My credit card gives me “points” which translate to “statement credit” (ie, they strike the charge off your statement) on travel purchases . I earn the points per dollar spent, except that when I purchase travel on my credit card (such as my subway farecard, which I buy every month) it gives me double points on those purchases.
Since I never carry a balance, the $315 credit I put towards my last vacation was something for nothing.
Interesting thread.
I grew up in a Car Family, and perhaps because of this, it hardly ever occurs to me that I might fly somewhere for a vacation. I think I absorbed the idea that flying is just what rich people do. Almost all of the places I’ve ever been on vacation have been reached by car (though, with a few, it’s taken more than a full day’s drive to get there).
Like everybody else, that number sounds really, really off to me for a “cheapest possible flight.” I just spent almost a year dating a guy in Baltimore, and my flights between MKE and BWI were always about $170, round-trip, including all the fees and taxes (but not counting any upgrades I added on later). Flying on odd days and times helps (e.g., go Thursday night instead of Friday morning). Being flexible with your dates helps. Taking nonrefundable tickets is pretty much necessary.
even sven’s suggestion of kayak is probably your best bet for really researching and comparing fares. If you want to stick with just one booking engine instead of a metasearch, I’d personally recommend Travelocity; however, I don’t know that they’ll be as good for your airport as for mine.
Well, it depends on the distance. For shorter trips, trains are definitely quite reasonable. But when you start planning cross-country trips, IME trains are not only much slower but much more expensive. Albany to D.C. might be short enough that it falls under the “reasonably priced” heading, though, and it might fall along the heavily trafficked eastern Amtrak corridor.
The 2011 reimbursement rate is $0.51/mile.
I’ve driven (well, ridden) from Baltimore to Rochester. Albany to D.C. would be fairly similar–it would be about a seven-hour drive, but that’s really not bad at all, especially if you’ve taken long car trips before. Just bring lots of music, snacks, etc. and your only immediate cost is the gas. Sure, it will put more wear and tear on your car, but that’s what a car is for.
Yes, and I was just adding that it’s fairly common practice, but the names of the tiers can be different depending on the airline (like Porter in Canada calls them “Freedom”, “Flexible” and “Firm”).
Generally, the most affordable fares are the ones that lock you in, with the least flexibility.
I Priceline like a motherfuck.
If you’re not a risk-taker like I am, Priceline, Orbitz and any other travel site offers bundled hotel and airfare packages that don’t rely on bidding on the unknown. Last year I Pricelined my way (no bidding) into three night stay in Los Angeles with roundtrip airfare and a rental car at Christmastime for something like $450. And I procrastinated. Using travel sites to combine vacation packages will help you save a lot of money.
No kidding! Trains are great for a short hop. Say Toronto to Ottawa or Montreal (which would be a 5ish hour drive). But cross country? Not at all practical for the cost. Let’s say I take a week off work and I want to go to Vancouver. I’m starting in Toronto.
Flying, I could leave on Friday night after work and come back on a Sunday. It’s a five hour flight each way. Cost: $1,200 round trip. That gives met a week in Vancouver.
The train takes 3 days and 10 hours each way. Cost: $1,060 round trip. That gives me one day in Vancouver, the rest is in the train. Whee, fun holiday. Saved me a whole $140.
For a lot places, this.
For a lot of other places, you’re not so much paying for the destination as you’re paying for the luxury of not spending two entire days trapped in a car and arriving both at your destination and at home exhausted, cranky, and full of leg cramps.
A lot of great information here already, but I didn’t see it explicitly stated, but we usually choose our destination based on the cheapest tickets we can find. And plan the vacation from there. For instance, we found that for some reason tickets into Dublin were really cheap and two weeks later out of Italy (Venice) was really cheap so we just need to get between the two and there is our vacation. We were initially looking at London being the destination and round trip in and out of there is $1400, but out tickets plus two one ways from Dublin to London to Venice come out to $950.
That is to say that being as flexible as possible is our best way to find deals. Kayak.com and +/-3 day searches with nearby airports are your best friends! Also, we are all about the museums and the restaurants and hotel/apartment/B&B are always the cheapest we can find in a good location. We rarely eat in a true restaurant and never buy food that isn’t worth it. Farmers markets and grocery stores are an experience all on their own! And this is also true with going to Nebraska and Texas and Florida!
To state the obvious, flexibility is key to making this work for you. I do a combination of everything stated.
Charge everything possible to a credit card that gives frequent flier miles and then pay it off each month. I have a job that requires business travel and you can bet I go out of my way to book flights on airlines that count to get the real miles of the actual trip, plus the miles from the money spent on buying the tickets and all associated expenses of that trip. This results in my airfare being free approximately every other year.
Use the travel sites suggested to find a great deal and book the tickets well in advance. This makes paying for the trip less painful because you pay airfare now and the actual trip months later when you take it. I often book six months ahead. I also use the price of the airfare to dictate the time I will fly, often how long I plan to stay, and sometimes the destination as well.
Once the airline has been booked, THEN book the hotels, and see what you can start doing to save on the trip. Is there public transportation you can use at the destination that doesn’t require a car, particularly if you pick certain hotels? Are there certain hotels with kitchenettes that allow you to prepare food rather than eat out all meals? That can make a huge difference.
Once you know all that, start to figure out the types of things you want to do and budget for those. While it’s fun to be spontaneous, I also like to do lots of things in the same area of a city on the same day, and given that I have limited days and money, I pick them carefully. Some museums are free on certain days of the week. All things being equal, go to those museums on those days. AAA has free guides for most every city if you have a membership or know someone who does.
I have the reverse problem. I start with the fixed cost of the airfare once I book it, and then figure out how ‘nice’ the rest of the vacation can be based on what I’ve already spent for that rather than the way you are doing it.
You seem to be getting a lot of advice on shopping for rates already.
Sounds like you should increase your vacation budget a little, too.
When my check hits the credit union, the credit union skims some off the top for me- some goes to a vacation fund, some to a Christmas fund, some goes to other accounts. Maybe skimming some spare change off of your paychecks will make the airfare feel less budget-busting.
Note that Southwest has this fucked up system where you say you want a round trip from X to Y and you pick an outgoing flight at one price and a return flight at a second price and they add them together. So the first number you see is only half the cost.
This really fucked with my head just a few minutes ago. I am pretty annoyed.
Another thing you could try is saving coins. I know a lot of people this has worked for. Get a big jar, preferably one you can’t see through, and every day when you come home, empty your change into it. Yeah, the first couple of weeks will be an adjustment, but you’ll find after that you just don’t notice it much. That money adds up much quicker than you might imagine.
When you get ready to book a vacation, spend an afternoon, rolling/counting your coin, let that determine how much you’ll spend on airfare. Shop for a great deal, with the tips you’ve been given here. It’s a small thing but could be just what you’re looking for.
I’ve done this myself and it worked very well, with two people doing it you should be able to hit 1000 a year, no worries, just a guess! (Once they introduce coins, it puts an end to this, in most countries.)
When we bought our Corolla, we made sure that it would be a good highway car, and we have used it for thousands and thousands of miles now. Some people like car trips, and some people don’t - we like them. I find it relaxing to just drive for hours, listening to good music and talking with my husband and looking at the scenery.
I agree that people can’t afford as much as it looks like they can afford from the outside - when you hear news stories about how overextended everyone is and how no one has savings, these are the people that those stories are talking about.
On the other hand, we take regular vacations now because of something a friend of mine said years ago - she said to not wait to live your life until you think you can afford it. We make room in our budget for a vacation.
I travel all over all of the time and the key is to shop around. Get signed up for every travel list you can (my favorite is Travel Zoo- sign up for their weekly top 20 list!), every airline’s mailing list, etc. Between Kayak and Travel Zoo, I usually don’t need much else for booking trips. This all takes a little leg work, but you will seriously save a TON of money.
For example, when I went to Peru in 2009, we checked a particular airline’s website several times a day, every day, for 2 weeks. We saw round trip airfare from LA to Lima fluctuate from $800-$1200. Then, one day, it dropped to about $500. Naturally, we pounced right on that. My entire trip (air, food, hotel, getting to Machu Picchu, all the junk I bought) was less than $1000 for the entire week.
Another example: even on the weekends, I don’t think I’ve ever paid more than $110 for a suite (and I do mean suite- I only do 4 star and above) in Vegas. Lately, it’s been much, much less (last place I stayed? Vdara- $70 a night).
Last round trip flight to New Orleans (from Vegas) was $150, I think. On a weekend. Last round trip to FL (from LA) was $130.
Shop around. You’ll be amazed- AMAZED- what you can find. Heck, right before the whole revolution thing :D, I was planning a trip to Egypt. 8 nights, air included, 5 star Nile cruise w/ all meals, a decent amount of tours (w/ guides), plus 2 nights at a 5 star hotel on land-- $1200. Naturally, there’d be extra costs for any other tours/excursions I wanted. . . but yeah, crazy cheap. Hopefully, I can make this trip next year!
Air fare is just part of (most of) the price of a holiday. We usually go for 1-3 weeks. Out last major trip was to Sudan and the airfare was about $1600 each (so $3200 for my wife and I). We tend to go to cheaper destinations and stay in 2 star hotels, so our costs on the ground are quite low… more than $50/nt is fancy for us. We also did not book a flight directly to Khartoum which would have been a lot more expensive, but instead got a cheap fare to Dubai and then a very cheap ($75) flight from Dubai to Khartoum.
The trip before that was to China, Japan and North Korea which had higher ground costs than normal mostly because the prices in North Korea are fixed and a pretty high amount.
We try to save 50-70% of our income and don’t own a car or a TV. We have very few things but enjoy spending our money on travel experiences.
The additional fees part isn’t true for Southwest. I fly fairly often and use SWA as much as possible for the very reason that if you need to change a ticket, any tier, there is no change fee. Ever. I’ve done it several times, and always buy the “wanna get away” tickets. If you need to cancel the flight, you don’t get a refund with the cheapest fare, but you can use the money for another flight for a year, with no additional charges. You can even use the money for someone else’s ticket, if you want.
I recently stumbled across this website, which I think is kind of neat. It shows where in the world you can fly to within a certain cost range. Some of the results are surprising, and it might be useful if you’re cheap and not super-comited to going somewhere specific on your vacation.
Are you flying out of a smaller regional airport where they’ve reduced service or a place where one carrier has all but a monopoly? Believe it or not, it was cheaper for me to fly Los Angeles to Boston for several years than it is for me to fly in and out of Detroit to pretty much anywhere. I’m currently using up my American miles to fly back home, but I’ve looked at the prices that different companies paid for my interview tickets and they are insane. I mean, I haven’t checked the prices lately, but Boston to BWI is less than $200 for me usually, and usually I can get it for less than $150…but that’s because it’s a Southwest leg.
The solution, if you’re up for it, is to bus it to the bigger city with the better airport and then fly in and out of there. It is a total PITA, though.
The second option is to do off-season travel. For instance, if you drive to a JetBlue route airport, you should be able to get fairly cheap tickets to Puerto Rico at the end of August or beginning of September. You’ll be at the very tail end of the “green season” so you should still get some price reduction in both flights and accomodations.
First: I’m cheap as hell. My job gives me an amount of free time comparable to a medical intern, only with somewhat less pay. I try as hard as possible to avoid spending what I do make, even to the point of volunteering to be DD more often than necessary because I can’t buy drinks when I drive and people buy them for me when I’m not. I save like a miser, and this is critical. I have a bunch of sub-$3 meals that I make for myself (baked potatoes with butter and salt are almost free!) and I never eat out except on social occasions. In my experience, peoples’ food budgets are one of the most flexible areas there are.
Second: I’m entirely willing to sponge on friends. On my last two trips (France and Ecuador) I managed to spend damn near nothing beyond airfare, by getting a free place to park a car near the airport, lots of free housing at friends’ and friends’-of-friends houses, and splitting transport costs with the friends I traveled with. There’s no shame in this, doubly so if you do the same for your friends when they come by where you are. Are you Couch Surfing? It’s free by design, although it might be less available if you’ve got kids.
Third: Look for cheap alternatives to the normal ways that people soak travelers: housing, food, travel, and admission to tourist attractions. Are you eating in restaurants when you’re traveling? Don’t; they’re way expensive. Are you staying in hotels? If you’re traveling in summer, don’t; campgrounds are much cheaper, especially in national parks, and you’re not traveling to experience hotels, right? Once again, this goes double when you’re talking about a stopover between drive days. Are you going anywhere at the seasonal peak? Why? It’s cheaper to go offseason. Airfare to France cost me less than half as much to go in February than in the July-August peak. Are there cheap or free tourist attractions? National parks are great, as are Smithsonian museums, factory tours, and other things that you pay for with your tax dollars or by virtue of their being advertisements.
Fourth: Find ways to save money. Anything with a regular monthly payment is suspect, because it’s money taken painlessly and silently out of your paycheck. You may need internet, consider canceling your cable television, your Netflix, or your wired phone line. Get a cheaper place to live; I lived in a dark basement for a year to fund a couple of trips. I haven’t bought a shirt from anywhere but Goodwill since college (possibly high school, I’m not sure.) Buy food in bulk, and pay careful attention to unit prices at the grocery store ($ per ounce, pound, and gallon). Find a way to do dates with significant others for free or cheap-- picnics, hikes, movies at home, inexpensive events (I like swing dance nights, and they all seem to be $8 for four hours of ballroom time), and candlelight dinners at home. People spend a lot of money trying to impress significant others, and I find this not worthwhile.
I do a lot of this stuff already, but I am certainly not living in a basement or giving up my Netflix so I can fund a trip! I want to enjoy my day-to-day life, too, actually that is way more important to me than trips. My home is my castle, and I want it to be comfortable and fun. We finally after many years went to renting a house - we’re totally not ready to buy - and it’s the best move I ever made. A great cross between apartment dwelling and owning.
I won’t sponge on friends either. I don’t really want to spend my vacation with them, I want to spend it with my SO. And I really, really don’t want them to sponge off me, so I never start that.
Sleeping in airports? Seriously? That is just not part of a vacation for me! I will check out kayak.com, however. And we don’t have very expensive tastes when there. I am totally not worried about the vacation itself. It’s merely getting there that makes me go ack…
Some of the other things noted in the thread:
I don’t have cable television. I am working on getting rid of our phone lines…this may take a while, though. 
Oh, and I don’t need to worry about the ‘new date’ thing - we’ve been together 14 years now, and enjoy most of the same things anyway. We’re rather past trying to impress each other.
I like taking car trips, don’t get me wrong. Like I said, we drove to Toronto, which is a seven-hour trip, and we had an absolutely marvelous time, (except for customs, which took forever coming back into the States.)
I do save coins constantly.
It is difficult and painful as hell mentally to increase my vacation budget, though that is the correct thing to do. Like I said, we both come from frugal and cautious families who rarely flew anywhere, unless they had to.
Bingo. It’s not that I didn’t fly, but flying was reserved for places you Could Not Get to via Car - India, chiefly. I remember lots and lots of car trips sleeping in the back of the station wagon (I come from a generation where you could still do that and not have to have a seatbelt or anything). I just have to get my head around the fact that airfare is perfectly OK.
However, due in great part to this thread,we have decided on flying to D.C. I pitched it to my SO again and we had a talk about our options and have finally got our heads around just incorporating it as part of the cost of our vacation. This thread really helps me get my head around it.
You’re lucky to live in a city served by Southwest Airlines, as that makes much of the country accessible cheaply by air. You just have to be aware that a trip via Southwest may involve multiple changes of planes. Also, no food and no movie on board.