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| Our Motto: Travel Frugally, Travel Wisely, Travel Often.... Frugal Traveling – finding those bargain flights For the retired person on a tight budget who is able to and loves to travel, finding cheap airline seats is still a possibility. Your computer and the internet are the best tools to help you track down those cheap flights. Buy Direct – Although websites such as www.expedia.ca and www.travelocity.ca offer flights and vacation packages, we have often found that navigating directly to an airline’s webpage gave us lower fares. Many airlines guarantee the lowest airfare on their websites if you book online. Likewise, hotels will match published rates if you call direct. On a recent trip to Vancouver, the hotel we contacted actually matched the lowest rate we found on the web plus upgraded us to a better room. Use Expedia or Travelocity to find the flight – then go to the airline’s website to find the best price. Do the same with hotels. One seat at a time – As long as you do not mind not sitting next to a spouse or friend, buying one seat at a time can save you money. Our experience has shown that when we searched online for two, three or four seats for our family and then repeated the request for individual seats, we found lower fares. The explanation lies in the fact that airlines have a range of prices for seats on any given flight and their “inventory software” closes out the cheap seats based on demand and empty seats left. By asking for single seats, you can often get the cheapest ones. We also have found that unfortunately, our seat selection was changed by the airline anyhow, even when paying “full fare” and our family had to travel sitting apart anyway. So, opt for the cheapest fare. Fly to and from alternative airports – Many travelers know that flying into and/or out of small regional airports can mean big savings: London’s Gatwick rather than Heathrow; Venice’s Treviso rather than Marco Polo, New York’s Newark rather than La Guardia. Depending on how far away from your destination the alternative airport is located, major savings can be had. There are many discount airlines in Europe which provide cheaper fares by flying into smaller, more distant airports. Most of these airports have shuttle buses or transportation of some kind to get you into the city centre. Use Google Maps or the airline’s website to pinpoint the airport location and find out about transportation. Our $40 flight from Pisa to Barcelona actually flew into Girona, 85 km from Barcelona. Thank goodness, the bus service was cheap and fast into the city. The savings realized by flying into the alternative airport instead of the “main” airport can be 40 % or more. We often have planned our itinerary in Europe by plotting a route based on the destinations of the discount airlines. Visit www.whichbudget.com or www.kayak.com to see the many possible connections and the airlines that serve them.
Flexibility – Being flexible (physically speaking) at our age
is more of a miracle than reality. However, as retirees we do have the luxury of
being flexible in picking our traveling dates. Many airline websites and travel
sites, such as
www.expedia.ca and
www.travelocity.ca as well as
www.kayak.com , allow you to enter “flexible” dates, and post a calendar
showing the range of prices for different dates. For example, the difference in
the price of flights from London Heathrow to Paris Charles de Gaulle can be
considerable depending on which day of the week and at what time of the day you
travel. The cheapest flights are often on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and during
early morning or late night flights. Even opting for flights at more reasonable
hours may not offer the cheapest seats but can still mean major savings over
flying during “peak demand” hours. |
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Send email to
erich@berndtcanada.com with questions or comments about this web site.
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