When to use and avoid Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia

by Grant Martin on

Online travel agents like Orbitz, Priceline, Travelocity and Expedia are handy, touchy-feely tools that many Internet users find useful when booking hotel and airline reservations. It’s important to keep in mind, though, that these tools are travel agents, and just like the travel agent down at the local strip mall, they take a commission from any booking you make. Conversely, since airlines control inventory, they should have the best idea of what prices and volumes they have and 99% of the time will offer the best price. Most airlines even have best price guarantees to promote this.

There are, however, instances in which an online travel agent are useful. In addition to the easy-to-use interfaces, areas in which the TA might help are if they were to:

  • Have negotiated a discount (ie, corporate or consolidator) with the airline. In this case you need to pay particular attention to the fare class that you’re booked in; many consolidator tickets, for example, some from airfare.com or your local Chinatown TA don’t qualify for frequent flyer miles.
  • Combine a series of tickets into one itinerary. For example, last April when I was trying to find a cheap ticket to Buenos Aires I checked all of the canonical search engines and could only find tickets for 1100$. Orbitz, however came up with a price that was 300$ cheaper. Why? Because they found a fare sale between Washington DC and Argentina on Delta and nested it into a regular Northwest DTW-WAS 100$ flight. Result? Net savings of three hundred bucks. Typically, standard airlines wont search and book outside of their service, so their websites can’t do this.

If you’re really comfortable with the Expedia or Travelocity interface (I know, some of the airline websites are kind of lame), try using them to do your basic fare searching. If you find a standard ticket from point A to B on one airline, bite the bullet, go to that airline’s website and book the ticket there. It should save you a few bucks in the end.

10 tips for smarter flying


Will Zipcar be your ride of choice?

by Jerry Guo on

Though Zipcar–the largest car-sharing service in the US–boasts 180,000 members and 5,000 cars in more than 50 cities across the states, Europe, and Canada, chances are you still haven’t heard of them.

In late October of last year, Zipcar merged with the other dominant car-share company, Flexcar, which makes the new company the de facto service for people who need a car for the occasional errand. It’s become quite a hit here in New Haven, CT. Even lots of my friends at Yale are paying the couple hundred in annual membership fees to be able to check out a car for a day.

For many, it’s an excellent deal. You can rent by the hour ($8.50 in New Haven) or by the day ($65). And best of all, gas, insurance, and parking are all free. But it’s not for me. If you drive long distances, like I do to Pittsburgh, then you’re better off just getting a rental, especially since each mile above 180 is $0.35.

But if you need it for a couple hours every weekend or so, this might save you a ton of cash.

Cody Cowboy Village in Cody, Wyoming: a family friendly place

by Jamie Rhein on

Cody Cowboy Village’s name grabbed me when I was reading over Trip Advisors’ Best of 2008. It’s number 7 on the Best Bargains list. We head through Wyoming by car almost every year, and as timing has it, we usually stay for the night in a hotel somewhere in this state so we aren’t totally road weary by the time we reach Montana.

Cody Cowboy Village looks like a good road trip stop for more than a couple of days. One thing that attracts me is the log cabin style rooms that are grouped into a setting conducive to feeling like you are part of a place. The decor captures the ambiance of staying in the West–much more interesting than another chain hotel that looks like all the others, no matter the location. According to the Web site there’s a large swimming pool which is an item we list as our must haves after hours of driving. Staying in a hotel with a pool is one of the carrots we dangle to our son so that he gets the idea that road trips are fun.

Cody, Wyoming is worth a stop for a few reasons. A big one is the Buffalo Bill Historical Center that pays tribute to Buffalo Bill Cody, one of the American West’s iconic cowboys. In this museum center there are other museums that highlight the Plains Indians, Western art and natural history. Check out the center’s calendar for special events throughout the year. Cody is also only 50 miles away from the east entrance of Yellowstone National Park and has a rodeo every night in the summer. Rafting trips and fishing are two more area offerings.

Best Rate Guarantees could get you a free hotel room

by Grant Martin on

With fierce competition in the travel market, websites are increasingly turning to gimmicks, tricks and guarantees to hook surfers into booking with them. Most frequent these days is the low price guarantee, where a particular airline or hotel chain will guarantee that their prices are the lowest — and if you find a lower fare they’ll either refund you the price of the booking or give you some sort of voucher.

In the case of most airlines, this is particularly useful because they control the supply and pricing of the tickets; therefore, obviously, their website has the lowest price. But the hotel industry hasn’t come as far. Their innumerable combinations of hotel rooms, rates, locations and discounts often create loopholes which one website will often miss in comparison to another.

So if you can find this lower fare and a third party website that guarantees that they have the “lowest prices”, you can book the cheaper fare, cry foul to that website and essentially get that room for free.

What sort of website would do that? Triprewards, for one has a best rate guarantee, and I’m told they’re quite disciplined about reading and responding to claims.

And how do find the cheapest rates out on the market? Well, I’d start at the Best Rate Guarantee blog, where a generous member of the travel community has an ongoing list of BRG valid deals. Make sure you read his introductory posts that tell you exactly how and when to book your hotel rooms, and you’ll be on your way to free rooms in no time!

What to do with used guidebooks?

by Iva Skoch on

I have about a thousand guidebooks. That is a slight exaggeration, but I do have a lot of guidebooks. While I would love to keep them all–in case I ever go back to destination X and reuse them– but it is probably not a smart thing to do.

I tried to use my 2003 Costa Rica Lonely Planet guidebook during my second trip last year and let me tell you, it did not work. Most of the recommended restaurants, hotels and business were no longer there. While the important stuff – like national parks and such — remained unchanged, you might as well just go completely without a guidebook at that point.

What do you guys do with older, used guidebooks? I have sold a few on ebay, but I am thinking there might be a better place to sell old guidebooks and buy new ones. Anyone?