LuxuryLink for discovering the world’s best places to stay, and to find world class values…

Here are some current deals…

Charleston, South Carolina…Vendue Inn..

$753/2 nights  28% off..

Includes: cocktails, dining credit, tour, milk and cookies…

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Madrid, Spain…Westin Palace Madrid..

$919/3 nights 44% off…

Includes: wine, breakfasts, cocktails, dinner…

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Puerto Morelos, Mexico…Ceiba del Mar Beach & Spa Resort..

$1,019/5 nights 43% off…

Includes: cocktails, breakfasts, spa treatments…

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Santorini, Greece…Vedema Resort..

$2,369/4 nights 54% off…

Includes: 5-course dinner with wine, sea view…

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Sutter Creek, California…Hanford House Inn..

$275/2 nights 27% off…

Includes: gourmet breakfasts, wine & cheese, free internet…

Pointswizard.com Spin: Click here for Luxury Link’s Top Deals

Special Summer Package filled with exclusive benefits…

Book a consecutive 5 nights stay between 1 July – 12 September 2010 and receive…

-1 complimentary night for every 5 nights booked…

-A €100 Food & Beverage voucher to use in the hotel…

Pointswizard.com Spin: Click here for Europe – 1 free night with 5 booked + €100 Food & Beverage voucher to use in the hotel from InterContinental Hotels

• CYPRUS
• InterContinental Aphrodite Hills Resort Hotel
• CZECH REPUBLIC
• InterContinental Prague
• GERMANY
• InterContinental Berchtesgaden Resort
• InterContinental Berlin
• InterContinental Cologne
• InterContinental Frankfurt
• InterContinental Hamburg
• GREECE
• Athenaeum InterContinental Athens

• HUNGARY
• InterContinental Budapest
• ITALY
• InterContinental de la Ville Roma
• NETHERLANDS
• InterContinental Amstel Amsterdam
• POLAND
• InterContinental Warsaw
• ROMANIA
• InterContinental Bucharest

• SPAIN
• InterContinental Madrid
• InterContinental Mar Menor Gold Resort & Spa
• InterContinental La Torre Golf Resort Murcia
• TURKEY
• Ceylan InterContinental Istanbul
• UKRAINE
• InterContinental Kiev
• UZBEKISTAN
• InterContinental Tashkent

That means you’ll save more than $100 on four nights at a hotel that costs 200 euros a night, and a 28 euro train ticket from Rome to Florence will cost $37 instead of $41 — small change in some cases, but the savings add up over a 10-day vacation.

According to travel executives and industry analysts, the strengthening dollar, combined with fading panic over the economy and Americans’ fondness for cobblestone streets and Riviera promenades, has already contributed to an increase in bookings to Europe this summer.

“Leisure travelers are really back,” said Jean-Philippe Pérol, the United States chairman of the European Travel Commission, which expects overall peak travel to be up slightly this year, though tempered by soft business travel numbers.

That bullish leisure travel outlook meshes with double-digit increases in summer bookings to Europe, as reported by American Express, with London, Paris, Rome, Athens and Barcelona as the top five destinations so far.

The Airlines Reporting Corporation, which handles ticketing for most travel agencies in the United States, has seen about a 20 percent increase in the number of tickets sold through March for travel in May and June to Britain, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Spain — sales that a company spokesman called “phenomenal.”

But with the number of seats on flights to Europe this summer remaining about the same as last, the laws of supply and demand are working in the airlines’ favor, allowing them to raise prices as more people plan trips.

“Fares to Western Europe are up 17 percent,” said Genevieve Shaw Brown, senior editor at Travelocity, referring to tickets the company sold through March for travel from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

“That’s not to say that getting a decent fare is out of the question,” Ms. Shaw Brown said, suggesting that booking a flight and hotel package was one way to save. “But it’s going to be a lot harder this year than last to score a last-minute deal.”

Prices also vary depending on your destination.

According to Travelocity’s sales data, the average round-trip fare to Western Europe was $1,330, compared with $1,141 in the same period last year, but the price is roughly the same as it was in 2008. The average fare to Eastern Europe is actually down 5 percent, to $1,255. Flying to Dublin is still generally less expensive, with an average fare of $1,006.

While fare information is fuzzy until actual tickets are sold, the consensus among fare watchers is that prices to Europe will be higher this summer, owing in part to increased demand and to reduced competition on trans-Atlantic routes.” (via nytimes.com) by SUSAN STELLIN

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Order an ouzo, find a deckchair and watch as islands slowly, strip-teasingly reveal their charms: a perfect beach hidden in a craggy cove, a blazing white chapel on a soaring peak, an immodestly pretty village tumbling around a crescent bay.

It’s never dull – islands are great individualists; even close neighbours can be like chalk and cheese (or whitewash and feta, as they say in Greece). You don’t have to go mad and catch the 20-hour ferry to Kastellorizo from Piraeus. Take one of the following mini-cruises, and you will find your inner Odysseus…

The Cyclades

Everyone knows the superstars, Mykonos and Santorini, but there’s far more to the Cyclades, Greece’s iconic archipelago, laden with sugar-cube villages, blue church domes and sink-your-toes-in sandy beaches, all brilliantly illuminated in the clear Aegean light.

The lesser-known, but no less beautiful, islands in the Western Cyclades are perfect for a mini-cruise: they’re so close together that ferrying between them is like playing hopscotch, and they come with fewer tourists, too.

The route: Milos – Sifnos – Serifos – Kythnos

Start at Milos, made famous by the sublime statue of Venus, now in Paris’s Louvre. In some ways it qualifies as a junior, low-key Santorini – it’s popular among honeymooners, while its coast features cliffs in striking colours, volcanic rock formations shaped like pipe organs, turquoise creeks and mermaid grottoes.

Make the de-rigueur sea tour around the island – or better, paddle your own way (see www.seakayakgreece.com; day trips £55). Beaches are Milos’s other strong suit; there are miles of them, from popular lidos to isolated sandy inlets.

Up in Plaka, explore the ruins of ancient Milos, the archaeology museum and rare early- Christian catacombs. Stay in the bougainvillea-draped Chronis (www.chronis-hotel.gr; doubles from £80, B&B) in the port town of Adamas. Kynigos (00 30 22870 22349), a waterfront taverna, has first-rate cooking.

Next stop is Sifnos, an island so laid-back and sophisticated it almost seems Californian. Split your time between the cosmopolitan port, Kamares, and the green and pretty interior. There are beautiful walks, the old village of Kastro to explore, and some of the archipelago’s best beaches at Vathy and Platys Gialos. ” ( timesonline.co.uk ) by Dana Facaros

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-The Secret Hotels of Tuscany,
-How to Eat in London and Gain Pounds,
-Paris at a Price That’s Right,
-Greece – Online Trip Coach,
-Eat Like a Local in Barcelona

or many,many other topics from Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel Online
click red link below

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