Lastminute.com

I've only ever used lastminute.com myself, and its brilliant for having a browse over different places you might want to visit and the sort of prices you'll be expected to pay.

I booked a holiday to Paris through lastminute.com, and for 2 adults, 4 nights, 4* hotel = £187pp. When we were at the hotel, we noticed the room we were in should cost €220 a night, which is when we realised how good our price was! In the price, our flight was included.

The site is very easy to use. However, there may not be any flights for particular dates you search for, so you may need to be a bit flexible when planning it. Its also best to leave it as late as you can without it being snapped up by someone else first. The price above for Paris was booked 2 months before we left , so there was a chance it could have been cheaper nearer the time.

When you book your holiday, and paid for it, lastminute.com will send e-tickets for you to print off. We were a bit unsure of how the tickets would work, but we went through the Help section of the site and it said to present them as you would any normal ticket. So, with printed e-tickets, we headed off to Birmingham International, and sure enough, when we checked in, the e-tickets were accepted without any questions, and we were given our boarding passes. I suppose we were slightly concerned about if they needed anything else along with the e-ticket, or whether the email sufficed. But in the end, we printed off the entire email, to make sure we hadn't forgotten a thing!

You need to provide your own transport to and from the airports, and you'd expect. But depending on what sort of holiday you choose, your transport there may be covered by the cost of the holiday. Mine wasn't, and I had the wonderful hassle of getting a train through Paris.

One of the other things that lastminute.com offer aside holidays, are experience days. These again, are very affordable. I had a christmas present bought for me, which was a photo experience with everything (hair cut, make-over etc), and that cost about £40 including the postage. They also offer other days such as balloon rides, driving experiences, entry into London restaurants, the Orient Express and many more, so its worth having a look.

You can also buy unusual gifts, like areas of the moon, or naming a star or flower, for around £15-£20.

All in all, lastminute.com is very good for holidays, offering a wide variety of destinations at affordable prices. It also offers extra services such as gift purchasing, and is certainly a worthwhile site having a look at.