Find an alternative to a hotel room

by Tom Johansmeyer on

You can find a warm bed … and four normal walls … in just about any hotel room. So, if you’re looking to defy convention every step of the way, opt for a yurt, treehouse or prison, instead.

Unusual Hotels of the World (the name explains everything) says that you can crash in an igloo anywhere from Finland to Quebec, but be sure to bring a coat. Or, you can climb into bed after climbing into a treehouse. Out ‘n’ About Treesort in Cave Junction, OR and Winvian (near Litchfield, CT) are on the list.

Closed spaces are accommodated by any number of cave hotels. You can spelunk to the lounge in Turkey and Spain, or you can just go to Parthenon, AR, where the Beckham Creek Cave Haven can be found.

[Via Toronto Sun via Associated Press]

[Photo by Bill Janis]

10 New Years travel resolutions you won’t want to miss

by Scott Carmichael on

The year is almost over, so after looking back at some of the best and worst the year had to offer, it is now time to look forward at the new year.

I’ve collected ten ways that can help you make the best of your trips, and may even help you collect some extra miles on the way there.

Re-evaluate your airline and hotel loyalty

I have some bad news for you – your airline or hotel of choice does not consider you to be a good friend. Despite your years of loyalty, they really don’t care who you are. Unless you are in the top 1% of their frequent guests, it may be time to evaluate the other companies.

Many people consider themselves loyal to one airline or hotel chain, often in exchange for some basic perks from their frequent guest program. I’ve come across people at the airport with a mid-tier loyalty card, who somehow thought that they were very important to the airline. Fact of the matter is, unless you spend a considerable amount of money on first class tickets or hotel suites, they will never ever care who you are.

With this in mind, it always makes sense to check out the grass at the other terminal. Research the airline or hotel chain on one of the many frequent traveler chat boards, investigate their perks, and check out ticket sites for the price of tickets or rooms you usually purchase. You won’t always find a better option, but at least you can travel knowing you are getting some decent value for your money.

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Travel lighter

Before you embark on your next trip, take the time to go through your bags and dump anything you should not be carrying. You’d be surprised how many old hotel room keys and crumpled boarding passes you’ll find at the bottom of a well traveled bag.

Take the time to go over your high-tech equipment, and consider investing in lighter solutions like the Chargepod charger, or even a shiny new Netbook. The investment will pay off in the long run, and your back will thank you for it.

If you need a new laptop bag, get yourself a TSA friendly one, it may only save 30 seconds at the checkpoint, but you will no longer have to remove your laptop every time arrive at the airport.

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Go for a status match (if you have any status)

The status match is the undocumented trick airlines use to help you switch your loyalty to them. If you have status with one airline, you can usually have a competing airline match that status in their own frequent flier program. There are couple of exceptions though.

Airlines usually decline status matches to fellow airlines in the same alliance. For example; United Airlines won’t match BMI since they both participate in the Star Alliance, exceptions are sometimes made if you can convince the airline you only fly routes that don’t overlap.

To get a status match, simply call the customer service line of the airline you’d like to try, and they’ll usually provide you with the information you need to have them process the match.

The advantage of a status match is that you can switch airlines, without losing any of the perks you got at your previous airline. The status match often comes with some fine print. Some will only grant the new status for 6 months, and others may “challenge” you and ask you to prove your loyalty by flying them a couple of times before they hand over a shiny new gold card. One final warning; the status match is almost always a one-time thing, so don’t ask for a match until you really need it.

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Plan your summer destinations now

Feeling cold? Why not sit down and find your next summer vacation destination. This is especially important if you plan to cash in some miles to fly. The sooner you book, the greater the chance you’ll actually be able to finally spend some of those hard earned miles.

Don’t always worry about paying for a ticket now, some airlines now offer best price guarantees and will refund any drops in price between now and your departure date. Just be sure to check with your booking site for the terms of the ticket you are paying for before you click “buy”.

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Update all your mileage accounts

If you don’t care who you fly, then chances are you have 5 or 6 different mileage accounts. Each account probably has a few thousand miles. Go over each account, and check whether your miles are at risk of expiring. Make sure your email and address information is up to date, and make any changes necessary.

Some airlines have very low redemption levels for certain non-flight perks. Your small collection of miles might be enough for a newspaper or magazine subscription, or you could simply donate the miles to one of the many charities often involved with the airline. If you do find an account with miles that are about to expire, find a way to add some miles to the account through a shopping portal. These small transactions are usually enough to keep your mileage account alive for another couple of years.

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Educate yourself on the TSA rules and regulations

Last week I wrote about some of the silliest things the TSA did in 2008. Not everything that goes wrong at the security checkpoint can be blamed on the TSA agents. Plenty of travelers still arrive at the checkpoint horribly unprepared.

If you are not a frequent flier, check out the TSA web site, and educate yourself on the current rules and regulations. You’d be amazed how many people arrive at the airport without a valid ID, and with a bag full of oversized bottles of toiletries.

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Get yourself a mileage earning credit card

If you are going to spend money, then why not spend it and earn something back at the same time? Credit may have tightened up a bit, but there are still plenty of great ways out there to earn a nice signup bonus and earn more miles when you use your card.

A decent list of all current mileage earning cards can be found here, but often it simply pays to call your bank and see what they have to offer. Citi, Chase, Captial One and American Express all offer their own brand of mileage (or point) earning cards.

Sadly, the best deals often come in the mail, so next time you see one of those horrible pre-approved envelopes, don’t immediately throw it away. Before signing up for a card, be sure to check out the yearly membership fees and whether the bank is willing to offer a nice 0% APR deal.

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Check for missing mileage credits

If you travel more than a few times a year, then it may be worth sitting down behind your computer and checking for any missing flight segments in your mileage account. You’ll need to have your boarding passes and a list of when you flew.

You’d be surprised how often an airline miscalculates your mileage, or completely “forgets” to credit you for a flight you took. This is especially if your original flight was canceled or rerouted as your frequent flier number may have dropped off the new reservation. To compare what you should have earned, with what you actually got, you’ll want to use a mileage tool like WebFlyer’s MileMarker.

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Start writing about your trips

If you are lucky enough to fly more than a few times a year to fun destinations, then consider documenting your trips. Even if nobody reads it, you’ll create a permanent record of what you did.

Also, don’t just shoot 100’s of photos that grow old on your computer. Upload them to one of the digital photo hosting sites, many of which are free to use. I’m a big fan of Smugmug myself, but with so many different sites, there is bound to be one out there that fits your needs.

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Be prepared for when things go wrong

How many of you have the most up to date phone numbers for your airline or hotel chain stored in your phone?

Do you know who to call if you suddenly find yourself stuck at the wrong airport and have to fight with 200 others for 50 hotel rooms? In just 10 minutes, you’ll be able to add all the important airline and hotel reservation numbers to your phone. Also, take the time to print out the numbers in case your phone arrives at your destination with a dead battery.

If you have the right equipment at home, make a copy and/or scan of your passport and drivers license and try to dig up the phone numbers of all your credit card companies. If disaster strikes and your wallet goes missing, you’ll thank yourself for being prepared.

So there you have it, ten simple things that could make your upcoming year of travel a tad easier to deal with. Of course, as with all new years resolutions, don’t feel too gloomy if you only make it till the third week of the new year!

How to Travel the World: website with the nuts and bolts

by Jamie Rhein on

Although the focus of the website How to Travel the World is to help folks plan for long term travel, also known as a gap year trip, the information is useful for anyone. Whether you’re a person who is going to travel for a few days or months–years even, browsing the site is a place to start planning.

Various links provide info on everything you need to consider from how much money to budget to tips on what to pack.

Before you buy a plane ticket, the budget page can help you decide where to go on a trip in order to match your cash flow. Thailand is cheap. Australia is expensive.

Buying a plane ticket and packing are obvious details. The site also includes those items that you might forget to consider before leaving home, particularly if you’re going to be gone for a long time. The page “Pre-Trip Planning” offers a handy list that ranges from bank accounts to wills.

Anyone who has traveled for an extended period of time knows about the almost certain let down that happens once a trip is over. Reading the section “Coming Home” is one way to ease the transition. Personally, I think it’s helpful to know these details before heading out on a trip in order to be prepared ahead of time.

Another helpful page is the F.A.Q where readers submit questions and receive answers. Any travel jitters you might be having could be calmed by browsing through this one.

The How to Travel the World is written by folks who are long term travelers and edited by Matthew Kepnes who also writes the Nomadic Matt Travel Site.

10 tips for making a trip more affordable

by Jamie Rhein on

I read about a couple who bought a sailboat when common sense might have told them not to in this New York Times article awhile ago. Their kids were heading to college, and the economy had begun its rapid trip south. According to the couple, they have no regrets about the boat purchase.

The experiences they’ve had with their kids and friends on the boat have added to their good memories bank. Okay, sure they must have been rolling in dough to start off with, but they do have a point. As the author Rob Lieber pointed out, one doesn’t have to buy a boat to experience the benefits of a splurge.

I’m not advocating splurging at every turn in life, but sometimes acting solely on common sense can make life feel tight and without pleasure. In my mind, a splurge worth making involves travel because of the memories one gathers in the process.

One of the great things about travel is that there are so many aspects of the splurge where costs can be controlled. Making memories may not cost as much as you think if you plan right and alter your thinking about what a trip should look like.

Here are some ideas I’ve thought of to help balance out worthwhile travel with a budget in mind. I’ve used them on several occassions.

1. All meals don’t have to be worth writing home about. Head to a place that has good food, but nothing fancy–a place where locals on a budget might eat. Eateries like these tend to have the best stories anyway. Consider the places you’ve eaten a real find.

2. If you’re eating at a pricier place for the experience, browse the menu for the least expensive option and that’s what you will order. Or order the appetizer that sounds the most filling and buy the cheapest glass of wine to go with it. It will feel special and you can buy something cheaper later to fill you up.

3. Another way to afford more expensive food is to plan for the meal to be the main event for that day and pair it with a cheaper activity like a free walk in a park or an inexpensive museum. Many museums have free admission days. Find out when.

4.. On the day you spend more money at a museum, head to a cheaper restaurant, or buy fixings for a picnic lunch in a park. Mix it up. Have an expensive day followed by a cheaper one.

5. Sure it’s wonderful to sleep in luxury, but if you’re on vacation in an exciting place, think about how little time you’ll spend in the hotel. Two years ago when we went to Ft. Lauderdale, we stayed at a 1960s style bungalow two blocks from the beach at a substantial savings. We had access to the same beach as the people in the pricey rooms in beach front property. Also, we had a wonderful time talking with the proprietor who came to Ft. Lauderdale to open a motel to make his dreams come true. Much more interesting than a corporate style place with fluffy pillows and an overly priced mini bar that we wouldn’t use anyway.

6. Stay in a place that has free breakfast. Don’t eat that hardboiled egg or fruit for breakfast, but take it along with you for lunch.

7. Think about adjusting the time you spend in an expensive location. Instead of a five-day vacation, pair it down a day. One night less cuts down on the cost. Plus, if you plan out your trip according to the things you most want to see, you’ll leave feeling full and not like you didn’t have enough of a travel meal. Isn’t it better to eat something than nothing at all?

8. Also, think about the places where you have family and friends and combine a vacation with a visit. We’re fortunate to have friends in several places so we pair visits with them with exploring those sites we haven’t seen before. The extra time with our friends is always time worth spent and makes our destinations all that more sweet and memorable. Plus, the people who live in a place know its heartbeat much more than a guidebook does.

9. Decide how much money you’ll spend on souvenirs before you go. An item you buy on the road is part of memory making but you don’t have to go nuts about it. In this case, you’ll be doing as I say and not as I do. Our house looks like a store run by Unicef. You could buy stuff out of our house and I wouldn’t notice.

10. If you have children, make their souvenirs part of this budget. On a trip to Disney World, each of my kids could only spend $15 tops. That cut out a lot of options and arguments. My daughter didn’t buy anything, and my son bought a small stuffed animal which cost $12. The limit helped us corral him through the gift shops at the end of each ride.

No matter what the economy is up to, with planning and adjustments in expectations, travel still remains one of the best deals around. I’ve never regretted it–there are some souvenirs I’ve regretted, but never the trip. The memories I’ve collected are priceless.

The art of reticketing flights

by Grant Martin on

One of the world’s great mysteries is when exactly the best time is to buy airplane tickets. You want to wait just long enough so that the price hits its lowest point — but you can’t wait too long, or else it’ll skyrocket again. Is it four weeks out? Four months?

You can never know. Even with the help of tools like Farecast, Kayak and Farecompare, there is always the risk that two days after you purchase your family trip to Europe, the price of your itinerary is going to plummet.

What most people don’t know, however, is that many tickets can be repriced. In the same way that you can take a television back to Best Buy if you find out it went on sale the day after and get the difference, you can also exchange tickets weeks after you book them.

Airlines, of course, are a little more criminal stingy about the process. Almost all of them charge a rebooking fee that can vary between $50 – $150 dollars. But on a high priced ticket, that can be a fraction of a price fluctuation.

The key is to keep an eye on your ticket price, even after you purchase it. If you see your exact same itinerary drop significantly in cost, call the airline up and ask to refare or rebook the ticket. They’ll dig around to see if it’s worth your time after levying the rebook fee and if you’re lucky, they’ll issue a voucher for the difference in price.

Just last week, for example, I noticed that a huge fare sale to Salt Lake City affected the ticket price for a future itinerary that I have into Reno. Calling up Delta Airlines, I got them to issue me a $54 e-cert for use in future travel. Sure, it’s not cash in hand, but I can definitely use the voucher.

What this stragety is particularly good for is repricing business travel. Many travel agents will blindly book a ticket on a preferred airline at high cost. When you, the passenger, check back in and reprice the ticket later, however, the reward is yours.