Airline fares, jet lag, hotels,
lost luggage, cruises, car rentals, reward programs, there’s no end to
navigating the complex but exciting world of globe trotting or domestic travel.
Here are a variety of sneaky and crafty tips to save you money and create a
memorable and trouble-free travel experience.
The editors, “Trip Doctor: Before You Go”, Travel & Leisure, December 2013
Indispensable Apps
Lonely Planet Fast Talk – Handy foreign word and phrase translator. (www.lonelyplanet.com/apps-and-ebooks)
GateGuru – Airport maps, discounted car rentals, and
restaurant reviews in more than 100 airports. (gateguru.com)
Airbnb - Stay with a family instead of a hotel. This
app lists 500,000 homes in 34,000 cities and 192 countries. Also provides
opportunities to make extra money by signing up as a host. (www.airbnb.com)
StopJetLag – Help to schedule your itinerary for maximum
efficiency, plenty of rest, and minimize jetlag. (www.stopjetlag.com)
Traxo – The ultimate free digital travel wallet.
Keep track of your flight, hotel, and auto-rental reservations. Also provides
travel tools, perks, and expert advice. (www.traxo.com)
FlightFox – Hire a highly qualified and verified travel
expert to work with you to save money, time, and dodge inevitable hassles and
annoying surprises. (www.flightfox.com)
Cruising
----If you book a full year in
advance the savings are usually 20% or more for the majority of cruise lines
and travel packages.
----Smart cruisers save a fortune
when they schedule their trips during Shoulder season, which is immediately before or
after the regular peak seasons. For cruises in Europe, the greatest savings are
in trips in April and October. Alaskan and Australian cruises are a bargain in
September and May. For the Caribbean, it’s the first 2 weeks of December and
the middle of January. For a complete list: http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/cruising-seasons-calendar
----Many cruise ships
“reposition” to another part of the world once or twice annually and the
savings can be as much as 40%. Spring is the time to look for cruise ships
travelling from Asia to the U.S., from the Caribbean to either Alaska or
Europe, and from Latin America to Europe. In September and October they travel
back in the other direction. For an overview: http://www.cruisecritic.com/articles.cfm?ID=1212
Save Money on Airfare
Airfarewatchdog.com tenaciously scours airline websites and
provides the best prices and bargains daily in your email inbox.
Tripwatcher will give you the best
flight deals once you sign up and tell them your itinerary. http://www.hotwire.com/trip-watcher/index.jsp
GetGoing.com – Their
mission page says it all: “With our FlightFinder™ technology, we search for
multiple places at once based on your search criteria — enabling you to search
by city, region, country or even experience - and then we find you the most
affordable flights.”
Hotels
----AllTheRooms is
the world’s only complete accommodation search engine, combining hotels with
vacation rentals, secret deals, and all other types of accommodations available
online. With a comprehensive array of options, AllTheRooms saves the savvy
traveler time and money by combining absolutely every room into one
well-designed search engine. AllTheRooms shows all available rooms in one
search. https://www.alltherooms.com/
----Newly opened hotels crave customers and sometimes offer bigger discounts than most established hotels.
----Newly opened hotels crave customers and sometimes offer bigger discounts than most established hotels.
----When returning to a city,
stay in the same hotel and tell the front desk you’re a return guest. Many
hotels give priority to regular customers.
----Consider bringing your own
bottled water. US luxury hotels charge for a standard small bottle anywhere
from $4.00 (Las Vegas) to $7.25 (N.Y.C.) and $7.81 (L.A.).
----Sign up for your hotel’s
loyalty program. Some of the benefits are: newspaper delivery, free Wi-Fi, spa
credits, restaurant mark-downs, shoeshine, and complimentary BMW bicycle
rentals.
----For hotels that don’t offer
free Wi-Fi, for $7.99 monthly boingo.com gives
you access to 700,000 hot spots worldwide.
----Hipmunk.com compiles continuous last-second vacant
room deals 72 hours before your arrival. “Hipmunk saves you time by comparing
top hotel and travel sites to find cheap hotels and the best deals on hotel
rooms.”
----TheSuitest.com is the self-proclaimed Swanky Hotel
Intelligence Engine that provides a fairly reliable algorithm that predicts the
cost of a specific hotel room six months in advance.
----Tingo.com – When or if a hotel drops its rate
after your booking, this service will “lock in the lower rate and refund you
the difference”.
----Book your entire trip with the highly popular Expedia,
Travelocity, or Orbitz and the hotel rates will be significantly lower.
Car Rentals
----Airport car rentals can be
very expensive. Kayak.com provides
the best deals in car rental locations close to the airport.
----AutoSlash.com offers what no one else does: “AutoSlash
knows about all the best coupons and discount codes. After you book, we analyze
your rental and figure out which ones lower your rate the most. Then we automatically
apply those discounts and re-book you at the lowest rate. AutoSlash re-prices
your rental multiple times a day. If we find a better deal, we'll automatically
re-book you to lock in the savings. It's like price protection for your rental.”
Luggage
----Worried about losing your
precious luggage? Place the tiny Trakdot box inside your luggage. It will
automatically transmit its location to your Trakdot app, your email, or the
Trakdot website. The price is $50 plus $13 annual fee. (www.trakdot.com)
----Who can you trust to NOT lose
your luggage? The US Department of Transportation rates American Eagle as the
worst for luggage handling in 2012-2013. The best:
1) Virgin America
2) JetBlue
3) AirTran
Miscellaneous
----Is seat leg room, Wi-Fi
availability, or in-flight entertainment more important to you than flight
departure or cost? SeatGuru.com is
the unrivaled leader. “SeatGuru.com is a website that features aircraft
seat maps, seat reviews, and a color-coded system to identify superior and
sub-standard airline
seats.”
----Most travel industry firms
are highly responsive to social media complaints. Tweet your gripe to the
company’s twitter handle.
----Which is faster and cheaper –
driving, the train, or flying? Rome2Rio.com helps
you compare. Multiple options are given between almost any two destinations.
----If flying with Japan
Airlines, LAN, or British Airways, book your flight with the new Boeing 787
Dreamliner. The plane is designed with considerably less cabin pressure to
minimize jet lag.
----Spend some free time
constructively and gain valuable information from the online forums of air
travel veterans and industry insiders at Flyertalk.com.
----Which travel-reward programs
are the best for you? Nerdwallet.com analyzes and sizes up the good from
the useless.
----"We publish a huge number of ways to save money on air travel; from tips/tricks for finding cheap airfare to the best ways to maximize credit card rewards and even fly for free." https://upgradedpoints.com/
----"We publish a huge number of ways to save money on air travel; from tips/tricks for finding cheap airfare to the best ways to maximize credit card rewards and even fly for free." https://upgradedpoints.com/
The editors, “Trip Doctor: Before You Go”, Travel & Leisure, December 2013
Photo: Britannica.com CC
Jerry De Luca is a Christian freelance writer who loves perusing dozens of interesting and informative publications. When he finds any useful info he summarizes it, taking the main points, and creates a (hopefully) helpful blog post.
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