How to travel/fly on the cheap?

[Taskmaster]

Any ideas?

I've just given up trying to get my group of friends to do random trips with me, so I'm going to just do it alone I guess. Suggestions? The cheaper I can fly and stay (think short trips 1-3 days max) the more I can do it!

[bimmette]

Do you have any small budget airlines that fly out of smaller airports? Like Allegiant Air?

[katchup]

Credit card points. Have them sign up for rewards cards like Sapphire or SW card, hit the minimum spent to get the bonus 50k points.

Also stay at Air BnB places.

I havnt paid for a trip in a long time(besides food and activities). Went to Cabo, OC twice, Portland, Banff Canada, Denver and literally just booked DC tonight all off points.

[FL335]

Originally Posted by bimmette

Do you have any small budget airlines that fly out of smaller airports? Like Death Air?

Corrected.


My opinion: Chase Southwest Visa and Chase Sapphire....the points systems are second to none. Both give you sig. points just for signing up.

There are "basic" ways to save: leave mid week, fly into larger airports: LAX, ATL, DAL,etc...

That's all I know. I have used points the last few years because of these credit cards...GL.

[GnarlyMarley]

Hidden city fares. Can't bring a checked bag, but if your only going for a few days it shouldn't be a problem.

[bimmette]

Originally Posted by FL335

Corrected.


My opinion: Chase Southwest Visa and Chase Sapphire....the points systems are second to none. Both give you sig. points just for signing up.

There are "basic" ways to save: leave mid week, fly into larger airports: LAX, ATL, DAL,etc...

That's all I know. I have used points the last few years because of these credit cards...GL.

I have crossed the border to fly Allegiant from a small airport many times and I'm still alive

[dreamingat30fps]

[FL335]

Originally Posted by bimmette

I have crossed the border to fly Allegiant from a small airport many times and I'm still alive

You're a statistical anomaly...

J/K but they fly out of Sanford, FL and random places on specific days into short runway, out of the way airport...not Delta into DFW or ATL.

Roll that dice, baby!

[bimmette]

Originally Posted by FL335

You're a statistical anomaly...

J/K but they fly out of Sanford, FL and random places on specific days into short runway, out of the way airport...not Delta into DFW or ATL.

Roll that dice, baby!

For half-price airfares, I take my chances!

[hongsc]

Dude perfect time to visit Tara and do a drunk interview eh? I would stick to one airline to "max" it out, sign up for a travel credit cards, pick flights most likely to get bumped to get concessions, and check out websites that cater to this kind of stuff. Some people live to "game" the system. I'd jump on that bandwagon and reap the benefits.

[tony20009]

Originally Posted by TheAxiom

Any ideas?

I've just given up trying to get my group of friends to do random trips with me, so I'm going to just do it alone I guess. Suggestions? The cheaper I can fly and stay (think short trips 1-3 days max) the more I can do it!

I have a few tricks for at least keeping the price down, and in some cases for getting cheaper tickets than you can online by checking the various websites that you surely know of or that others will mention.

• Date someone who works for an airline. (Just kidding...sort of. )
• Move to a hub city and then fly to places your hub airline(s) fly to directly.
• Do not drive to the airport if the cost of parking is greater than the cost of a taxi or sedan. The lot I park in at National Airport is $36/day and the long term lot is something like half that. The sedan pickup from my home costs ~$50 each way. This also saves you time as you will get dropped off at the front door of the airport rather than having to schlep around the airport grounds on a shuttle or walk to the terminal.
• Do take the train into the city from the airport. Even though I live in downtown D.C., sometimes I fly to or from Baltimore's airport. I take the Amtrak to BWI.
• Be willing to take a connecting flight or to depart/arrive at "odd" times.
• Sign up for the frequent flyer programs, and other discount notification emails, and whatnot. Then save up your money and then let the ticket prices determine where you go. If you've been watching the notifications that show up all the time, you'll eventually get a good idea of how much it costs to fly to place X, Y, and so on. You'll need to be familiar with that so you know a good deal when you see it.
• Sometimes -- it really depends on your departure and arrival cities -- if you plan your trips so you aren't departing when regular business travelers most often do, you'll find lower airfares. That means you want to avoid Mondays and Fridays in general, although first thing Friday morning isn't usually a heavy business traveler departure time because, aside from short flights, it means they won't be able to their colleagues and clients. And it means you generally want to depart and/or arrive in the middle of the day.
• Have time on your side so you can take a "six connection flight" to your destination, and then make stupidly low offers on those "William Shatner" websites that let you make an offer.
• Travel light. This will allow you to duck the baggage fees. For a budget traveller, avoiding baggage fees will save you more than you'll gain by building up frequent flyer miles with one airline.
  • Exception: If you are going to vacation travel 60K miles or more per year and the airline you'll use has good fares, it could be worth using just one airline. The frequent flyer status you ear will let you duck the fees and you'll be earning enough miles to get a free ticket or two each year.
• The most expensive thing about flying for Americans is the flight out of and back to U.S. If you are flying to multiple destinations, buy your primary roundtrip ticket just as you normally would. But once you are in the new country, buy the tickets there. For example, I saved ~$400 buying my ticket from A-dam to Prague upon landing in A-dam. I've bought tickets from London to Spain for as little as $50 each way. In the PRC, I routinely fly first class between Shenzhen and Shanghai for ~$300. When you try to buy the same ticket from a U.S. located computer, you cannot access the domestic prices that you can when you are there.
• Are you retired and have tons of free time to travel? If you like or are curious about the open ocean, you may find freighter (merchant mariner) travel quite interesting, at the very least, you can hang on on the bridge of a huge ship. The captain may even let you sit in his chair. (It is interesting to do at least once regardless.)
  
  The boat crew are quite personable, and all of them, especially the captain and bridge crew, are keen to tell you all about their ship and places they've been, and damn near anything else that they can no longer tell their coworkers who've heard it all a thousand times. They also will have outstanding insider tips of all sorts for just about any port city you can name.
  
  The overall cost (~$120/day, some ships more, others as little as $60-$80/day) may be more than a plane ticket, but it includes, accommodations, a cozy setting in which to make friends with the handful of other passengers, and depending on from what country the ship hails, seriously gourmet food, but even if it's not gourmet level, it's not going to be bad at all.
  
  
  
  
  This page will give you a good idea of what some of the nicer ships are like: https://www.freightercruises.com/cruise_aranui.php . The room ship photos below are from that site.
  
  
  
  
  
  Note: You may find the owners of the boats you see being transported on the freighter, but don't count on it.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

• Choose destinations where your home currency "goes farther" than it does when you are in your home country. Let the exchange rate be your friend.
• In many Asian countries, if you need basic "stuff" or you want to eat on the cheap and there's no inexpensive places head to the poor side of town.
• If you are traveling outside your home country, find out what banks have a partnership with your bank that will allow you to use their ATMs for free rather than for a fee + the currency exchange fee.
• Lean how to haggle if you aren't good at it. This will save you all sorts of money if you have any intention of shopping. Outside of the U.S., merchants expect to haggle for just about everything except food, drink, and small personal necessities.
  
  If you are a high end shopper, do not think that just because the shop is "posh" they won't haggle with you. At the very least you can broach the topic, even press a little. If they just won't, they'll still sell the item(s) to you, or you can say "thanks" and leave. Never look at the price tag and never ask about the price until you know you want the item. Then, the words "Wow. I like it, but that's more than I wanted to spend. Maybe we can work something out?" will be among your "best friends." There's body language that goes with it, but you'll learn that too. The key is that everything you do and say must be natural and honest. Sellers can tell a cheapskate in an instant, but folks who are sincere can get deals.
  
  Key point: when haggling, it's never about what you can afford or how much money you have; it's always about what you don't want to/are not willing to spend. (Unless, of course, the sum you have to spend isn't even in the ballpark, say within 20% - 30% of the listed price, even if the listed/ticket price is a sale price...the seller still deserves to make a profit. )
  • Corollary: If you are going to shop, shop at places where you can haggle.
• Do not buy anything that you can buy in your home country or home city, other than food and tickets to "stuff" you want see or do.
  • Exception: A store is having an incredible clearance sale and they have marked way, way down an item you'd genuinely been intending to buy anyway.
    
    E.g., I had been intending to freshen up my wardrobe with a few pieces, but I'd just not gotten round to it. I happened into the Versace boutique one day to find they were having a 75% - 90% off clearance sale because that location was closing and moving. I bought ten items -- pants, jeans, shirts and jackets -- for $800! I did because I knew the odds of my finding prices like that anywhere else were between Slim and None, and Slim's train was pulling out of the station. The prices weren't even that low at the other Versace boutique in town. I didn't have any plan to buy Versace stuff, but seeing as the "gettin' was good," Veresace it was. A similar thing happened at the Gucci store, which is how I came by some green jeans, green suede loafers and red suede loafers. I have a huge wardrobe with more than enough of the "basics," so unusual pieces like those are exactly what I'm looking for when I go shopping. They add a bit of "splash" on the occasions I wear them, and instead of just looking "nice" or "different," which would be the case no matter what I wear, I get to look like a "rock star," or something like that....you get the idea.
• At your destination:
  Bear in mind that I'm pretty gregarious among strangers, and I'm usually single when I'm traveling. I also tend to be arrive in new places with no idea at all of what to expect, so I'm rarely disappointed.
  • Visit European style cities. That alone will obviate your need to rent a car and it'll allow you to walk or take the least expensive cab/public transportation trips. For example, New York, D.C. London, Paris, Rome, Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, Montreal, and many others are all European-style cities. Once you get there you can walk to lots of stuff and/or take short taxi/public transportation trips between locales. Dallas is not a European-style city.
  • Stay in the middle of "everything," not in the outskirts, especially if you are going to non-European style cities. In the middle of cities, you will have options, such as the local place that no tourist is going to happen by, but that locals love and is well priced.
  • Stay where the natives who would visit would stay, not where other international visitors would. For example, in Shenzhen, PRC, there are lots of hotels that will run you about $15-$20/night or less (sometimes a lot less) and that are in the heart of "everything." They are furnished about the same as a Red Roof Inn, clean and safe.
    • Exception: Youth hostels --> They are excellent places to stay and very, very inexpensive. They aren't "plush," but they are functional, clean and safe. In cities like London that are expensive and the exchange rate isn't in your favor to begin with, hostels are your best bet. You'll need to book well ahead usually if you want to stay at the ones that are most centrally and conveniently located.
  • Develop adventurous taste buds and eat local cuisine. This is especially true anyplace that has both places to eat just like those you'll find at home and places like nothing you'll find at home. For example, in the PRC, you can eat at Italian restaurants or even Shakey's Pizza or KFC. When you do so, you'll pay considerably more than you will to eat at a comparable "level" Chinese place. At the low end, like Micky D's or KFC, you'll pay about triple what a lo mien place will cost you and about four times what you'll pay to patronize a sidewalk hibachi griller who only appears after dark, and you'll get less food to boot. Eating at Shakey's will cost about the same as will a gourmet grade Chinese restaurant or ~$20 - $30/person.
  • Develop "overnight" (or more substantive) acquaintanceship with locals, something best accomplished in neighborhood bars. This is very helpful everywhere. All the cheap but great places to eat, all the good places to shop, etc....they'll know of at least some of them.
  • Discover where the "ghettos" are and use their ostensibly "less desirable" nature to your advantage.
    
    For example, in D.C. staying in Southwest will save you a good deal and have you within walking distance of all the tourist venues on The Mall and you'll be in the shadow of the Capitol. Staying at a B&B in the "gay ghetto" will save you tons and put in right in the middle of or walking distance to the best nightlife and dining in the city.
    
    Another example, in Paris, taking a vacation apartment in Marais (or the Latin Quarter) will save you tons over a standard hotel, put you right in the middle of "everything" and provide you with a kitchen and excellent grocers steps away from your door. A similar approach works in most large, expensive European cities.

Hope that helps.


All the best.

[tony20009]

Forgot something: do the "posh" stuff when you are traveling with other folks. Do the "anti-posh" stuff when you are alone. Take advantage of off seasons or the "cusps" of seasons.

For example, if you like skiing, now's a great time to go to Argentina and stay for a week. Go to Gstaad or Vail for a weekend in the winter, but otherwise, do your skiing in the Summer. This is an especially good tactic if you don't demand, say, the world's most challenging black trails or off-piste skiing, and the places you can go have favorable exchange rates.

The other thing I forgot: learn new languages. You only have to be good enough to have simple chit chats. That will allow you to do things off the "tourist" trail, and what's not on that trail is very often sensibly priced.

All the best.

[ipso_facto]

Originally Posted by tony20009

I have a few tricks for at least keeping the price down, and in some cases for getting cheaper tickets ...

All the best.

You, sir : a veritable mine of information !

[P1]

Define "cheap"...

[Taskmaster]

Cheap is relative, but WoW Tony, WOW. I love the advice I've been given by everyone, but that was just amazing!

[808@702]

Fly in the wheel well of your jet like that kid did from San Jose to Honolulu...

[tony20009]

Originally Posted by TheAxiom

Cheap is relative, but WoW Tony, WOW. I love the advice I've been given by everyone, but that was just amazing!

TY. I hope you find something in there helpful.

All the best, and have fun and safe trips.

[tony20009]

Originally Posted by TheAxiom

Cheap is relative, but WoW Tony, WOW. I love the advice I've been given by everyone, but that was just amazing!

BTW, this is about what you can expect for a typical $15-$30/night Chinese/Southeast Asia hotel room.



You can find them on sites like this one for Bangkok, which is where the room above is: http://ajaxsearch.partners.agoda.com...k=635739379784 .

To give you an idea of just how far your money can go when you avail yourself of exchange rates.....This is what the suites I and my expat team members stay in most often in Shenzhen, PRC (Oriental Ginza). The view is from the 21st floor and the mountains in the background are Hong Kong. The rack rate for this room is I guess ~$110/night for what they call an Executive Suite with a bay view. (We stay in the hotel regularly for business, so we have a negotiated rate that includes things like breakfast and dinner, dry cleaning, and so on.)



Here are some lobby pics.

Breakfast buffet offered every morning. Trust me, you've never seen as many different types of food any typical Western posh hotel buffet. They offer both typical Western and Asian breakfast fare.



Lobby area for receiving one's visitors.



The hotel gym



The hotel pool



The VIP Lounge



The hotel also has a bar, hair salon and spa. The hair salon is very good, but very pricey, costing about the same as a Hair Cuttery. I get my hair cut at a neighborhood place for $7, and even that's considered "a little high" by Chinese standards. No matter what you pay for a haircut, you'll also get a head/temple and shoulders massage, along with an really excellent shampoo, cut and blow dry.

Now what I've pictured above is in the PRC. You can expect about the same sorts of pricing and accommodations in most parts of Southern Asia provided you stick with local places. Shenzhen also has places like the Ritz Carlton and they are priced exactly as you'd expect them to be anywhere. They are not any more plush than are the equivalent Chinese (or other "native") brands of hotel such as the ones I've pictured above.

Tokyo and other large Japanese cities are a different matter when it comes to wanting typical Western luxury and not wanting to pay typical Western prices for it. In Tokyo, I stay at the New Otani. I once got to the hotel and ordered room service because I was too tired to go out for dinner.

I ordered a chicken salad sandwich and cream of corn soup. It was in fact the tastiest chicken salad sandwich I've ever had before or since. No kidding, and until then I didn't really think chicken salad could actually be all that different no matter what one does. I was wrong. The crust was removed, it had grapes and uber thin slices of cucumber, and the sandwich was quartered. The soup too was sublime, as sublime as cream of corn can be. The price: $77! I kid you not!

On another occasion, I went to the McDonald's right outside of my hotel. Quarter pounder with cheese, fries, dessert, and a drink: $20! I have since then (2006) never been to a Mickey D's or ordered room service in Tokyo.

All the best.

[MiddleAgedAl]

Originally Posted by FL335

You're a statistical anomaly...

J/K but they fly out of Sanford, FL and random places on specific days into short runway, out of the way airport...not Delta into DFW or ATL.

Roll that dice, baby!

I good buddy of mine has been working an aircraft maintenance for over 20 years. Worked for a variety of airlines. He's at the point now where he's the guy who signs off on the sheet to say that this particular 737 is good to go. He takes that responsibility very seriously.

He will NOT fly Allegiant under any circumstances. Too many scary insider stories. He and others are familiar with their cost cutting ways in the maintenance cycle, and the fact they buy planes from other carriers who have deemed the planes to be "used up" and at the end of their duty cycle.

Bimmette, just because you have flown on them with no issue so far, is not an indicator of anything. I bet the last few thousand car trips you've taken, you haven't crashed into anything hard enough where you needed your seatbelt. You probably could have not worn your seatbelt for all those trips with no problem. Does that mean, based on that pattern, that you will not wear your seatbelt from today onwards?

Allegiant is cheaper, you get what you pay for. You think they can afford to sell you a cheaper ticket because the executives are all happy to get paid way less, or because they have found "shortcuts" on an operational level? Something to consider. Dead serious here.

[tony20009]

Originally Posted by MiddleAgedAl

I good buddy of mine has been working an aircraft maintenance for over 20 years. Worked for a variety of airlines. He's at the point now where he's the guy who signs off on the sheet to say that this particular 737 is good to go. He takes that responsibility very seriously.

He will NOT fly Allegiant under any circumstances. Too many scary insider stories. He and others are familiar with their cost cutting ways in the maintenance cycle, and the fact they buy planes from other carriers who have deemed the planes to be "used up" and at the end of their duty cycle.

Bimmette, just because you have flown on them with no issue so far, is not an indicator of anything. I bet the last few thousand car trips you've taken, you haven't crashed into anything hard enough where you needed your seatbelt. You probably could have not worn your seatbelt for all those trips with no problem. Does that mean, based on that pattern, that you will not wear your seatbelt from today onwards?

Allegiant is cheaper, you get what you pay for. You think they can afford to sell you a cheaper ticket because the executives are all happy to get paid way less, or because they have found "shortcuts" on an operational level? Something to consider. Dead serious here.

I have to be honest, I read a lot of stuff and hear a lot of stuff and sometimes the info that makes it my way is accurate, specific, complete and well reasoned. More often, however, it's "knee jerk" in nature, which is to say it overvalues the importance of one or several events observed by the speaker. I don't know where your friend's observations fall on that spectrum and I don't have any interest in whether your/his conclusions re: Allegiant are rational or not. I would just ask the following:

• Do your friend's stories echo the concerns stated here: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/21/bu...ards.html?_r=0 ?
• Does your friend also share the "other side" of the story also presented in that article?

Some other metrics and observations (The same issues appear in multiple reports, but tiny bits of "new informaion" appears in each article):

• Allegiant Specific:
  • (FAA) Aviation Maintenance Technician (AMT) Diamond Award of Excellence: 2009 and August 2010
  • http://www.smh.com.au/business/aviat...28-gimmlh.html
  • http://finance.yahoo.com/news/allegi...--finance.html
  • http://www.webcitation.org/5kx0m0EWB
  • Specific incidents are noted, but not the full details of each: http://www.tampabay.com/news/busines...-labor/2226301
• Maintenance issues:
  • Union Driven/Related:
    • http://www.prnewswire.com/news-relea...300097057.html
    • http://consumerist.com/2015/01/26/me...tenance-fraud/
  • Observed:
    • Quantas: http://www.rb-29.net/html/03relateds.../17.qantas.htm
    • Southwest:
      • http://www.prnewswire.com/news-relea...300097057.html
      • http://consumerist.com/2015/04/01/fa...ed-violations/
      • http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/02/sou...ref=rss_latest
• General Safety info everyone who flies should know:
  • http://thetravelinsider.info/2003/0314.htm
  • Correlation between maintenance and profits: http://aviationweek.com/awin/airline...ve-maintenance
• General and unrelated to Allegiant:
  • http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...-airlines.html
• Unrelated to Allegiant but interesting:
  • http://commons.erau.edu/cgi/viewcont...5&context=aqrr
  • http://commons.erau.edu/aqrr/25/
  • Reservation systems: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/...0aa_story.html

The vast majority of my airline travel (I fly a few hundred thousand miles a year) is for business and when I choose commercial flights, the thing that determines what airline I take is departure and arrival times. I really don't regularly have the kind of temporal flexibility needed to get choosey about which airline I fly on any given trip. What I have is a place I need to be within the next 24 hours. I have airline personal preferences, but I can't consistently let most them drive what flights/airlines I book.

I suspect that most travelers, and especially those seeking budget prices, face similar constraints as I do. I suspect too that they manage them much as I do, taking the flight that best fits their other requirements (price, schedule, etc.). It's one thing to know of an airline's "issues," but it's another thing altogether to often and consistently be positioned to act in accordance with what concerns one re: those "issues."

All the best.

[Lalit@autocouture]

www.skiplagged.com

[Sara]

Sugar Momma.