I found a good deal on Travelzoo for the Georgian Terrace Hotel in Atlanta
By popular demand when I got my SF-Boston-NYC-Philly-DC-Atlanta-SF itinerary for $180…
Ok there is a secret to it: my employer picked up $220 worth of flights since I needed to be in Atlanta for a business trip. But there were no further secrets and no free flight usage to everything else. I bought a $120 (plus $20 bag check fee) SFO-BOS ticket on a Virgin America sale and spent $40 for the BOS-NYC, NYC-Philly, and Philly-DC bus rides on Megabus and Greyhound. I also found an $89/night + tax luxury suite at the Georgian Terrace Hotel in Atlanta, which is where a lot of the BET Awards attendees stayed the same weekend.
Here are a few tips I use to score great travel deals:
1. Sign up for a frequent flyer program of an airline that uses your local airport as a hub. You’ll know about all their sales once you’re on their mailing list, and after a while you’ll know which sales are better deals than others. Fly with that airline every time so you can accumulate miles/credits toward free flights. I recommend starting with one and expanding to other programs only after earning your first free flight. I fly out of LAX, SFO, OAK, ONT, and SJC often, so I’m enrolled in Southwest’s Rapid Rewards, United’s Mileage Plus, and Virgin America’s Elevate.
2. Use aggregators to cross reference prices and receive the best deals. There are great deals out there that beat your frequent flyer airline’s sales. Aggregators such as Travelzoo and STA Travel will promote these deals. Use search aggregators such as Kayak (which I find to be much superior to Orbitz, etc.) to double check what the lowest fare is for each day and the monthly pricing trends for each airline. That said, when you figure out what the lowest fare is, you should always go on that airline’s website to double check for applicability and restrictions.
3. Follow the companies from #1 and #2 on Twitter. It acts like a second mailing list, but the advantage is that they will tweet about their best deals, and some airlines will tweet about deals or giveaways that are Twitter-specific. Most of these deals require response or booking within a very limited timeframe, so you have to check Twitter daily (preferably several times a day) to catch them.
4. Know the local budget airlines when you can’t find a good deal. They are often excluded from search aggregators, so you’ll need to do a manual search on their website to compare prices with your aggregator results. These airlines may also fly into alternative airports (such as ONT instead of LAX) causing you to overlook them in your initial search. Good budget airlines to keep in mind include: Southwest and JetBlue (USA), RyanAir and bmi (Europe), and Air Asia, JetStar, and Tiger Airways (Southeast Asia).
5. Consider alternative modes of transportation. In many places, taking a train or bus could be about just as fast as flying (taking into consideration time spent at and to get to/from the airport) for significantly less cost. Buses running between Chinatowns of major cities are the cheapest, but excellent deals (I’m talking about $1 one-way including tax) can be found on Megabus and Boltbus in the East Coast. Greyhound and Amtrak can also be affordable, though inferior options in my opinion. If you’re traveling around Europe, then you should definitely get a Eurail pass.
6. Be flexible with dates and times when you are booking. If you have constraints then there isn’t much you can do, but if you’re traveling for leisure, then definitely play around with different dates, times, and airline routes. STA Travel is great with this, and the Airtreks website can also be helpful.
7. As for tips on accommodations:
a) Try looking at aggregators like Travelzoo.
b) Consider staying in places besides hotels that may be slightly lower in quality but significantly cheaper (e.g. hostels in Europe and Japan).
c) Go bid on priceline.com and preferably check a travel bidding forum beforehand to get a good estimate on what a winning bid might be.
d) Crash with a friend. This is by far the best option for reasons besides it being free. Connecting with others in different cities does pay off.
e) Crash at a stranger’s place Couchsurfing-style. (Feel free to visit me in the Bay Area!)
Lastly, a note about becoming an expert travel planner: it takes time and experience to distinguish great deals from good ones and to know your travel preferences and tolerance levels. So start traveling! Hope this helps!! :)
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Expert travelers, what advice would you also suggest?
