I just looked up the weather on my phone. 53 degrees. In. The. Middle. Of. April. BLAHHhhhh! This has been the longest winter EVER. Days like today make me really miss college Spring Break beach trips. Ooooh what I would do to be in a lounge chair on the beach right now.
While I daydream about tan lines and pina coladas, I would love to share with you my money saving tips for travel. For the last few years, I worked as a fundraiser for Washington University where I travelled a lot for my job. I've travelled enough to earn gold status at Marriott and Starwood Hotels, A+ Status on Southwest Airlines and Yelp Elite. Here are some of my best suggestions:
Rental Cars:
I'll be honest, this is an area where it doesn't always save you money to go with the cheapest option. Priceline's "name your own price" used to be my go-to for rental cars, but TRUST me, their pricing model is deceiving and the frustrating forty-five minutes you spend waiting for the car at the counter isn't worth the $10 you think you might save. I am a very big fan of Hertz Rent a Car and am a "Gold" member (it's free to be gold. Just sign up online: https://www.hertz.com/rentacar/member/enrollment). When you rent a car as a gold member, most airports will let you by-pass the long rental car line. They will have your car and paperwork ready and your name literally in lights above your rental car. The Hertz at Hartsfield in Atlanta is truly the best.
You can save an average of $10 a day by saying "no" to the optional rental car insurance. According to USA Today, 34% of consumers surveyed by telephone bought a rental car company's insurance just to make sure they were covered. For most of you, this is a waste of money. It is likely that the credit card you are using to secure your rental car provides free rental car insurance. If this is a new concept to you, I recommend reading this: http://thepointsguy.com/2013/03/maximize-monday-choosing-the-best-credit-card-for-car-rental-insurance/
Many car rental companies offer incentives for casual weekend travelers. Enterprise Rent-a-Car (my second favorite car rental company) offers a $9.99 a day Friday through Monday special http://www.enterprise.com/car_rental/deeplinkmap.do?bid=002&cust=MSWSRTA.
Hotels:
I have so much to say on this topic and would be happy to answer any of your individual questions.
For the casual vacationer, I have a few favorite sites:
BetterBidding.com is one of my favorite websites. Their primary goal is to promote informed bidding on Priceline and Hotwire.com. You can search their active message boards to get a good idea of how much hotels are going for in your search area. For example: Hotwire.com listed a 4 Star St. Louis Ballpark area hotel with a 95% rating for $59 a night. According to BetterBidding, it is likely the Hilton as several recent travelers purchased a similar deal.
Travelzoo.com is another website I often refer to when booking personal travel. They not only list great deals from other travel websites (their free weekly e-mail has the Top 20 Travel deals each week) but they have great local deals--similar to Groupon--but often much better! Check out this list of Fort Lauderdale deals as an example: http://www.travelzoo.com/local-deals/Fort-Lauderdale/deals
When traveling for work, I do not recommend using a discount website like Priceline because they will not let you cancel your reservation if your trip plans change. My recommendation is to pick a brand--Marriott, Hilton or Starwood-- as the loyalty travel perks really are worth it! In my opinion, Starwood is the most generous with their loyalty travelers. Once you reach gold status, they will upgrade you to the best room available, offer free Wi-Fi and an alcoholic beverage at check-in, free breakfast and their hotels are generally in fun areas. If the idea of "earning" your gold status sounds exhausting, try calling their customer support line and explain that you will be traveling a lot for work and want to be a loyal ___ customer. Ask if they will extend gold status to you in exchange for your promise to stay at their hotel when you travel (it worked for me!). The downside to Starwood is that their hotels are usually only in larger markets (i.e. Dallas, Orlando, Chicago) or resort areas (Scottsdale, Fort Lauderdale, Vail). There is a Marriott hotel in just about every city in America in some form or fashion (Renaissance, Courtyard, Residence, etc.).
If you work for the government, you likely qualify for a state or federal government discount. This can save you A LOT of money!! If you are traveling for work and you work for a 501C3, you likely qualify for the state government discount at hotels. For example: If I want to book a room tonight at one of my favorite Atlanta Hotels, the JW Marriott, it would cost $299. If you qualify for the government discount, the room rate is only $133 a night. Big difference! Even though I was never questioned or carded, I only used the government discount when traveling for work-related travel.
Sometimes, you can actually get a better price or a more unique experience if you stay in a Bed and Breakfast instead of a hotel. For example, when I travel to Dallas, one of my favorite places to stay is about $100 cheaper than a comparable area hotel (http://www.baileysuptowninn.com/). Innkeepers are also more willing to negotiate on the price if they you make last minute reservations. For a directory of B&Bs, check out: http://www.bedandbreakfast.com/.
If you are traveling to a town with a university, don't discount the university hotel. In my opinion, these are sometimes the best! The Georgia Tech Hotel is located on 5th Street in midtown Atlanta and is often half the price of the nearby Marriott Courtyard. I can vouch for the university hotels in Durham, Athens, Ann Arbor and Atlanta.
If you are traveling alone (especially if you're a female!) I recommend staying at a hotel near or inside a mall. The Westin at the Houston Galleria is one of my favorites! The reason for this suggestion is 1) it's nice to be near a mall if you forget something and 2) after a long day of travel, I enjoy working out or going for a walk. It's not always a safe idea to walk/run outside by yourself in an area you're not familiar with. If you stay at a hotel connected to a mall it's easy to "power walk" the air-conditioned mall floors. Many malls even have security during the wee-hours of the morning in case you decide you want to run the stairs before the mall officially opens.
This post is getting rather lengthy... later this week I will blog about finding great restaurants on the road, site-seeing on a dime and will give you more advice to help you plan a budget trip.
While I daydream about tan lines and pina coladas, I would love to share with you my money saving tips for travel. For the last few years, I worked as a fundraiser for Washington University where I travelled a lot for my job. I've travelled enough to earn gold status at Marriott and Starwood Hotels, A+ Status on Southwest Airlines and Yelp Elite. Here are some of my best suggestions:
Rental Cars:
I'll be honest, this is an area where it doesn't always save you money to go with the cheapest option. Priceline's "name your own price" used to be my go-to for rental cars, but TRUST me, their pricing model is deceiving and the frustrating forty-five minutes you spend waiting for the car at the counter isn't worth the $10 you think you might save. I am a very big fan of Hertz Rent a Car and am a "Gold" member (it's free to be gold. Just sign up online: https://www.hertz.com/rentacar/member/enrollment). When you rent a car as a gold member, most airports will let you by-pass the long rental car line. They will have your car and paperwork ready and your name literally in lights above your rental car. The Hertz at Hartsfield in Atlanta is truly the best.
You can save an average of $10 a day by saying "no" to the optional rental car insurance. According to USA Today, 34% of consumers surveyed by telephone bought a rental car company's insurance just to make sure they were covered. For most of you, this is a waste of money. It is likely that the credit card you are using to secure your rental car provides free rental car insurance. If this is a new concept to you, I recommend reading this: http://thepointsguy.com/2013/03/maximize-monday-choosing-the-best-credit-card-for-car-rental-insurance/
Many car rental companies offer incentives for casual weekend travelers. Enterprise Rent-a-Car (my second favorite car rental company) offers a $9.99 a day Friday through Monday special http://www.enterprise.com/car_rental/deeplinkmap.do?bid=002&cust=MSWSRTA.
Hotels:
I have so much to say on this topic and would be happy to answer any of your individual questions.
For the casual vacationer, I have a few favorite sites:
BetterBidding.com is one of my favorite websites. Their primary goal is to promote informed bidding on Priceline and Hotwire.com. You can search their active message boards to get a good idea of how much hotels are going for in your search area. For example: Hotwire.com listed a 4 Star St. Louis Ballpark area hotel with a 95% rating for $59 a night. According to BetterBidding, it is likely the Hilton as several recent travelers purchased a similar deal.
Travelzoo.com is another website I often refer to when booking personal travel. They not only list great deals from other travel websites (their free weekly e-mail has the Top 20 Travel deals each week) but they have great local deals--similar to Groupon--but often much better! Check out this list of Fort Lauderdale deals as an example: http://www.travelzoo.com/local-deals/Fort-Lauderdale/deals
When traveling for work, I do not recommend using a discount website like Priceline because they will not let you cancel your reservation if your trip plans change. My recommendation is to pick a brand--Marriott, Hilton or Starwood-- as the loyalty travel perks really are worth it! In my opinion, Starwood is the most generous with their loyalty travelers. Once you reach gold status, they will upgrade you to the best room available, offer free Wi-Fi and an alcoholic beverage at check-in, free breakfast and their hotels are generally in fun areas. If the idea of "earning" your gold status sounds exhausting, try calling their customer support line and explain that you will be traveling a lot for work and want to be a loyal ___ customer. Ask if they will extend gold status to you in exchange for your promise to stay at their hotel when you travel (it worked for me!). The downside to Starwood is that their hotels are usually only in larger markets (i.e. Dallas, Orlando, Chicago) or resort areas (Scottsdale, Fort Lauderdale, Vail). There is a Marriott hotel in just about every city in America in some form or fashion (Renaissance, Courtyard, Residence, etc.).
If you work for the government, you likely qualify for a state or federal government discount. This can save you A LOT of money!! If you are traveling for work and you work for a 501C3, you likely qualify for the state government discount at hotels. For example: If I want to book a room tonight at one of my favorite Atlanta Hotels, the JW Marriott, it would cost $299. If you qualify for the government discount, the room rate is only $133 a night. Big difference! Even though I was never questioned or carded, I only used the government discount when traveling for work-related travel.
Sometimes, you can actually get a better price or a more unique experience if you stay in a Bed and Breakfast instead of a hotel. For example, when I travel to Dallas, one of my favorite places to stay is about $100 cheaper than a comparable area hotel (http://www.baileysuptowninn.com/). Innkeepers are also more willing to negotiate on the price if they you make last minute reservations. For a directory of B&Bs, check out: http://www.bedandbreakfast.com/.
If you are traveling to a town with a university, don't discount the university hotel. In my opinion, these are sometimes the best! The Georgia Tech Hotel is located on 5th Street in midtown Atlanta and is often half the price of the nearby Marriott Courtyard. I can vouch for the university hotels in Durham, Athens, Ann Arbor and Atlanta.
If you are traveling alone (especially if you're a female!) I recommend staying at a hotel near or inside a mall. The Westin at the Houston Galleria is one of my favorites! The reason for this suggestion is 1) it's nice to be near a mall if you forget something and 2) after a long day of travel, I enjoy working out or going for a walk. It's not always a safe idea to walk/run outside by yourself in an area you're not familiar with. If you stay at a hotel connected to a mall it's easy to "power walk" the air-conditioned mall floors. Many malls even have security during the wee-hours of the morning in case you decide you want to run the stairs before the mall officially opens.
This post is getting rather lengthy... later this week I will blog about finding great restaurants on the road, site-seeing on a dime and will give you more advice to help you plan a budget trip.
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