Travel Booking Tips

brij2006 · July 2016

I know there are a ton of us travel junkies on here.

H and I are looking into possibly going back to Hawaii in January or February. Normally we go through a travel agent. She's wonderful and does great, but I always try to get a price quote on my own as well and she's usually cheaper.

However, are there some tips or tricks to booking some major travel? We will be flying out of Chicago and going to Kauai, Hawaii. So it's definitely a longer flight with 1 layover. We'll be booking a typical hotel room as well as a convertible rental car.

Usually I toss it into Travelocity and that's the extent of my research.

Are there other websites you find to be better?
Have you found that it's cheaper if you book something in advance by 6 months rather than 3 months?

Are there any travel Groupon type things out there?

Do you find it to be cheaper to book these items separately as opposed to a vacation package?

I think that's it. Just trying to rack everyone's brains. :-)

short+sassy · July 2016

I had a good experience using Groupon travel when I went to NYC last year. I priced flights and various hotels separately, but Groupon still had the best deal. They also sometimes run a coupon code to get 10% off their travel (Groupon Getaways).

If you do end up booking through Groupon, make sure to click through from a site like Ebates or MyPoints, so you can also get cash back or points towards gift cards for your purchase.

I also subscribe to a few travel sites. Travelzoo is my favorite. They send a couple e-mails a week with their top travel packages/deals. Or you can go to their website directly and see what they currently have for Hawaii.

hoffse · July 2016

I've never used a travel agent. The closest I've gotten to using one was with our law firm retreat this past April. The flights the travel agent booked were $300 more per person than the ones I booked on my own. People were NOT happy when that money suddenly came out of their paychecks...

The best travel hacks really require credit card points, but I know you guys don't do that.

To save a lot of money, I focus my energy on the flights. For hotels there are always plenty of options in a wide range of prices, but flights are limited, and it's harder to get a good deal on them.

In terms of just figuring out the cheapest time to visit, I've started using Google Flights. You can search their calendar for prices, literally months on either side of your selected dates. It's super useful if you can be flexible about when you go. Most of the flights I search have days where the prices drop a lot, and it lets you see everything. Note that if you search for 2 tickets, the price displayed will be for two tickets, not one.

The general rule of thumb on flights is 3-6 months out is when the best prices hit, but that's not always true. The flights I booked for Spain were $700 each, direct both ways from ATL. I booked them 10 months in advance. That was literally $500 less per ticket than I have ever seen before for direct, and sure enough the next day tickets were back to $1300-ish each. I suppose it's possible the direct flight will go below $700 in a few months, but it seems incredibly unlikely.

Being flexible in your destination can also help you score a great deal. I have alerts set on airfare watchdog for weeks when we have vacation days, and I just set alerts for a bunch of places we are interested in visiting. I have like 20 or 30 alerts going at any given time. At this point, we will go just about anywhere we can get a great deal on airfare, so long as that place is on our bucket list. Our bucket list is really long, so there are plenty of options...

I will add that one thing I've stopped doing is taking multiple connecting flights to save a few hundred dollars. I would rather hold out for a deal on a direct flight, even if it takes awhile to find one. I've wanted to go to Spain for the last 3 years, but the price on the direct flight was never right before now.

short+sassy · July 2016

Come to think of it, when I booked my NYC trip on Groupon Getaways...I had the 10% off coupon, clicked through from MyPoints which was about enough points to get a $50 Home Depot gift card, plus paid with a credit card that gave me 3% back for travel. All in all, about $300 (15%) worth of savings and points/cash back for my $2,000 trip.

hoffse · July 2016

Oh on the travel package thing... I've never done it. Not because it's a bad deal (I think it's usually a pretty good deal), but because I've never found one that gives me enough flexibility in my itinerary. Once I start adding days or changing the set itinerary the price usually goes way up.

For Europe I also try to book hotels that are very convenient to the public transport and the vacation package hotels tend to be poorly located for that. Or if it's by a metro stop, it's the wrong metro stop for 90% of the stuff we will want to do. I just hate wasting precious vacation time on logistics, so I'm pretty picky.

I do always check, though. Someday there will be a package with that perfect itinerary and hotels I really like, and then I'll do it.

brij2006 · July 2016

@hoffse You're awesome! I knew nothing about Google flights. Where has this been all my life? Our travel is never set to a certain date, so we're pretty much always flexible. This is going to help a lot.

brij2006 · July 2016

hoffse said:

Oh on the travel package thing... I've never done it. Not because it's a bad deal (I think it's usually a pretty good deal), but because I've never found one that gives me enough flexibility in my itinerary. Once I start adding days or changing the set itinerary the price usually goes way up.

For Europe I also try to book hotels that are very convenient to the public transport and the vacation package hotels tend to be poorly located for that. Or if it's by a metro stop, it's the wrong metro stop for 90% of the stuff we will want to do. I just hate wasting precious vacation time on logistics, so I'm pretty picky.

I do always check, though. Someday there will be a package with that perfect itinerary and hotels I really like, and then I'll do it.

Oh yeah, European travel I wouldn't do a package.

For something like this though it's flight, hotel, and rental car. Pretty plain and simple.

When we went in February we island hopped a bit. I priced it out just randomly both ways and it was substantially more not booked through the package.

hoffse · July 2016

brij2006 said:

@hoffse You're awesome! I knew nothing about Google flights. Where has this been all my life? Our travel is never set to a certain date, so we're pretty much always flexible. This is going to help a lot.

**********SIB***************
What really blows my mind is when I search biz class fares. The prices are all over the map. I've never booked biz, but I like to think that we'll finally spring for it someday when I catch a good deal.

Actually, biz class on a direct flight to Hawaii from ATL can be found for around $1500/person in lie-flat seats. That's what I usually budget for economy class to Europe, and then I just try to find a better deal than that.

Hawaii vs. Europe is about the same distance from the east coast, and I would happily pay that price for the added comfort and upgrades. Maybe for an anniversary one year....

Someday...

brij2006 · July 2016

hoffse said:

brij2006 said:

@hoffse You're awesome! I knew nothing about Google flights. Where has this been all my life? Our travel is never set to a certain date, so we're pretty much always flexible. This is going to help a lot.

**********SIB***************
What really blows my mind is when I search biz class fares. The prices are all over the map. I've never booked biz, but I like to think that we'll finally spring for it someday when I catch a good deal.

Actually, biz class on a direct flight to Hawaii from ATL can be found for around $1500/person in lie-flat seats. That's what I usually budget for economy class to Europe, and then I just try to find a better deal than that.

Hawaii vs. Europe is about the same distance from the east coast, and I would happily pay that price for the added comfort and upgrades. Maybe for an anniversary one year....

Someday...

Oooh, I may have to toss it in for that and just see out of curiosity. My H is 6'5" so long cramped flights like these can really bother him. Although we're trying to do this trip sort of on the cheap if we're going to try and swing it. So anywhere we can save is good.

I searched for booking it separately. By using Groupon for the hotel (one I had already researched and priced anyways), GoogleFlights for the airfare, and then Hertz website for the rental car. We would save $800 by booking them separately that way.
Um, thank you!

Those who you Groupon, do you find that those deals go away often? All 3 of the places I looked into are on there. The other 2 are $100 more per night than the one I quoted, so it's definitely a big difference. We were thinking to book in September or October.

als1982 · July 2016

I would just do a lot of research.

I'm a hotel snob, but also a tight wad. I've gotten incredible deals through Jettsetter (in 2012, I got Andaz Maui for 75% off plus breakfast for 2!) as well as through Hotwire. On Hotwire you can book based on the "number of stars" and the general area in which you'd like to stay. If you do some basic research (cross reference number of stars, location and hotel amenities, etc.) it's pretty easy to tell what hotel you're getting. We use it pretty regularly when we visit FIL in Orlando, and we just got back from Boston and stayed at The Intercontinental for half the price of other sites. Plus you can book through Ebates or MrRebates for additional cash back.

For rental cars, we go through Costco Travel, which always seems the cheapest. If you don't already, sign up for your car rental company's loyalty program. We've found we rack up free car rental days quicker than free hotel nights.

Also, don't forget to check Trip Advisor for traveler photos and reviews for hotels and excursions!

csuave · July 2016

We use name your price on Priceline for rental cars and can usually get one for a few dollars cheaper than the lowest price we find elsewhere.

Xstatic3333 · July 2016

I have used Groupon for travel once or twice and always have had a fine experience. Often, however, their best deals are more last minute than I like to be. As much as I know you can get a good bargain booking a couple of weeks before you travel, the planner in me just can't handle it. I usually book flights for major vacations about 6 months out With our Amsterdam trip, this probably cost us money. The price seemed good when I pulled the trigger, but then it continued to fall.

I do find that Groupon deals come and go, but tend to cycle back around again. Hotel deals stay more constant than travel package deals.

I'm not sure if you have BJ's in your area (It's a big box discount store), but they have travel packages for their members and when H and I priced out Hawaii a few years ago there were amazing deals to be had. I think I was getting flights, airfare, and a 3.5 star condo (we like condos!) on Kauai for a week for around $3,000. We ultimately decided that was too far to go for a week, but you get the idea. Might be worth checking out their website. I don't think you need to be a member to see the rates.

For flights, we also use Google Flights. I'm not sure how much of a difference it really makes, but I always access it through private browsing so it doesn't "hold" prices for me. I've also heard that Tuesday and Wednesday are the cheapest days to book flights, but haven't really seen that in practice.

For rental cars, I learned from a bad experience to always book through the company's own website instead of a deal website. If your flights are changed, the deal website can get rid of your reservation and keep the money if you don't get the rental on time. It's crazy!

jtmh2012 · July 2016

hoffse said:

Actually, biz class on a direct flight to Hawaii from ATL can be found for around $1500/person in lie-flat seats. That's what I usually budget for economy class to Europe, and then I just try to find a better deal than that.

Even at $1500/person that'd kill me. The only time I've spent that was on flights to Bangkok in Economy....:(

jtmh2012 · July 2016

brij2006 said:

Oh yeah, European travel I wouldn't do a package.
For something like this though it's flight, hotel, and rental car. Pretty plain and simple.
When we went in February we island hopped a bit. I priced it out just randomly both ways and it was substantially more not booked through the package.

If you're planning to island hop, something you might want to look into. NCL has a 7-day cruise with a US flagged cruise ship that hops to the major islands. We did this when we went to Hawaii because we wanted to see multiple islands if we went all the way out there, but we didn't want to feel like we were living out of our suitcases or flying back and forth every day.

brij2006 · July 2016

jtmh2012 said:

brij2006 said:

Oh yeah, European travel I wouldn't do a package.
For something like this though it's flight, hotel, and rental car. Pretty plain and simple.
When we went in February we island hopped a bit. I priced it out just randomly both ways and it was substantially more not booked through the package.

If you're planning to island hop, something you might want to look into. NCL has a 7-day cruise with a US flagged cruise ship that hops to the major islands. We did this when we went to Hawaii because we wanted to see multiple islands if we went all the way out there, but we didn't want to feel like we were living out of our suitcases or flying back and forth every day.

Yeah the next trip to Hawaii we know for sure we'll be only going to Kauai. Unless our parents decide they want to join us, then we'll go to Maui again. But a trip for just the 2 of us, we'll do Kauai.

hoffse · July 2016

jtmh2012 said:

hoffse said:

Actually, biz class on a direct flight to Hawaii from ATL can be found for around $1500/person in lie-flat seats. That's what I usually budget for economy class to Europe, and then I just try to find a better deal than that.
Even at $1500/person that'd kill me. The only time I've spent that was on flights to Bangkok in Economy....:(

Funny, Asia is usually cheaper for us from ATL than Europe. It makes no sense at all. I blame the fact that Delta has Atlanta completely locked down for domestic and transatlantic flights.

As much as I like to complain about Delta's lock on Atlanta, I still won't take a connection if I can fly direct. The last time I took a connection to Europe we "saved" $600. But then we ended up having a huge delay in Charlotte and missed our pre-booked train, so we had to rebook the train at walk-up prices of $350 plus eat the cost of our old tickets which was $150. Ultimately our net savings was only $100, and it took us an extra 7 hours to get where we were going, and we lost our entire first day. Never again.

Anyway, that's why I figure $1500/person to Europe. That's about what it costs - on average - to fly direct to Europe from Atlanta during the warm months. I can usually do better than that, but that's my benchmark for budgeting purposes.

The flight between Atlanta and Honolulu is over 10 hours... so yeah, I would pay the money for the lie-flat seat in that instance, if I could get it at that price!

cbee817 · July 2016

jtmh2012 said:

If you're planning to island hop, something you might want to look into. NCL has a 7-day cruise with a US flagged cruise ship that hops to the major islands. We did this when we went to Hawaii because we wanted to see multiple islands if we went all the way out there, but we didn't want to feel like we were living out of our suitcases or flying back and forth every day.

We did this too back in 2007 with NCL- it was our official honeymoon (but about 16 months after we got married). I loved it- it was a great way to see the islands and our balcony room was really nice. I think we'll cruise with the girls when we take them to Hawaii in 8-10 years.. probably Disney though. Their ships are the best.

hoffse · July 2016

jtmh2012 said:

brij2006 said:

Oh yeah, European travel I wouldn't do a package.
For something like this though it's flight, hotel, and rental car. Pretty plain and simple.
When we went in February we island hopped a bit. I priced it out just randomly both ways and it was substantially more not booked through the package.

If you're planning to island hop, something you might want to look into. NCL has a 7-day cruise with a US flagged cruise ship that hops to the major islands. We did this when we went to Hawaii because we wanted to see multiple islands if we went all the way out there, but we didn't want to feel like we were living out of our suitcases or flying back and forth every day.

Did you like that cruise? H and I have talked about doing that, because I don't think we would agree on which islands to visit...

smerka · July 2016

I love Kauai. And the big island, but I'm a geologist. When we honeymooned on Kauai, we stayed at the Princeville and it was magnificent so if you can swing it, stay there. We've also stayed at a resort at Coconut Beach and it didn't suck. And the Grand Hyatt in Poipu is pretty fantastic. In fact if I were going I'd spend some nights in Princeville and then some in Poipu. Jealous of your trip.

brij2006 · July 2016

smerka said:

I love Kauai. And the big island, but I'm a geologist. When we honeymooned on Kauai, we stayed at the Princeville and it was magnificent so if you can swing it, stay there. We've also stayed at a resort at Coconut Beach and it didn't suck. And the Grand Hyatt in Poipu is pretty fantastic. In fact if I were going I'd spend some nights in Princeville and then some in Poipu. Jealous of your trip.

Yeah, we don't mind staying in cheaper hotels or even a cottage on trips like this. We spend so much time just exploring the island that we're never in our room.

short+sassy · July 2016

Xstatic3333 said:

I have used Groupon for travel once or twice and always have had a fine experience. Often, however, their best deals are more last minute than I like to be. As much as I know you can get a good bargain booking a couple of weeks before you travel, the planner in me just can't handle it. I usually book flights for major vacations about 6 months out With our Amsterdam trip, this probably cost us money. The price seemed good when I pulled the trigger, but then it continued to fall.

I do find that Groupon deals come and go, but tend to cycle back around again. Hotel deals stay more constant than travel package deals.

I'm not sure if you have BJ's in your area (It's a big box discount store), but they have travel packages for their members and when H and I priced out Hawaii a few years ago there were amazing deals to be had. I think I was getting flights, airfare, and a 3.5 star condo (we like condos!) on Kauai for a week for around $3,000. We ultimately decided that was too far to go for a week, but you get the idea. Might be worth checking out their website. I don't think you need to be a member to see the rates.

For flights, we also use Google Flights. I'm not sure how much of a difference it really makes, but I always access it through private browsing so it doesn't "hold" prices for me. I've also heard that Tuesday and Wednesday are the cheapest days to book flights, but haven't really seen that in practice.

For rental cars, I learned from a bad experience to always book through the company's own website instead of a deal website. If your flights are changed, the deal website can get rid of your reservation and keep the money if you don't get the rental on time. It's crazy!

The Groupon deal I did to NYC wasn't quite what I would call "last minute", but we did book it only about 6-8 weeks before we were leaving. So it wasn't months ahead of time or anything.

Although it was charged as a "package", they did have the flight/hotel charges broken down within the package price. The flights were the same ones with the same price that I had found on my own, but they knocked it out of the park with the hotel. I couldn't find anything cheaper than about $200/night, other than a few hotels that sounded really scary. I couldn't even find AirBnBs for less than that. With Groupon, the hotel I found was $180-$220/night with them (before my 10% off). But I didn't see that same hotel for less than $280-$300/night on any of the other sites.

<<Sticker shock at the hotel cost>>. I thought the flight would be the expensive part. Heck no. R/T direct flights from NOLA to NYC on Jet Blue are about $200/person. The same as ONE night at our hotel, lol. At least the "much cheaper than I expected" flight cost was a nice surprise.

jtmh2012 · July 2016

hoffse said:

Funny, Asia is usually cheaper for us from ATL than Europe. It makes no sense at all. I blame the fact that Delta has Atlanta completely locked down for domestic and transatlantic flights.

As much as I like to complain about Delta's lock on Atlanta, I still won't take a connection if I can fly direct. The last time I took a connection to Europe we "saved" $600. But then we ended up having a huge delay in Charlotte and missed our pre-booked train, so we had to rebook the train at walk-up prices of $350 plus eat the cost of our old tickets which was $150. Ultimately our net savings was only $100, and it took us an extra 7 hours to get where we were going, and we lost our entire first day. Never again.

Anyway, that's why I figure $1500/person to Europe. That's about what it costs - on average - to fly direct to Europe from Atlanta during the warm months. I can usually do better than that, but that's my benchmark for budgeting purposes.

The flight between Atlanta and Honolulu is over 10 hours... so yeah, I would pay the money for the lie-flat seat in that instance, if I could get it at that price!

I think why Asia costs so much for us is we're flying into Bangkok. We're not going somewhere like Tokyo that's a little more popular. Also, I don't know which way Delta flies, but United flies it as a transpacific which basically means they're chasing the Earth as they go.

That said, Delta is always the most expensive out of here. United/American it's a toss up depending on the week.

Sadly, short of driving up to DC, there's no such thing as a direct flight to pretty much anywhere from here unless your destination happens to be one of the hubs.

hoffse · July 2016

jtmh2012 said:

Sadly, short of driving up to DC, there's no such thing as a direct flight to pretty much anywhere from here unless your destination happens to be one of the hubs.

Yeah Atlanta is a 2-hour drive for us. But I'll do it for a direct flight. The upside is H's family lives there so we have a place to crash the night before or night after if we need to. Direct flights out of Atlanta still tend to be cheaper for us than connecting from B'ham. Our "international" airport is insanely expensive. Also, just one line for TSA the last three times I've been there. I wish I was joking.

H's dad has this absolutely badass parking pass to the Atlanta airport that the family is allowed to use. Free parking in a deck that costs $36/day for international flights, and free parking with the limousines for domestic! It's pretty much the best thing about the Atlanta airport IMO.

jtmh2012 · July 2016

hoffse said:

jtmh2012 said:

Sadly, short of driving up to DC, there's no such thing as a direct flight to pretty much anywhere from here unless your destination happens to be one of the hubs.

Yeah Atlanta is a 2-hour drive for us. But I'll do it for a direct flight. The upside is H's family lives there so we have a place to crash the night before or night after if we need to. Direct flights out of Atlanta still tend to be cheaper for us than connecting from B'ham. Our "international" airport is insanely expensive. Also, just one line for TSA the last three times I've been there. I wish I was joking.

H's dad has this absolutely badass parking pass to the Atlanta airport that the family is allowed to use. Free parking in a deck that costs $36/day for international flights, and free parking with the limousines for domestic! It's pretty much the best thing about the Atlanta airport IMO.

Awesome hookup!

Richmond is a good airport. Can't complain. I've always essentially walked through the TSA checkpoint with no lines. And the flight from here to DC is "almost" free. Like I could save maybe $50. However, to avoid the connection, I have to drive or take a train which alone would cost me more than I'd save. Plus park in a DC parking deck for however long I'm gone. Plus, there's just the convenience factor of not having to drive 2 hours home after what was probably already a long trip.

Now my neighbor's daughter, don't remember where they were going. She saved like $800 driving to DC. For that, I'd consider it....:)

Xstatic3333 · July 2016

$36/day in Atlanta is awesome @hoffse! I used to have a good hookup in a friend with two parking spots who lives a mile from Logan (Boston), but they just became a two-car family. The upside is that changes the math and makes Providence our cheapest airport for most domestic travel. It's much more pleasant to deal with.

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