If you consider yourself a master at the travel game, but you are still looking for some new ideas to save money and better navigate everything travel, read on to learn from a travel pro. Susanna Zaraysky has lived in nine countries, traveled to over fifty, speaks seven languages and is the author of
Travel Happy, Budget Low – a book filled with more than two hundred travel tips.
Tip 1: Track Airfares and Hotel Prices
Using data from past airfare prices,
Farecast predicts whether an airfare ticket price or hotel room price is expected to increase or decline over the next seven days. If the price is expected to increase, Farecast recommends that you buy your ticket now. If it is expected to decrease, the website suggests you wait for a lower price. The technology is based on a University of Washington study.
Tip 2: Bet for a Low Price
If you like betting, then try your luck with 'name your own price' air tickets and hotel room prices on
Priceline.
Airfares: After seeing the lowest fares on
Kayak,
Mobissimo,
Orbitz and other airline comparison charts, you can put in a bid for an airfare on Priceline. Try bidding for half the listed price on one of the other websites. If your bid is not accepted, then you can raise your price. If your bid is accepted, then your credit card is automatically charged and your ticket is non-returnable and non-changeable. Priceline promises that you can save up to 40 percent on most airfares. You indicate whether you will accept a flight with one or two stopovers and what dates you want to travel. To see what people have paid in the past, you can visit
Bidding for Travel's website, where previous bids are listed for flights, hotels and car rentals.
Hotel Rooms: There are two ways to use Priceline for hotel rooms: state your lowest price and see what hotel Priceline finds you (beware: your credit card will be automatically charged when if finds you a room for the price you determined); or use Priceline's regular hotel booking option and choose your hotel from its collection of hotels, locations, amenities and prices. Again, if you are bidding for a room at the lowest price, visit Bidding for Travel's website to get an idea of how low you can bet.
Tip 3: Clean Cache
After doing a search for airfare, clean the cache files in your web browser. The cookies that airlines and discount airfare sites use to remember your data and location preferences may make the sites give you old price information. The prices might have fallen since your last airfare search query, but the website will give you old data. Clean up and possibly save money.
Tip 4: Trade Points
The
Points website allows people to trade points between their different hotel and airline point and mileage programs. You can also buy points and miles to add to your accounts and manage all of your loyalty programs on the site. Buying from the online retailers on the site can also earn you points and miles.
Tip 5: Free Travel
I accrue so many miles because I play the games offered by the airlines. Each airline has its own credit card that it wants its customers to use. You get a 15,000 or 21,000 mile bonus when you sign up for the credit card. Usually for each dollar you spend on the card, you get one frequent flyer mile. Many times, the annual fee is waived for the first year. Some cards that have no annual fees at all only award you one mile for every $2 spent. With 25,000 frequent flyer miles, you can have a free domestic ticket in the United States. If you get a 21,000 mile bonus upon signing up for the card and you take at least at 4000 mile flight, you already have a free ticket.
Airlines say that you cannot get bonus miles more than once with their credit card partners. This is not always the case as I have closed cards for which I got many bonus miles and then opened new ones with the same airlines and still got the new bonus miles.
Tip 6: Disappearing Rental Car
Sometimes when you walk into a car rental store, they will say that there are no cars available. But if you walk out and make the reservation online, the car is then mysteriously available at the same place!
Tip 7: Plane Delays and Cancellations
With airlines canceling flights to save money and weather conditions causing cancellations and delays, the chances that your flight will be changed or eliminated are quite high. When this happens, the lines at customer service counters at airports are very long with angry passengers sitting on their suitcases in despair if you have your mobile phone with you while at the airport, call the airline's customer service number while waiting in line. You might be able to reach a reservationist by phone that can change your ticket in less time than it will take you to get to the change counter.
Tip 8: Call Foreign Language Customer Service Lines
If you are calling the airline's customer service line on a busy day and you another language, try calling that language's customer service number for assistance. Sometimes, the foreign language staff are less busy than the English language customer service staff.
Tip 9: No Speak English?
You need to book a hotel in advance but the receptionist in Japan does not speak English or any other language that you can speak. Use
Interpreter's live interpretation service for around $3 a minute to connect to a live interpreter 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Just sign up, then when you need to access the service, use a phone to dial the access number, code in your PIN number, choose your language (over 170 different languages) and you are connected. I am told there are also similar iPhone applications out there, so shop around.
Tip 10: The Kindness of Strangers
Despite the modern pace of frantic life, home hospitality still exists. I have personally housed travelers for short stays and I have stayed with people who I have met during my travels elsewhere. With the help of the internet, this kind of matchmaking is now a breeze. Try sites like
Couch Surfing,
Global Freeloaders,
Hospitality Club,
Home Exchange International,
Exchange Our Houses and
Craigslist (Vacation Swap area on Craigslist's Housing Section). Or if you just want to find a travel partner so you are not sitting alone on the train, try
Travelers Meet and
Lonely Planet's Thorntree forum.
So next time you are thinking travel... think smart, do your homework, save some money and better enjoy the whole travel experience!
