Getting there and staying there cheap or even free
Sep 12 '00
I love to travel. Unfortunately, I am a broke college student, which makes it difficult at times to get myself off the ground with travel plans. Recently, however, I have managed to take myself and friend to Hawaii, have a trip planned to Boston, and am working on making my way to Rome.
First, you have be willing to spend a lot of time on the internet. I am on my computer all day, so this works for me.
There are several sites that offer the lowest fares around. First, I suggest signing up for the Smarter Living newsletters: they send one a week with all the very best last minute internet-only fares departing from each city of your choice. I receive newsletters for Seattle and Portland - each usually has twelve to fifteen fantastic fares. Some will be available only through Smarter Living, but many can be found using the reservation program on the airline's site, or by calling their 1-800 number.
This is very often true with Travelocity.com. I have never ordered tickets through them, but use them frequently to see the lowest published fares by the major airlines. I typically use American, and I have never found a fare listed on Travelocity that could not be obtained over the phone.
The same is only sometimes the case with www.cheaptickets.com. Often times you can find an even lower fare than listed on Travelocity, but they ARE internet only fares, often on smaller carriers such as American West. I still suggest looking into them, however.
Now, you ask, what is the advantage of getting these internet fares through the airlines directly? Particularly with American, there are many promotional offers and mileage advantages to booking over the phone. That is where the serious internet time comes in.
Reward programs. Special offers. Gift certificates. Some of this can get complex, but I'll try to make it easy to read. First, join all frequent flyer mile programs for any airline you might fly even once in a year. Check out www.mileageworkshop.com and go to their Free Miles page to find out how to earn a few thousand miles for nothing. Even "orphan" miles can be very useful to taking a free trip. For example, 5,000 flyer miles on most programs can be converted into 10,000 Hilton HHonors points, enough for a free weekend night stay.
Also, when fares are VERY low, sometimes it is more economical to redeem for a "coupon" award rather than a round-trip ticket. American has an award that is for $100 dollars off any fare, which might nearly cover the cost of your ticket, many internet offers are so cheap.
Also - www.giftcertificates.com offers American Airline giftcertificates. The best way to go about getting those free, is to earn Supercertificate for giftcertificates.com through reward programs. Programs that offer supercertificates included milesource.com (They also offer free flights, I will have a review of them soon in internet services), trocamania.com (this can be slow to earn, but a quick daily program, www.cashmap.com, and www.minrak.com. Milesource is by far the best.
Since people tend to like testimonials (and I am sure that you want to know that this REALLY works) here are the cheap trips I have taken: I paid $66.25 for my ticket to Boston. Actually, the fare was $335 (including taxes) but I had $250 in American Airlines gift certificates from Milesource and Trocamania, and got a discount for being a first time user of electronic ticketing. I am also receiving double miles on the full price of the fare, not just what I paid with a credit card. On my trip to Hawaii, I paid nothing for myself to fly, and only $99 for my friend - the fare was a coupon I redeemed airmiles for, and I paid with a $100 gift certificate (from giftcertificates.com) for. I only ended up paying about $25 cash for the airline taxes. The resort/condos that we stayed in were owned by the Marriott, and ended up, with points accumulated online, costing us $74.59 (all in room service and tax.)
In case you don't want to check out the Mileage Workshop, allow me to list a few good free mile offers here.
Go through www.clickrewards.com and sign up at LookSmart. You will earn 50 miles for your first question, and 100 miles for every five questions you answer. Hunt around, and I think you will find that it is not hard at all to answer ten times that many.
If you take some time at www.altavista.com and use their new rewards program, you can redeem points for ClickMiles! (Same program that LookSmart reward through.)
Get 250 Delta miles for requesting an auto insurance quote from AIG. Call 800-310-4258 Extension 2479. Also get 250 Northwest miles for requesting another auto insurance quote from AIG. Call 800-692-4047 Extension 2414.
In certain areas, you can get miles for donating blood or giving to charity.
There are many more sites and opportunities for free miles and giftcertificates on the web. As I have said before, I highly recommend mileageworkshop.com to locate these. In fact, thanks to them I am well on my way to planning a trip to Italy for next summer. My plan is:
Get a free airline ticket through milesource.com I am over 1/5 of the way there in a just a month with a lot of clicking and some referrals. A round-trip ticket to Europe is 50,000 miles. My hotel will be the Marriot world-wide resort outside Venice, two nights covered by gift certificates and the remainder covered by free Marriott points I have accumulated through offers and conversions from airline miles. I am taking a pre-paid mastercard earned with points from www.beenz.com, and $100 in traveler's cheques earned during a referral promotion on another site.
It won't be a free trip. I do have to eat, afterall. But it will be affordable, and that is what matters. From college students, to single parents, to the average forty-hour week secretary or assistant, most people can't afford to travel where they want or when. Earning points, miles, and gift certificates can be boring and confusing. When things come together, however, it can be very exciting, and to me - ten days overseas is well worth it for me. I hope that some of these tips helped, and if you need more information you can always leave me a comment or email me. Enjoy!
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
reddlaydee
|
|
Member: Julie Parton
Location: Portland OR
Reviews written: 22
Trusted by: 1 member
|
|
|
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.