Barcelona bargains

Atrapalo ("Catch it!") has cut-price theatre and concert tickets, deals on Barcelona hotels and car rentals, as well as flights. It also covers most of Spain's top destinations (particularly Madrid but also places like Granada, Seville and so on).

Requires registration.

•We liked: The savings we got on the Malaga flight – we got it down to €180, compared with the €480 that had been quoted by a travel agent
•Not so hot: Having to register (welcome aboard the grown-up Internet!)
•Languages: Spanish only, except the hotels section (in English)

More cheap Barcelona flights, hotels...
Expedia.com
While the tourist information Expedia offers on Barcelona is not up to much, we were impressed by the ease of searching for a flight to Barcelona plus accommodation, as well as by the range of results offered.

We got BA flight from Heathrow to a 5-star hotel on the "exclusive" Avenida Diagonal "only 20 minutes from the airport", with "a spa equipped with an indoor-outdoor (sic) swimming pool, a fitness center, and a hydrotherapy center (cor!)", a neat navigable map of the hotel's location, plus a full-size van thrown in for €51 a day extra (the missus was planning some heavy duty shopping)... and a full range of alternatively priced alternatives, as it were.

•We liked: All of the above details...
•Not so hot: (sigh) ... shame a week was going to cost me more than I earn in a month
•Languages: English

Best (and worst!) Barcelona hotels in your mailbox
Trip Advisor
Trip Advisor will send you weekly "updates" on Barcelona – which includes articles and "user" reviews. You ended up in a lousy hotel? Here's your chance to slam it! You're looking for a hotel? Here's somewhere you might want to check out for "independent" opinions the places you've just earmarked in your guidebook.

The site has sections on tourism, hotels, attractions, "smart deals" and maps. Worth checking out.

•We liked: Some of the "alternative" spellings in the user reviews
•Not so hot: "I would never stay in a **** hotel ever again anywhere" Ouch!
•Languages: English

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