KnowYourTrip.com

Travelzoo for Travel Deals?

Hey Trippers,

I struggle with taking up the topic of last minute travel because I preach about planning for those who want to travel on a budget.  Even I find myself unable to just click on a deal that’s for the near future.

When I was living in London, the UK based lastminute.com was launched to huge fanfare.  As a result, its value skyrocketed without profit margins to support it.  It soon became so yesterday.  If you find your life has the flexibility where you can take off at a moment’s notice, you might find these type of websites very useful.  Travelzoo is a website I came across that offers all types of travel deals: from travel plans in the future to last minute deals.

I decided to put Travel Zoo to a little test.  I have already booked a trip to Europe in June – peak travel season and a few months away.  I soon found out that they use other travel search engines (Travelocity, Expedia, and Orbitz) for anything other than the specific package deals they offer.   So, for me it wasn’t going to save me any time.  I would rather use momondo.com.  Momondo’s an easier way to find just about every available airfare for that time and for that destination.

Last year during our European trip, we used a website on-the-fly by the name of

Booking.com for last minute hotel room deals.

Booking.com.  It’s a clearinghouse for last minute hotel rooms available that’s affiliated with Priceline.com.  There’s usually a room here and there on offer in each random hotel.  We used it to fill in the gaps between our pre-booked hotels that were located in popular destinations.  We had good luck with our bookings and found the rates to be of fair value.   If you’re traveling to an in-demand destination – it’s best to pre-book (always scouring for deals first) but if you have to fill in-between dates, booking.com is a good way to go.  And we always make sure we book hotels with free WiFi capability so we can book the next night or two as we move along.

It’s probably worth a search on Travel Zoo for a last minute trip when you have a specific destination in mind or if you are one who’s willing to throw care to the wind and go where the deals are.  Chances are, you just might end up going to Las Vegas . . . . (and Wayne Newton is no less scarier!)

Happy Last Minute Tripping,

Carter

Tripper Travel Bargain Hunt Notification

Hey Trippers,

For those of you who are constantly looking for bargain travel, there’s a new search engine from a company out of Copenhagen Denmark by the name of Momondo.  They are a worldwide travel search engine that searches other aggregate websites and airline and hotel’s own websites for their latest bargains.  From their website:

We search across multiple websites at google style top-speed to within seconds give you an overview of the cheapest flights we can find.

and regarding booking hotels:

Our hotel search function is based on the same principle as the flight search engine. It searches more than 100.000 unique hotels worldwide across all categories from cheap hostels to the most expensive luxury hotels.

I liked what I saw there.  They don’t sell tickets or rooms and make their money through commissions on sponsor links and ads.  Not only do they find the fares but the specific flights on offer as well.  They also present a graph with the flight price trends.

So, visit them often to see what’s new.  It helps if you have a destination and a specific time you are looking for.

Happy Tripping,

Carter

I don’t need to tell you all that times are tough.  All our necessities of life have gone up in price, cell phones, iPods, Lap Tops, fast cars, and Prada.  Really now . . . .

None of these are what I was really meaning.  Gas, food, utilities, property taxes, you name it has gone up.  I rate vacation travel with those items.  Yup, to me that’s as much a necessity as food on the table because it has everything to do with how you function in life.  We all need a breather, decompression from daily life, break from the mundane, a change of scenery, and frankly – a different crowd. 

So, with that in mind, the biggest savings on travel that you can do in advance is to book your transportation.  We all know that booking in advance saves some big bucks.  You want to find out how much?  Just ask the people in the seats around you how much they paid for their fares and you’ll be amazed at the price differences.  We’re talking hundreds of dollars between the inches of the arm rest.

Here are some MUST register websites for you to go to and sign up.  These websites will tell you when your destinations go on sale.  It’s as easy as that.  My advice is to set up a secondary e-mail address to register with so that the airfare search engines can send their notifications separate from your personal e-mail address.  Once you have a trip in mind, check them daily because fares and booking dates can be snapped up in minutes.  Go ahead, be proactive, sign up, fill in all the destinations you want notification of (visiting grandma, beach holiday, african safari, obligatory parental rendevouz, weekend in Paris) and let them do the work for you . . . .

www.farecast.com

www.airfarewatchdog.com

www.farecompare.com

www.kayak.com

www.SideStep.com

www.travelocity.com

www.SideStep.com

www.cheapflights.com

Cheers,

Carter