UK bargain-break tips, including hotels from £25/night and cheap holiday-cottage deals

If you book the right way, holiday rental sites sometimes let you snap up five-star private accommodation at reasonable prices. Yet you may need to be quick, as holiday rental sites have seen a surge in UK bookings since lockdown rules were eased.

We found it's harder to nab a peak school holiday bargain in coastal and countryside spots, though there's more available in cities. We did manage to hunt down a few deals for September though, eg, we found a two-bed cottage in North Devon for £368/week in late September, compared with £1,122 – more than twice the cost – for two rooms in a similarly swish-looking hotel nearby.

Some schools are staggering pupils' return dates this September due to the coronavirus outbreak. If your school doesn't start until later in the month, consider travelling in early September instead of August to cut the price.

Renting a holiday home could be a really good option right now, as they're naturally set up for social distancing. You can usually cook your own food and limit contact with others. Our Cheap Holiday Rentals guide has a full how-to, but here are some quick tips:

• Check at least three holiday rental sites. Direct booking sites make trawling for holiday rentals a cinch. Use at least three websites to set a target price before you book. Though remember, holiday rental sites effectively just list adverts – you're booking directly with the owner. Top sites to check include HomeAway.co.uk*, TripAdvisor Rentals* and, of course, the now ubiquitous Airbnb.
  
  
• Go as a group. In England and Wales, the Government's confirmed you can stay with one other household, meaning two families will be able to go on holiday together. In Scotland it's up to three different households, provided there are no more than eight people in total. (In Northern Ireland, overnight stays with people from another household are not allowed.)
  
  If you go with friends, cheap holiday homes are even more likely to undercut similar quality hotels, eg, we found a four-bed cottage in the Cotswolds in early September for £1,035/week (£129/per person if there's eight of you), compared with £2,520 for four rooms in a similar-quality hotel.
  
  
• Make sure you do your research first. Check it's a legit operator and if there's good feedback. Also think carefully about how you pay. See our Cheap Holiday Rentals guide for full help.
  
  
• Check cancellation terms. Holiday properties' owners usually set their own cancellation terms, so rules can vary. Look for a property where the owner gives a full refund when you cancel by a specific date. Handily, HomeAway lets you search for properties with flexible cancellation policies.
  
  
• Haggle for a discount. Once you've found a property, try messaging the owner to ask if they can drop the price. You're negotiating directly with an owner, so they have complete discretion. They are usually more amenable to haggling a few weeks beforehand, though remember aggressive haggling's usually a mistake. I like to ask if there's any flexibility in the price for late bookings or if they have any odd dates they need to fill.

If you're looking for the really big hotel bargains, you need to get clever. From our research, we found fewer dirt-cheap rooms in coastal and countryside spots for peak school holiday dates – but there are still deals to be had, especially in cities. Premier Inn, for example, told us: "Cities are particularly great value at the moment."

Though do bear in mind the hotel experience might not be quite what it usually is. You're unlikely to see a mini bar or breakfast buffet, for example. You may also need to book ahead for hotel restaurants or check out earlier to give staff time to clean rooms more thoroughly than normal.

Our Cheap UK Hotels guide has a full list of tips, but here's a starter:

• One million £29 and under Travelodge rooms, including some at £25. Travelodge has one million saver rooms for £29 or less per night until 31 December 2020. Northern Ireland's excluded. Seaside and countryside resorts appear to be more than £29 a room usually, so you'll find bargains in the cities – for August, I found a £25 room in York and £28 room in Edinburgh.
  
  The offer includes double, family and twin rooms. See Travelodge Deals for full info. 
  
  
• Find the cheapest price for any hotel room. Don't trust the star system. It isn't standardised worldwide and is often about facilities, not quality. The ubiquitous TripAdvisor's reviews can help, and it has a basic price comparison function too.
  
  Then double-check comparison sites, including Skyscanner* and Kayak*, to see if the room you're lusting after is cheaper elsewhere. Our Cheap UK Hotels guide has a full how-to.
  
  
• Check hotels' terms and opt for fully flexible bookings. Look for hotels where you pay at the hotel and can cancel for free (often as late as 24 to 48 hours before your stay starts). Even if cancelling your booking isn't free, some have an option to pay slightly more for a fully flexible booking. Weigh this up against how much you'd lose if you couldn't go – these days, it could be worth paying. See Cheap Hotels for full info and how to bag the best deals.
  
  
• Check out cheap uni halls. One option you might not have considered is to stay at university halls of residence that are otherwise empty during the summer months. You don't need to be a student, and the site University Rooms has rooms available in Cardiff, London, York and more. For example, Cardiff University has £40/night en-suite doubles in August.
  
  
• Center Parcs is reopening its doors – cut the cost. After closing due to coronavirus, Center Parcs has reopened all of its UK sites. Bear in mind that a few things have changed, such as check-in times and there are fewer activities on offer. Our 16 Center Parcs Tips guide has full details of the changes and ways to cut the cost.

Standard travel insurance covers you in the UK but the cover here is not as powerful as when overseas. However, it can still prove useful, so you'll need to weigh up the pros and cons.

Travel insurance in the UK offers all the usual protections you'd get abroad, such as theft of valuables and cancellation. You're normally not covered for hospital treatment but that's not such an issue given you should be able to use the NHS.

That said, you'll still need to declare all existing medical conditions as insurers want to know how likely you are to have to be driven or airlifted home in a medical emergency. The problem is not all trips are covered, eg, most insurers only cover you if you've booked accommodation. 

Also, there can be other restrictions. For instance, LV gives cover if you're more than 25 miles from home or your journey involves a sea crossing. So check policies carefully as they can vary.

For more information on what's covered for UK trips affected by Covid-19, see our Coronavirus Travel Rights guide.