I'm going on vacation for the first time in a long time in a few weeks, and being frugal, I wanted to get the very best value for my money.
So I got on the internet. Four hours later, I looked up and realized it was 1am. However, in those four hours, I'd managed to book a discount flight, reserve a car at half the rate I'd initially found and reserve rooms in five different motels. (I'm going to drive all over North Carolina.)
What I should have done first, though, was check the weather in Asheville, NC before starting any of this. I did that at 1am and found that there is still snow on the ground in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I'm not fond of snow. I want to see green when I go on my vacation, not white and certainly not the brown of early spring mud.
So the next day, I called the two people who'll be talking care of my critters, asked if they could take Emma and Jewel and Cloud and Twilight a week later (when, hopefully, Spring will honest-to-God have come to the North Carolina mountains) got an affirmative from both people, got back on the internet and an hour later, had rebooked everything and cancelled all my earlier reservations.
I'd also learned a lot about the process, which I'll share with you.
First, I suggest that you use a site like igougo.com (I-go-you-go, get it?) or bookingbuddy.com to check the main travel discounters such as Ortibitz, Travelocity, Kayak, Priceline, etc. At igougo.com, you can just type in what you want in the way of flights, hotels and car rentals, list which discounters you want to search, and with one click, igougo.com will open a pop-up window from each discounter, which is a lot easier than checking each individually. (The one problem I found is that if you change your parameters in any way, the site opens up more pop-up windows. You end up with a dozen or more on your desktop which can be hugely confusing. So I suggest you close each group of popups before you ask to see different flight dates, check in times, pickup times for car rentals, etc.)
When dealing with discounters, do check for any fees a site may charge. Orbitz, for example, charges a non-refundable fee of up to $11.99 for its service, and if you make changes or cancel, they may tack on another $30.
Which is why you may not want to actually book through the discounters, especially when it comes to flights. I found the best price on Orbitz, $259 for a round-trip to Columbia, SC (I'll explain why I decided to fly into SC in a minute) on American Airlines. Being incurably curious, I opened up a new window and checked directly with American. They would give me the same price and I could put a 24-hour "hold" on the reservation without actually booking, which I did. That came in handy when I decided to change my dates, since I could cancel without incurring the Orbitz fees.
When it comes to airlines, I also suggest that you look into getting e-tickets for your flights, if they're available. A check of American's fee schedule, for example, shows that if they have to issue a paper ticket, they'll charge an extra $50.
As to flying to SC instead of NC....you can save a lot if you're flexible. I checked car rental prices at the Charlotte, NC airport and at Raleigh-Durham and was horrified to find that the cheapest price was $381 a week for an "economy" car. Ouch!
Could I do better? It occurred to me to see if prices were less outside the airport and they were, by a good 30% at rental locations downtown, but a quick check of taxi prices in Charlotte indicated it would cost me nearly $50 to get from the airport to downtown and back. (If I'd been staying at a downtown hotel, I could have used a shuttle to get downtown for free.)
What about another airport? I went to Google Maps, looked for nearby airports and found that I could fly into Columbia, SC for even less than the best rate I'd found for Charlotte and I could rent a car for $181! I certainly didn't mind seeing a bit of SC on my vacation, especially if it saved me $200. If you have that kind of flexibility in your travel plans, use the "check nearby airports" option when you search the booking sites.
Lodging? All I want is someplace clean, safe and quiet. I've found that the primary difference between places like La Quinta, Holiday Inn and my choice, Motel6, is that at Motel6, you have to walk across the parking lot to eat (they build 'em next to places like Denney's) but you pay $30 to $40 a night less. I also needed a chain, since I'd be traveling all over the state, so I worked out a route, checked the very easy-to-use Motel6 website and took about 30 minutes to make my reservations. (And about 45 minutes to make new ones and cancel the old the next day.) One thing to take into account, whever you stay....the local sales taxes charged on rooms. In North Carolina, they seem to run between 10 and 13% a day and are not included in the quoted price.
If, unlike me, you're staying at the same place for your whole vacation, do check the discounters for package flight, car and hotel deals. I did see some good ones, but they were unworkable for my kind of trip.
Finally, double check all your dates and times. After I'd finished booking everything, I realized that I'd listed the pickup time on my car as 11:30 pm instead of 11:30 am. (My flight arrives in the morning.) When I went to the Alamo site to change it, I found that Alamo was now claiming that I'd have to pay $203 for my rental instead of $181.
Well, an extra $20 isn't that bad, but being the frugal fanatic that I am, I went back to where I'd found the original price, carrentals.com, entered the new time and--guess what?--on that site, my $181 rate was still available. I spent two minutes and saved $20. Deal!
Also, if you're planning to rent a car, check with your credit card issuer. Some cards will provide collision insurance when you pay for your rental using that card, a service that could save you $12 to $25 extra per day, the cost for an insurance waiver from the car rental company.
When you total up your basic estimates, add at least an additional 10 to 15%, since there will be extra fees, taxes and charges to pay along the line.
Finally, make sure you take all your paperwork with you, especially the codes that identify your reservations. Putting everything in an envelope that you can hand-carry could save a huge amount of time, money and hassle at check in counters.
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