Whats the best Way to save money on travel?

#2 Cheapster Just booked a trip to Disney for 5 nights/Dec 2011

• I used my Hotels.com membership and booked Disney’s All-Star Sports Resort, the total was $442.07 including tax. Before tax four of the nights were $76.00. The timing is right, Post Thanksgiving Travel, Pre-Christmas Rush.

• The Orbitz website gave us a wide range of Auto Rental options. I chose a relatively unknown company Payless, We rented a convertible for $216.93. Midsize ,Standard and Full sizes from other Brands were more $$$$ than my Topless ride. The comparative rate for 4 other ‘big name’ brands was $518-725 in the same period. I’m goin’ in style!

• Orbitz allowed me to book the Richard Petty Driving Experience Ride-Along Orlando for $105.44, I’m going to get dizzy!

• Disney Tickets are trickier, this time we are booking through VisitOrlando.com. The Park Hopper 4-day, with an expiration of 14 days seems to be the best buy for us. The 4-day gets you a day free @$294.95. We like to Hop Around. Animal Kingdom in the morning, Disney in the afternoon.
• Pre-booked my favorite restaurants and reviewed travelocity.com and Yelp for ones I haven’t tried.

Tips for Cheap Travel

• Belong to every REWARDS Program you can! Marriott, Hotels.com, Hilton, Red Roof Inn

• Bookmark your Travel, Hotel and Airfare on ‘REPUTABLE’ comparison Websites search engines.

• It’s Imperative to search Proprietary Airfare sites such as Southwest.com, #2 Cheapsters favorite Airline, and others such as ViginAmerica.com, AirTran.com, jetBlue.com, and FrontierAirlines.com. Many airlines may have independent incentive Rewards Programs.

• Look at the lesser known search aggregators sites, there are too many to mention them all, two examples are Farebuzz.com and Cheapoair.com

• Vehicles Rentals- Many of the ‘Aggregators’ such as Priceline.com offer combos including a rental of a car. Belong to Rewards Program for vehicles is a great idea. This Cheapster gets emails from Alamo.com for book-ahead deals, which combining with AAA Membership and/or with a Samsclub.com promotion code, makes it a grandslam. RV’s is the up and comer Rental. RV’s can combine your transportation and accommodations.
• Look for coupon codes- seek and ye shall find! Ebates.com has travel and more, but all you really need is a Google.com search of travel coupons to get you started.
• Use the search feature on Cheap.com for Travel, Cheapsters are working round the clock to find the best deals.
• Resort specific Travel, Club MED, Beaches, Sandals. Cruise Lines such as Carnival, Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity offer great deals. Disney has direct offers at Disney.com, for all destinations, Disneyworld.com for Florida and California’s site, Disneyland.com.

**** ‘Aggregators’ are sites that line up many travel sites all at once. Kayak.com which was the most well known to our team of Cheapsters. TripAdvisor.com who aggregates pricing and excellent quality reviews of hotels is a personal favorite.
Lesser known aggregators are BookingBuddy.com and the very glitzy Momondo.com. Momondo.com had a nice write-up in Frommer’s that got this Cheapsters attention. A quick search on Momondo.com for Hartford to Albuquerque, brought up an amazing number of flight deals and gets the Cheap.com Seal of Approval for aggregation and pricing.

Use the search feature on Cheap.com for Disney for in-depth articles on Disney travel.

All for now
#2 Cheapster