Travel Booking Tools

Much like Craigslist searching, travel planning on a budget takes some time, and patience. By now I have most of my go-to resources for each component of our trips. Hopefully these tips will come in handy!

  

Flights:

I always start with my flights if we are going somewhere that requires them.  I always start with Kayak.com, then I move on to Southwest, since those results don’t come up through Kayak.  I almost never book flights through a third party site.  Hotwire, Orbitz, Priceline, Travelocity, etc.  After 3 years working in hotels, and 3 years booking flights for people on a daily basis, I’ve learned the fewer people between you and your travel service, the better. Going through those third parties doesn’t usually help you on price, and if you do have to make a change, it’s one more person in the loop.  I hated having to change hotel reservations booked through one of those sites when I worked there.  They all have different rules on cancellation, and sometimes even the hotel or airline have no control over whether or not you can change or cancel. 

I always start my planning well in advance whenever possible.  If I track flights for several weeks, often times I can get a good buy, or know when a good time to buy is.  Google's flight finder has a handy predictor tool that tells you whether to buy or wait. It seems fairly accurate, but it has a lot of limitations. There is a good amount of validity to buying flights mid-week, when presumably flights are cheaper because more people are focused on day to day life, not trip planning. There is something to be said for just keeping one eye on flight prices if there is some place that you know you’d like to go, it just gives you an idea of price trends. Similar to grocery shopping, if you do it enough, you know what is a good deal on a gallon of milk, and what’s way overpriced.

Don’t be afraid to mix and match!  Always check one way fare prices for each direction, pick out the flights that you’d want each way based on price and times (sometimes there’s a little give and take there).  You can look at any airline, don’t forget to try Southwest, which doesn’t come up on travel search engines.  Very few airlines really give you that much of a discount for booking the whole thing round trip with them.  Some like Alaska and Southwest just show the price each way, you don’t see the combined total until the end.  Also, don’t be afraid to buy one half of your ticket and wait.  For example, for Palm Springs, we booked your flight down there when it was $99.  Unfortunately our week was the only week that the return flight did not go down.  My coworker did the same thing and it paid off for her though. She got her tickets for $198 round trip on non-stops! It’s a bit of a gamble sometimes, but it usually pays off.

 You may also want to consider a few things like which airlines offer amenities for what costs. For example, Southwest doesn’t charge baggage fees, but you don’t get to pre-pick your seats without an extra charge.    Sun Country often has cheap flights, but you can’t get anything other than a middle seat without paying extra until you check in at the airport.  We always fly them to Minnesota, and we just wait until we get to the airport.  People normally don’t pay the extra fee, and there are plenty of seats left together. Alaska’s Baggage fees are usually cheaper than most of its competitors, and they guarantee your bags to be out within 20 minutes of landing.  Sometimes when you get home, you just want your stupid bag to come out so you can get home!  Pet fees can vary greatly by airline as well.  I also should note, that Southwest offers a Senior Discount for passengers 65 and older.  Sometimes it doesn’t change the price much, but sometimes it can save a good amount. You need to put that in when booking.  

 One tool that I have yet to use, but would love to try is GetGoing.com.  You have to sign up to use it, but I’ve never gotten spammed by them.  You can book flights through them normally like most other flight sites, but one interesting option is their Pick Two Get One feature.  For this you have to be willing to be a little adventurous and flexible.  So for example if I knew that we wanted to take a trip in May, and I knew what days we wanted to go, I could go on there and do  search.  They have lists that they have created with categories like US & Canada, Beaches, Europe, South America, Asia, etc.  You can also create your own custom list with places that you are interested in going.  You start by putting in your dates, and it gives you a list of flights for about 10 cities, or it gives you your list for the places that you customized.  It ranks them in order from cheapest to most expensive.  It’s kind of neat, because often times there are cities that haven’t been on the top of my list to go to, but they are really reasonably priced.  Stockholm is often one of the cheapest on the European list.  So you pick two places that you would want to go.  For example, let’s say Prague and Barcelona.  Next I pick out which flights I would want based on times.  They don’t list the airline, but if you really care about which one, you can switch back and forth between GetGoing and Kayak and figure it out pretty quickly.  Once you’ve selected the flights that you would want for each destination, you put in your information like you would to book any other flight.  Once you pay, it tells your which ones you ended up with based on whatever their system decides to pick. Why would someone do this? Well, because it can be significantly cheaper, sometimes several hundred a ticket on European Flights. So if you’re up for a little surprise, this is one time where buying airline tickets through a third party is worth it!

 Lodging:

Our B&B in Kinsale, Ireland - Found via Trip Advisor

When it comes to lodging, I have a lot of weapons in my arsenal, because this is the travel component with the most wiggle room.  It largely depends on where we’re going, and what kind of trip it is.  Some places like Victoria and Leavenworth we go so often that we have our go to spots, and it doesn’t require much research or debate.  Other times, we’re starting from scratch.  My first stop is usually AirBNB. If you haven’t used it before you’re missing out! We’ve only had one bad experience, and that was in getting us the keys, not in the actual stay.  I can’t tell you enough how much we love it! Often times people will own condos in buildings that are timeshares, or in complexes with hotels.  You could be staying in rooms in the same resorts, but with much lower costs.   A lot of them will have kitchens or kitchenettes too, if you’re traveling with family or you like to eat a few meals in that can really help on some costs. Always check for fine print on their rates though, sometimes some things such as cleaning fees or parking aren’t calculated in the total at the top right.

I really like Trips Advisor’s Rentals too. They look nice, but I haven’t booked anything through them yet. I plan to for a few of our stops in Ireland this time. The only thing I don’t like is that I have yet to find a wish list function like AirBNB has, and I don’t like that their pricing brackets for narrowing down searches go up in increments of $100.  Overall, AirBNB is much more user friendly, but don’t overlook Trip Advisor, you might miss out on some great options.  

If I still haven’t found anything that I like through TripAdvisor, or AirBNB, I try VRBO.com, or just Google vacation rentals in that area.  I rarely find anything that is better than on Trip Advisor or AirBNB though, and they always seem to be way higher priced.  I have had some luck searching for Vacation rentals on Craigslist. We have a spot that we stay every year with a group of friends that I found on there, I think this year will be the 6^th year that they’ve stayed there. One other avenue is to go the towns tourism website. They often times have a good list of local lodging options.  That is how I found our favorite place that we stay in Leavenworth, but I never would have found that place in any of my normal search avenues.  Don’t get me wrong, I still had to sift through about 50 places it find it, but it’s worth it! We’ll keep staying there as long as they are open for business!!

 If that’s not for you, and you want a something a little more traditional, you can look at hotels.  Kayak.com is usually a good starting place, and I love that they have integrated Trip Advisor in with it.  I always check the reviews, but honestly, if they are mixed I’m not usually too scared off. People are always more apt to go online and write about a bad experience than they are to write about a good one.  The main things I look for on Trip Advisor are reviews on the hotel about things I’m interested in.  How is the location? What’s nearby? How long will it take me to get to the things that I want to see? How does the hotel transportation work? What is included in the breakfast?, etc.  You can also find a lot of great tips on where to request rooms in the hotel, or sometimes people will write tips on great places to check out near the hotel. I always go directly to the hotel website and look for an advanced purchase rate.  You usually can’t cancel or change those, but if your flights are booked, it’s not likely you’ll want to pay to change your flights anyways. Those rates are normally the lowest that you’ll find. They are normally 10-30% off. Those also help spread out your trip costs because you can pay months in advance. I try to swing it so we just have food and gas to pay for when we’re on vacation. It’s not fun going on vacation and worrying about the credit card debt you’ll be in when you get back. 

LivingSocial, Groupon, and similar local sites are great resources for hotels. I’ve never done one of their travel packages that includes a flight though.  I actually usually subscribe for both Groupon and LivingSocial if there is one for whatever town we’re planning to head to. I can usually pick up activities like Kayaking, theater tickets, bowling, etc. for about half off.  We use them for meals a lot too when traveling.  It’s also nice because they are prepaid, and it’s one less game time travel cost.  TravelZoo.com is kind of the original Groupon type website.  They send out weekly hotlist emails, and occasionally there are some cool things.  Theater or Local sports tickets are on there sometimes too, as well as spa and restaurant deals. 

I only really have one thing that I’m picky on with hotels, and that is bed spreads.  If I see photos of a hotel with a bed spread, it has to be a great deal for me to book it.  When I get to the room, the first thing I do is take it, off and check the closet for an extra blanket, if there isn’t one, I request one. They just creep me out, I know they aren’t washed between guests, and usually it’s maybe once every few weeks.  I prefer duvets or all white bedding. Yes I’m a little on edge when I’m eating chocolate or my late night take-out pizza in bed, but stains can bleach out of white, and at least I know I’ll be able to see dirt or stains from previous guests. A clean bed is #1 priority for me. Bed Spreads don’t freak me out at AirBnB’s for some reason.


If I’m looking for a B&B, I check Trip Advisor.  Also, check the tab “Specialty Lodging” sometimes there are places that boarder between B&B and Hostel, and you can get Private rooms for a good price.  Hostels can be great too.  In my early 20’s I stayed in a lot of them. I’m by no means suggesting that you and your Significant Other should take to Bunk Beds in a room with 20 other people to save a little money. Hostels vary greatly in their quality, and you can find really nice ones with private rooms, some also have their own private bathroom.  Compare prices, because they can often been as much as a decent hotel.  It just depends what you’re in the mood for. Hostels can be great if you’re social and you want to meet people to hang out with. I’m still in contact with several people that I met years ago in Hostels.  Hostels also have the added bonus of usually having some sort of group cooking space, so you can eat a few meals in if you feel like it.

Car Rentals:

Our Rental Car in Germany - Booked through Gemut.com

Car Rentals can be a little interesting. This one takes lots of shopping around, and lots of patience.  For some reason the prices seem to drop way down about three weeks out.  This is one travel area where a third party site is usually my go to.  I prefer Hotwire.com, though sometimes their prices can be beat.  Try Costco under their travel section online, and AAA as well, sometimes they offer marginal discounts. I almost always start at Kayak.com, then I can click a link to Hotwire to see what they are offering.  With our Car rental for Orlando, I searched for months, checking three weeks out from the current time to get a gage on what they would be, and checking the dates for the trip.  It looked like I’d have to pay $230 for a compact for 8 days.  That almost had me thinking I might splurge the extra couple of hundred for a convertible since we’re from Washington, and I want all of the sun that I can get!  That would have been my area of splurging for the trip.  Luckily I found a deal, that as far as I can tell was some sort of one day fluke sale.  Either way, I got a Standard for $133 for 8 days!! I was thrilled! Now I can have an extra few Butter Beers and The Three Broomsticks, and more Margaritas at Margaritaville!

Car Rentals in Europe are a whole different beast.  We rented a car in Ireland, which was pretty reasonable.  Where they get you there is the mandatory insurance.  I booked an all-inclusive deal through Hertz, which was the best deal I could find.  My beloved Hotwire Car Rentals don’t work overseas. For our next trip to Ireland I plan to use Dan Dooley Rentals.  For Germany I found a guy local to Seattle who specializes in setting up car rentals in central Europe.  He was wonderful!! It took out the guess work. His website is Gemut.com.  I do have to say, I don’t think we’ll ever drive in Germany again.  The autobahn was Patrick’s dream come true, but most of the speed limit signs have cameras in them, and they will nail you.  We ended up with three violations. Most of them were when the speed limit changes snuck up on us.  We were charged $60 by Avis to give the German Government our Information for 3 separate incidents.  We never got anything in the mail though.  I’ve read that this is not uncommon.  It’s such a pain to fine Americans, because for one, we can’t read the ticket when it comes, and two, it’s really hard for us to get them our payment.  They have a 6 months Statute of limitations, if you don’t receive something from them by then, you should be good.  Part of me is worried that if we ever do go back Patrick will get help up for unpaid tickets though!

 
Meals:

 

Great Reasonably Priced Dinner That We Split in Amsterdam - Found via Trip Adviser

We aren’t huge foodies, but we do love to eat. We aren’t food snobs, by any means.  We’re usually a little uncomfortable in really nice restaurants. We are much more at home in a local brewery, or anything featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.  Neither of us are huge breakfast people, so a hotel not offering breakfast isn’t a deal breaker for us.  To be honest we can normally make it until 11:00am for an early lunch.  That rule goes out the window for us in Victoria though, we have to hit Murchie’s every morning or the trip is a failure, yes, it’s that good.  We usually pack or pick up some granola bars or something to get us through to lunch.  

Copyright: Christa Brunt (Christa Nicole Photography)

For lunches it depends on where we’re at.   In Ireland and Germany we just went and got fresh bread, cheese, and meat and we would have a picnic on a park bench or the hood of our car.  Also, Ireland has some of the BEST chips. White cheddar and onion,….I think Patrick wants to bring back a suitcase just full of that next time! I did pack a small cutting board with me, and my Cutco Cheese knife. 

 Anywhere in the states or in Canada, we usually split an entrée and maybe an appetizer.  We opt for several small meals, over one or two big ones. Sometimes it’s fun to eat as you go, and just stop in and try something at a cool new spot.  We like to experience trying lots of different places.   Happy Hours are great deals for us too, we’ll usually eat lunch late around 3:00pm to catch one, then for dinner we’ll eat late at 9:00pm to catch another.  Sometimes we’ll just split an appetizer and an entrée though.  We hate bringing left overs back to our hotel. We also utilize Groupon, LivingSocial, and Amazon Local, again it's nice to have a few meals that are basically prepaid.