Costco Travel Package really saves a lot of money (50% price difference)

In this coming Spring break I am trying to book a trip to Honolulu. It is a 4 days trip, 3 people (2 adults, one 11 year old kid), one room, one car. It takes $3490 which includes $86 Costco cash card. So it’s roughly $3400.

Out of curious, I tried to book hotel in Mariiott.com, buy Air tickets and rental cars in Expedia and I figure it would take me roughly $5200 to get everything equally !! This is insane.

That is $1800 and 50% price difference!

If we look at it, only hotel alone, it takes me $2382!

And the air tickets $2167 in Expedia.com:

The fee for rental car is similar between Costco and Expedia. Roughly $200+.

To be fare, Costco package does offer $200 food credit and one day cabana rental. It’s $800 foot credit with 4 stays and I assume the cabana rental would worth around $100. This $900 doesn’t necessarily worthy the money but for me, it’s a relaxing holiday, getting $200 each day food credit is really a shinning point for the trip, isn’t it? (I am going to check whether I can use the $800 credit in 2 days)

It seems Costco.com can get huge discount in the air tickets and hotels. They may lock the rate long time before the date.

Maybe this case is specially, Hawaii doesn’t need vaccine card since 3/26 and when Costco locked the rate the rule didn’t come out yet so Costco can get a very low rate. Then the rule comes out the prices went up but Costco doesn’t raise its rate yet.

Update:

The article was written on March 5 and the trip was 4/4 – 4/8. It’s around one month early. Now it’s March 16, two weeks before the travel date and the package price has been increased to $4,447. more than 1 thousand dollars.

So, always book easier. It does save money. When you start looking for deal you won’t see the price earlier so you really don’t know how much you can save…

I checked the Marriott web side, the 4 nights price increased to $2703 from $2382 two weeks ago:

And I figured the return flight I chose in Expedia.com was wrong, and I checked it’s $3087 for air tickets alone now😂:

Update on 4/3/2021 one day before leaving

The Costco package is not available anymore. The hotel price is actually similar which means it’s not full:

It only has first-class ticket from San Jose to Oahu, and the return ticket has no same time slot. So it’s pretty impossible to book air tickets in the last min:

Car price has been doubled as well: