $120 per night hotel that Chris found, that’s a comparable trip price, if not even a little bit cheaper.

There’s no rhyme or reason to it, that I’ve found at least. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don’t.

What about you? Have you ever used a bundle site? And were you happy with it?

Bis bald, friends!