Book Hotels Cheaper

How to Avoid Sleeping at the Airport

Your flight was canceled or you missed your connection. The airline staff is too busy to help find you a room near the airport, so you are on your own. Most passengers head downstairs to the hotel "board' to call various airport hotels or they head to the Travelers Aid desk. What do you do when they or all the hotels tell you there is a convention in town and there are no room to be had AT ANY PRICE?

Here are a couple of tips straight out of my book that MAY locate you a room and maybe at a decent price!

Bypass the hordes heading to the airport's hotel board. Those are the FIRST places sold out. If you have access to the internet, find your airport on Expedia or Hotels.com and look for the high rates. (Most will say no rooms available if truly sold out) Expedia punishes hotels that say they are sold out but have no problem when you raise the rate to the sky. Recently, this situation happened and a local hotel that ALWAYS has a rate of $99 on Expedia suddenly was up to $583.00. Do NOT book this room! You should locate a phone number through local information for this hotel and CALL them. They may be holding rooms just for Expedia but they do not really expect anyone would pay $583.00. But they may have a room for $150 - just don't mention that you saw the $583 rate on the internet or they will steer you to book it through Expedia.

Another tip is to find hotels and motels within 15 miles of the airport and call them on a cell phone. Since they will not have a shuttle to the airport (most likely), they will be overlooked by the masses trying to book near the airport. For only $20 or so, ($40 round trip) you can get a cab there and back and may score a room for under $100.

If these prices seem unreasonable to you, weigh the cost of sleeping in an airport plastic chair until your flight the next day. If it is worth saving $140, find a comfy spot and camp out. But if you are with your spouse and/or kids, sleeping at the gate may not be a valid option.

RyanAir: Leader of the Unexpected

Anyone who has followed me for any length of time over the last year and a half knows I made a decision to pick on Europe's low cost carrier RyanAir some time ago. With their chairman's outrageous comments and policies, they have always been an easy target for a pseudo comic like me. Like when the chairman said you could book a ticket WITHOUT a seat! Talk about standing room only!

Well, the inevitable finally happened. They are now charging to use the lavatory (loo, in British terms). I can only imagine if they have a lock on the door with a coin pay feature. It would be like that scene from Blazing Saddles where the rustlers had to pay a dime to get by the LePetomaine Thruway barrier out in the middle of cactus and scrub brush. I can see people prancing and 2-stepping in the aisles as they await their 'turn'.

Or maybe you have to assume you will need it and pay in advance? I wonder if it will limit the time also - like a parking meter: a dollar for 3 minutes, $5 for 15, etc.

At any rate, read the article here and see if you don't want to laugh as I did.

Summer Travel

In 2009, I published/offered a newsletter regarding the landscape for travel in the upcoming year. As I wrote one for this year however, I realized that 1) not many people read the first one and 2) information that is 6 months old does little good.

So I never published the 2010 Outlook but I did decide to write more frequent updates on the environment for travel in the upcoming year. Here is another post along those lines, only I 'lifted' it off the internet (not that I am offering it as my own writing) because it pretty much validated what I wrote last December anyway.

From U.S. News and World Report, this article 8 Travel Tips for the Summer gives clear and concise advice on what to expect this summer when booking travel. Like them, I have known that airfares were rising and hotel rates were still low (excepting in some areas) so it is good to know that I pegged the outlook correctly, even if no one read it!

I think the attached article/post will benefit anyone wondering about how travel will look this summer and especially whether they should book now or later.

Volcanos and Travel Insurance

During the recent travel disaster caused by the Iceland volcano, a plethora of insurance articles popped up with one main question at the forefront: Were people whose travel plans impacted negatively by the disaster covered by travel insurance? Or was this an "act of God" that no one could foresee (or price for) and thus not a covered event?

The answer to that question is worthy of yet another post (by me) regarding travel insurance. Naturally the answer is a 'sort of yes, sort of no' type answer but seeing why is half the fun!

First off, I am not a huge fan of travel insurance overall. I have stated on more than one occasion that most trips do not entail such risks that the added expense of insurance is a worth while expense. There are exceptions of course - traveling in summer where snow storms would not occur (which tend to disrupt air travel the most) would lead one to pass on insurance for the most part. Unless you had an expanded and somewhat complicated month long trip with numerous connections in foreign lands, in which case peace of mind protecting you from health disasters as well as travel disruptions might warrant a policy or two.

Such was the case in April. In our hotel, we have at least 4-5 sets of guests that not only ended having to stay an extra 4-8 nights in a hotel, they had to pay to rebook at higher rates in order to move 'up' on the list of departees ASAP(as soon as possible). Hotels in Australia were reported to have doubled or tripled the normal rate within hours of the disaster occurring so not only did some people have to delay their departures, they had to pay some $300 per night for the joy of not being able to get home. Airport hotels in Europe were reported doing the same.

Would they have been covered? According to the New York Times blog post I found, the answer is yes - if they bought the comprehensive insurance. Comprehensive insurance is expensive - up to 8% of your trip values, which means 2 overseas tickets and 2 weeks worth of hotel protection might cost some $800 extra! When so many people spend so much time looking for the cheapest airfares available for trips, the idea of spending another near thousand bucks for 'insurance' is usually not even an option.

But for those who were stranded and were paying upwards of $100-150 per night for food and lodging (much less $300 per night), they would have paid MORE than the insurance cost within 5 days even if they could still use their tickets without an increase in fare.

The post on the blog is well worth reading. It may change your mind about insurance in the future - at least for those trips where some (any) disaster (from terrorism to Mother Nature to missing your flight) causes you added and unexpected and often times prohibitive expense.

Travel to Europe During Protests

Normally I do not post about travel and vacation spots where political protests are currently ensuing because 1) I assume everyone impacted already read the news and knows what to do or 2) they are spontaneous protests and not likely to last too long. So for those traveling to a certain country several months out won't have to necessarily change plans yet.

In the case of the protests in Greece recently, I am posting this article because more than one country seems to be impacted by this global unrest. Also, the site I found this post on also offers several other articles related to Greece and travel in Europe, so I knew anyone visiting this link may well benefit from the other posts as well. Lastly, Peter Greenberg is well known in the travel arena, so I know this information is top notch.

What I found was a post on his Worldwide blog that has a link to the U.S. Embassy's citizens service page so travelers can monitor day to day happenings. The post; Athens, Greece: Protests, Strikes Continue Amid Travel Warnings notes that there has been no travel alert posted about travel to Athens but that tourists should most certainly avoid the violent areas. Dodging a strike may be more difficult so their extra links provide great help for tourists already there or those planning to leave soon.

No one of course knows how long these 'strikes' and protests may last so if this post seems out of date, it is because (in my opinion) there may be more to come. 

Summer Travel Outlook

Most economic analysts were projecting an economic recovery in 2010 (albeit late 2010) and into 2011. Most travel experts knew the airlines would increase what they considered pathetically low airfares as soon as they saw ANY recovery begin. In the yearly outlook report that I started back in November 2009 (but never published), I also predicted increased airfares in summer of 2010, if not by Spring.

According to the Wall St. Journal, that is exactly what has happened. In an article titled "Travel Watch", they warned that airfares had risen 22% over 2009 levels and 4% higher than 2008, when fares and capacity had not been reduced as yet. Not so surprisingly, airfares to Europe have risen almost 30%. (Well, at least I'M not surprised. I predicted a pent up demand for travel - both to Hawaii and overseas coming in 2010). And the end is not nearly in sight. Next year forecasts to being a blockbuster year in travel - only held in check by a balky economy. But that very economy is strengthening daily so I see fares rising another 25% next year to boot!

Which means it is actually a BARGAIN to travel this year. (At least compared to what is coming over the next few years). You may well have seen the lowest fares you may see in your lifetimes over the last few years and now it will be time to pay the piper. The airlines will make sure of that!

How to Handle Overseas Exchange Rates

My personal view about exchange rates applies mostly to infrequent overseas visitors. Along with everything else that costs a lot of money about flying to Europe or Asia (airline fares, hotels, meals) it does NOT seem to me that worrying about exchange rates tops the list of things to worry about.

However, if you travel 3-4 times per year (like people i see in the hotel quite often), the exchange rate game MIGHT be something worth understanding.

Because I am no expert on this matter, I am deferring to a podcast I located recently that is titled Talking Travel: Watching those Exchange Rates. It is about a half hour in length but you can download the MP3 and listen to it at your leisure. If you have ever been flummoxed by returning from overseas and seeing outrageous exchange rate 'fees' from using your credit cards or ATM, this might be just for you.

Time to Plan Your Summer Travel but Avoid Travel Fraud

That means the scammers will also be out in full force. Every year, I write several posts about how to recognize, avoid or inquire about refunds when you think you may have been scammed.

To that end, a Chicago TV station posted  a great alert on how to avoid travel fraud and the five short but to the point pointers sounded good enough that I forward them to you. You can also click on my 'scams' category to re-visit old posts I have written if the thought of being defrauded is a real and present danger in your mind.

More Flights Doesn't Always Mean Cheaper Fares

In a recent post, I noted that there were soon to be increased flights to Hawaii, especially from the West Coast. Usually, LOTS of increase in capacity involves lower fares (at least initially) but I guess when the destination is Hawaii, that doesn't apply.

In an ensuing article I found, it appears fares to Hawaii are NOT going down this summer - at least as anticipated. Of course, they ARE still cheaper than 2-3 years ago but that is small consolation to the parents of 2 kids who thought a vacation to Maui after school let out might be just the ticket to saving some money on a vacation this year. Prices shown in the article indicate that flying from certain cities (San Jose) are cheaper than from the big dog (S.F.) but are still in the $600 range while Oakland and SFO come in over $700.

This particular article indicates bookings should be done PRIOR to when you read this but do not be alarmed - you can find seats anyway and I suspect that since the 'discounts' are fairly dismal, you will find flights you can afford anyway.

Keep in mind the fine print - some 'sale' fares require check in at the Hawaii airport you are leaving from at near midnight with arrival in Oakland at 5am. This is the trade off for 'large' discounts so if you are like me and don't want to leave San Jose at 7 am (requiring a 3 am wake up and drive to airport in the dark) or arrive home exhausted after an all night flight just in time to watch the sun rise, paying more means getting more. And more means better flight times.

Fun and Games: Travel Quizzes To Boost Your Travel Knowledge

Here's a topic I have never written about - travel quizzes. If you are like me, travel quizzes used to be guessing the capitals of states or keeping a tally of out of state license plates. (Obviously we did not have in-car movies, iPods or cellphones when I was a kid. Even more obvious: we were easily amused.)

Well, lets say you were about to embark upon a once in a lifetime trip to the Middle East or Orient. One quick way to bone up on local trivia is to take a travel IQ quiz. If you can ignore the final score and not be interested in how 'smart' you are, you can simply examine the answers and gain valuable local knowledge.

I came across a listing of travel quizzes you can take either before or during a trip. I caution you will have to cut and paste the URL's as this source did not imbed them in the blog post, titled "Online Games and Quizzes to Test Your Travel IQ". I have not checked them all out so I cannot give you any insider pointers of which quiz is better than another quiz but I suspect you can figure it out yourself without much trouble.