Ease of Travel » Saving Cash

Frugal Travel Tip: Pack Your Own Lunch

jim — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 16:26:41 +0000

Lunch at a major theme park, or any tourist destination worth going to, can run close to $10 per day per person so a great frugal travel tip is to pack your own lunch. This is often easier when you’re still within the United States because you’ll be familiar with the stores, the selection, and the prices – packing your own lunch will save you significant amounts of money that you can use to splurge on other things.

Packing your own lunch also gives you the freedom to eat when you want and not waste time waiting in line or sitting at a table. Sometimes you want to enjoy the sights and the aromas of an authentic local meal but that may not be so important during the middle of the day when you’re absorbing the experience full tilt. Let dinner be where you spend a little extra money and let lunch be just a larger mid-day snack on the cheap.

Finding Cheap Gas – AAA Fuel Price Finder

jim — Thu, 26 May 2005 12:39:22 +0000

Until recently, the only way for you to find cheap gas was to rely on luck and try to remember where the cheapest gas was. Then came a great little site called Gas Buddy that I talked about at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. Then someone coupled that site with Google Maps, quite possibly the coolest online mapping site with their use of AJAX technology, to create Cheap Gas. Now it seems, AAA has joined the mix and I discovered, through a CNN Money article, that AAA members will have access to “AAA Fuel Price Finder.” AAA Fuel Price Finder’s data comes from credit card transactions (collected by OPISnet.com) – not volunteered information like at Gas Buddy! This means accurate updates and more frequent updates – another perk for AAA members.

Also, here are some good driving tips to help you save precious gas!

How To Get Access: Simply visit the AAA website, enter your zip code, and look for the Member Specials panel (should have a yellowish-orange heading, located near the lower left of the screen). Click on the “Fuel Price Finder” link, login, and you should have access to the tool.

The tool is pretty simplistic to use. Enter in City/State or Zip Code and the search radius (options are 3, 5, and 10 miles) and click on Search. The data it uses comes from OPISnet.com (if you look in the info bar at the bottom of the screen, the site is requesting data from http://aaa.opisnet.com) and that site provides “Downstream Petroleum News & Pricing.”

Ultimately, the benefit of this tool for your Memorial Day weekend is that you can check out the map of your trip and plan on visiting cheap gas stations along the way.

As of this writing, AAA’s site is probably getting hammered with requests from people reading the CNN Money article. I’ll give it a try later and write about how the reports from the tool look.

I also found this list of state gasoline taxes via Lets Make Cents. It’s an interesting chart.

Take Travel-Sized Hotel Toiletries

jim — Tue, 24 May 2005 17:08:54 +0000

This is a tactic I’ve been using ever since I set foot in a hotel room – take the soaps, shampoos, and conditions from hotel rooms. Partially it’s my frugal nature, I’ve paid for it and it’s mine; partially I don’t want to waste it (especially when I’ve only stayed one night); and partially because I know that if I go on a trip where I’ll need travel sized toiletries it would be convenient to keep around. I don’t see the logic in going to a CVS or RiteAid and paying money for something that I would throw out any other day. So next time you stay in a hotel, just keep the toiletries and if you look in your closet and find a million bottles of shampoo… maybe it’s time you should take a vacation.

Travelaxe – Las Vegas Hotel Planning Tool

jim — Tue, 17 May 2005 12:58:43 +0000

What’s the best part about going to Vegas besides the shows, the gaming, the clubs, the women (and men), the thirty minute weddings, the bufetts, the freebies and the comps? The great hotel rooms! The common strategy for folks who travel to Vegas and intend on staying a week is to spend the weekend nights in an older, middle of the Strip, hotel and the weekday nights in the newer, end of the Strip, hotels. In a recent trip to Las Vegas, my party spent the weekends at Bally’s and the weekdays at Mandalay Bay – and when you’re spending a week there, you’ll find the weekdays are just as rowdy as the weekends in Las Vegas. This strategy is great except now you have to search for the best prices on hotels for the weekdays and then once again on the weekends – then book them both. This is where Travelaxe comes into play.

I was introduced to Travelaxe by Anthony Curtis’ Las Vegas Advisor, who has a great online membership that includes an incredible coupon book (list of coupons) that’s totally worth getting.

Travelaxe is a tool you’ll have to download and install locally that will go online and do all the searching for you. You enter in your dates and it’ll give you a listing of all the hotels and their going rates. You’ll need an internet connection because it will update all the information with actuals, not rack rates. Here is where the strength of the tool comes in – it’ll tell you when major conventions are (there are always conventions being held in Vegas, every single weekend) so you can avoid those times. Travelaxe will search a whole ton of locales, not just Las Vegas, but I only use it for Vegas trips because I understand the nature of the hotel costs there.

If you have any experience with Travelaxe, please do share it, I’m sure everyone would love to hear about it.

CityPasses and Go Cards Save Money

jim — Tue, 10 May 2005 12:56:10 +0000

What are CityPasses, Go Cards, and Connect cards? They’re all-in-one discount pass cards to local attractions within a certain city. In cities where attractions are closeby and easy to access, all-in-one passes are an incredible deal because they let you into places cheaper than if you paid for them individually. For many of them, they are valid for multiple days (some CityPasses are valid for up to a year after you first use them) and contain actual tickets so you can bypass the regular lines, which can get pretty big at popular destinations.

CityPasses are available for Boston, New York, Seattle, Chicago, Hollywood, San Francisco, Philadephia, Southern California, and even Toronto. For a city like New York, where you can get all-day passes for the Subway for around seven bucks, a CityPass is an ideal way to see the sights of the city on discount. The CityPass also contains useful information like the site’s hours, dining choices, transportation options and an “insider’s tip.” How much can you expect to save? If you were to see the individual spots on the NY CityPass, it would run $105.50 whereas the pass itself costs only $53. You have nine days to use the NY CityPass (the Boston CityPass is valid for a year!)

Go Cards are similar to CityPasses and are available for Boston and San Francisco, with plans to introduce them for Orlando, Seattle, Chicago and San Diego. Want to travel to Europe? European CityCards also offers similar plans for popular European destinations.

Using Priceline? Definitely Visit BiddingForTravel.com

jim — Wed, 04 May 2005 20:38:13 +0000

If you have ever used Priceline, you know that their process is a little tricky and if you aren’t careful – you could end up in a roach motel. Well, here is where BiddingForTravel will be an eternal lifesaver for all you Priceline addicts out there. Since Priceline isn’t about to give you a list of their four stars in each city and they aren’t going to tell you which lowball bids were accepted for what flights, you’ll need to rely on BiddingForTravel’s loyal users to provide this knowledge through their own experiences.

If you have never used Priceline, I invite you to take a look at it. Priceline relies on a reverse auction concept – you put in your itinerary details, your criteria (for hotels, it’s the level of quality rated in stars), and the price you’d be willing to pay. Within a specified time period, Priceline will let you know if a company has accepted your price (or if everyone has declined). In the case of hotels, they don’t tell you specifically which hotels are four stars but they do give you their rating criteria.

So, you want to a 4-star hotel in Pittsburgh, PA but are unsure how much you offer? If it’s too low, you’ll be wasting precious time – especially precious because Priceline relies on last minute offers to give you the best price as places scramble to increase utilization (empty seats and empty hotel rooms mean lost revenue). If you offer too much, you’ll be one of the suckers in the Priceline commercials who paid double someone else.

Then, visit BiddingForTravel and look at what other people have been paying and what hotels they’re staying at. Looking at it today, in the Pittsburgh, PA forum, you can see that PismoBeach will pay $80/night on 5/4 (Wed) for the Westin Convention Center, a four star hotel. Compare that with, cgsauer, who paid $53/night to stay at the William Penn Omni on 4/23 (Sat), also a four star hotel. In reading these forums, you’ll figure out which hotels are in which star category too. The Westin, Omni, and Renaissance are all four star hotels in Pittsburgh. The Airport Hyatt, Crowne Plaza (Airport), Sheraton (Airport), and the Hilton are three star hotels that can be had for around mid-$30 a room.

Hotels are easier to game using Priceline than airline flights but we’re talking the same principles. Read the forums based on the departing state and figure out how much folks are paying. Flights are trickier for most folks because you can’t truly specify the times at which you will fly – but the potential for savings is still there.

Have you used Priceline or BiddingForTravel? Share your experiences here!

Delta Skymiles Silver Medallion Status – One Flight

jim — Tue, 03 May 2005 15:42:18 +0000

Silver Medallion is one of the levels in Delta’s Medallion program, part of Delta’s SkyMiles Frequent Flyer program. The silver medallion is the lowest of the three (Silver, Gold, Platinum) but still affords some nice benefits over regular passengers. These benefits are all yours until February 28th, 2006 if you take a flight out of one of 14 cities.

The page that offers this promotion is available here.

Here are the terms and conditions, including the fourteen eligible cities:

Purchase and fly one qualifying Delta marketed and operated flight between April 19, 2005 and July 15, 2005, and earn Silver Medallion status through February 28, 2006. *A qualifying flight includes any Delta, Delta Shuttle®, Delta Connection® carrier or Song® flight that originates from one of the following cities: Binghamton, NY, Burlington, VT, Buffalo, NY, Charlotte, NC, Erie, PA, Wilmington, NC, Harrisburg/Middleton, PA, Philadelphia, PA, Pittsburgh, PA, Providence, RI, Richmond, VA, Rochester, NY, State College, PA, Syracuse, NY. Codeshare flights operated by carriers other than the Delta Connection® carriers are excluded from this offer. Flights must be sold under the DL code.

What are some of the benefits of the Silver Medallion?
1. Priority boarding – board flights before general members
2. Earn a 25% mileage bonus in addition to miles earned for each trip
3. Unlimited complimentary domestic upgrades
[ Full Benefits ] (of all levels)

Normally, without this offer, you would need 25,000 “Medallion Qualification Miles” which are calculated based on these rules. But because of this offer, you can get almost a year’s worth of the medallion at a fraction of the miles.

Travelocity Coupons

jim — Mon, 25 Apr 2005 22:18:03 +0000

When I booked a cruise recently, Travelocity was offering a packet of dollar-off coupons as an incentive. These coupon codes come in the way of coupon promotion codes so I thought I’d share it with the loyal Ease of Travel readership. If you are interested in using them, all I ask is that you use an Ease of Travel link to Travelocity and throw a few bucks my way. Click on the full article below for the complete list of coupon codes. Cheers!

Last Minute Deals
Offer – $75 Off (Minimum Purchase of $400)
Promo Code: SUMMERSHERE (Valid June 1 – 14, 2005)
Promo Code: FALLTRIP (Valid September 3 – 16, 2005)
Promo Code: SKIPTOWN (Valid October 22 – November 5, 2005)

Hotels
Offer – $25 Off (Minimum Purchase of $160)
Promo Code: CSHT25DA (Valid May 1 – 31, 2005)
Promo Code: CSHT2DB (Valid September 1 – 30, 2005)
Promo Code: CSHT25DD (Valid November 1- 30, 2005)

Flight + Hotel TotalTrip
Offer – $75 Off (Minimum Day Stay and Travel by December 31, 2005)
Promo Code: TTSAVE75 (Valid May 1 – 15, 2005)
Promo Code: SAVEONTT (Valid July 1 – 15, 2005)
Promo Code: 75TTCOUP (Valid October 1 – 15, 2005)

Some rules they list on the back is that each code may only used 50,000 times total so once they are gone, they’re gone. I’m sure everyone who booked with Travelocity received the same codes. The codes are case sensitive so use all caps.

Travelocity Link

(we appreciate it!)
Enjoy!

Using United States Credit Cards Internationally

jim — Thu, 21 Apr 2005 02:22:40 +0000

You may not know it, but that 5 euro espresso is actually going to cost you more than you anticipated. When you use a domestic credit card for a non-US Dollar purchase, the credit card company is going to charged you anywhere from one to three percent just to convert it into US Dollars. This is on top of whatever you’re getting screwed out of in terms of our horrible exchange rate now. What makes it worse is that when your credit card company is getting charged, it’s already been converted into US Dollars for them. It’s not like you’re paying them to convert euros to dollars, it’s already been done for them. Read on to find out what cards will screw you the least.

If it’s a Visa or MasterCard, Visa and MasterCard itself is charging 1% to the card issuer. For example, let’s say you have the ever popular AT&T Universal Cash Rewards MasterCard (you get 5% back at supermarkets, drugstores, and gas stations) and you charge the equivalent of $100 for something in Europe. Citibank (who is the issuer of the AT&T Universal Cash Rewards MasterCard) is charged $1.00 by MasterCard (1%). So, Citibank (and every other credit card issuer) will pass that 1% onto you and add on an additional one to three percent. So you’ll get dinged for 2% – 4% on top of the original purchase price.

The worst part? They don’t actually list the fee separately; your bill for the $100 purchase will just appear as $104! You’d notice if they were nice round numbers, but they won’t be, so the additional 4% will be nice and hidden. You won’t even know the exact exchange rate either so it’s another layer of complexity.

Here’s a banks that definitely charge and and what they probably charge: (on top of the 1% conglomerate fees)

Bank of America – 2%

Citibank – 2%

Bank One – 2%

First USA – 2%

Chase Manhattan – 2%

Providian – 2%

Wells Fargo – 2%

Starwood Amex – 3%

MBNA America

(updated 4/28/05)

Here’s a list of banks might not charge: (they still pass on the 1% Visa/MasterCard to you though)

Capital One

FleetBoston

Wachovia

American Express

– Most AMEX card will charge you a fee.

Most national credit unions and most smaller banks

Before an international trip, call up your credit card issuer and ask about these additional fees, because things may change over time. Ask for every fee conceivable for an international purchase — then write it down on the back of the card. You want to call before a trip because no one every reads those little booklets they send out with your Cardmember Agreement changes, so they might have changed since the last time you called.

Credit cards are still the best way to pay because you get a will usually get the best exchange rate because Visa/MasterCard uses its negotiating power, something you can’t do as someone walking up to the foreign exchange counter at the airport. You also get the added protection of credit without the surcharges of traveler’s checks.

Update: MBNA has joined the darkside – they now charge 3% plus the 1% Mastercard/Visa charges. (4/28/05)

Sneaking Alcohol on a Cruise

jim — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 21:33:10 +0000

I’m going on a cruise in October to Bermuda and the first thing on my packing list will be: Booze. Why? Because in order to have fun, you need alcohol. (well, I need alcohol anyway) You are on the cruise to have fun, not pay $8 for a beer because even Miller Light is priced as an import when you’re on the high seas.

How you try to sneak it on depends heavily on when you try to sneak it on. The earlier the better, once you’re on the boat, you’re on their turf and they’re in control.

Pre-Boarding: If you are on a cruise where you can carry on other beverages, the easiest thing to do is to pour it into other bottles. Vodka looks like water, whiskey/rum and other dark spirits look like apple juice, and everything else (beer?) is not worth bringing on board. They aren’t going to search that carefully because they’re more afraid of weapons and bombs, college kids stealing on booze is the least of their worries now.

From The Stops: Buying liqour in Mexico, or any port, is awesome because you don’t have to pay the taxes. If you drink it all before you land back in the states, you can avoid the customs and tariffs too. If you want to sneak it on board, don’t buy it in a government customs-free store and then take it on board. Transfer it to another bag because, at least in Mexico, they are clearly marked. In Cozumel, the bag was a huge red circle on it. When you get on board, just put the bag on the metal detector. They shouldn’t hassle you because they’re, once again, searching for weapons. If you go when the boat is about to sail and there are a ton of people getting on board, they’ll rush you through without a thought. Usually the customs folks are after them and if you have a nondescript bag, just keep walking. If you are stopped, then apologize about how you don’t know and give it to them. It’s not worth fighting, otherwise go upstairs and get drunk.

On-Board: Anything bought in the store will be held by customs unless it’s the last night. You might be able to have them give it to you but they may keep it that night. Be nice and they may not care. Remember the guy in the store gets paid his wage regardless of whether or not he seizes your booze, so be a nice guy/girl and they won’t hassle you. Enjoy the booze!