Issue 32.09
We talked about travel planning last time. How about planning your next vacation and saving money on it? Over the last ten years, I have used the computer to plan trips to Alaska, New York City, St. Louis and Nauvoo, Phoenix, the Mexican Riviera, Bryce Canyon, Las Vegas, Dallas and Las Vegas. Some were business trips, some vacations and some a combination. We have used the computer to determine the best time to travel to save money, find local attractions, figure out the best hotel to stay in, find out where and what time local church meetings were, etc.
The first thing to realize is that there is an optimum time to buy tickets and make reservations. If you have a specific date you need or want to be in a location, just look for the best available fares and rates for that date. If you have some flexibility, you can often save quite a bit.
I usually start with the flight to my destination. I pick a couple of online booking agencies to get an idea of the probable cost for the date I would most like to travel. When I find which airlines are the least expensive, I try going directly to their site to see which days surrounding that date are cheapest. Usually travel on a weekday is less than on Friday, Saturday or Sunday, but not always. Holidays are usually terrible times to travel if cost is an issue. If my plans are flexible I will often try entering a bid on the flight I want at www.priceline.com. I look for the best published fare and then bid about 20% below that. If I get the bid, I may have to travel at an odd time or live with a couple of stops on the way, but the savings are nice if money is an issue.
If I don’t have as much flexibility, I still will look at the published fares at priceline as well as www.expedia.com, www.travelocity.com and www.hotwire.com. There are lots of other discount travel sites, but these usually have the best fares.
Next week: More about vacation planning.
Shaun McCausland has been in the computer industry for 27 years (locally with Musicomp & Bits ‘N’ Bytes) and currently does in-home and on-site computer consultation, service, training and repair. If you have questions, you can reach him at 668-7118.