Cheap Travel Web Guide

Tips from a guy who’s taught himself the fine art of traveling on the cheap.

I can’t help it. I’m a sucker for online bargain travel. I subscribe to Sherman’s Top 20 and Travel Zoo’s Top 20 weekly e-newletters on travel deals. I’ve booked three European trips through bargain-travel broker Gate1 and a 10-day Costa Rican eco-journey through low-price tour operator Caravan. So I want to share my hobby with you: Finding and taking recession-proof vacations.

On the day I began writing this story, I got an e-mail from a vacation sale vendor called The Visitor’s Center. The e-mail acknowledged talk of recession, but quoted a National Geographic study that equated time off to medicine; vacations are as important as watching your cholesterol or getting exercise. So if a week-long vacation can cut the risk of heart attack in men by 30 percent and in women by 50 percent, then we have a moral obligation to help you recharge your batteries without overcharging your credit card.

The Visitor’s Center president and CEO, Steven Nicol, has even coined a new word for committing to vacation amidst fears of a recession: vacession. So while people in some parts of the country might be changing vacation plans due to a soft economy, we can help you satisfy your wanderlust without overspending by identifying the best websites for finding travel bargains and explaining how they work. Start planning your vacession.

Bargains

Lastminute.com (formerly Site59.com) does the best job of putting together last-minute vacation packages. It offers the easiest way to book a trip as early as 14 days before you go or as late as three hours before departure on domestic trips. The site works with partner hotels, airlines and car-rental companies to garner deals on last-minute inventory or services that would otherwise go unsold, compiling packages in site-specific categories like “Under $250,” “Romance,” or “Vegas/Casino.” Packages are available in flight/hotel, flight/car and hotel/car combinations, but users must use every component of the package.

Best part of the website: At the top right of the home page is a tab labeled “The boss is watching, look busy” that lets you jump to a screen filled with “mission critical market analysis” statistics, including a bar chart, in case you’re caught shopping for a vacation by the person whom you most want to leave behind at the office.

LuxuryLink.com offers discounted package stays in online auctions. You must, however, be flexible about your travel dates: You pick the dates from a limited range only after you pay.

Get Cheap Airfares: 5 Tips Tip 1: Avoid long-weekend holidays and school breaks, like Easter and spring break. Tip 2: Book air and hotel together. You’ll pay just one price upfront and save a bundle over booking them separately. Tip 3: Consider off-the-path destinations where your dollar might go further. Tip 4: Check departures from alternate airports. It might even be worth your time to drive to a neighboring city’s airport. Tip 5: Go midweek. Hotel and flight prices are often cheaper Monday to Thursday than over the weekend. So if you have vacation days to spare, you’ll save by using them.

Airline Deals

Itsasoftware.com shows you which airlines offer the best itinerary for the lowest price. Then you can go to that carrier’s web site to book. The site provides the most comprehensive and least biased list of fare and route options. Only hitch? The site does not list flights on foreign low-cost airlines.

Kayak.com includes flight listings from budget air carriers such as Jet Blue and Spirit Airlines (unlike many of the major travel websites), but so far Allegiant Airlines is not in the mix. It has user-friendly features, like remembering your home airport, letting you search more than one airport simultaneously (for arrivals and departures) and a movable grid that lets you eliminate flights whose time specifications don’t match your itinerary.

Cruises

Cruisecompete.com offers discounts of up to 25 percent off standard cruise rates. Dozens of travel agencies vie to give you the lowest prices for dates and ports you specify, whether you’re booking well in advance or not.

How cruisecompete.com works:

1. Use its Cruise Search and browse by Cruise Line or Specials Category, or use Live Agent Help.

2. Set up a CruiseCompete account, so you can request and receive quotes anonymously.

3. Request quotes. Select the ship, sail date, passengers and the number and type of cabins. More than 300 travel agencies will immediately have everything they need to provide quotes and compete for your business.

4. Compare quotes. For each new quote, they will e-mail you a notification and link to your account. There is no obligation to buy, and travel agents will NOT have your contact information unless you give it to them (Privacy Policy).

5. Contact agents. You may contact agents by phone or e-mail for more information or to book your cruise.

Cruisemates.com is the most useful cruise-review site. We especially like its advice columns, which are written for people of different ages and interests. Subscribe to the free weekly newsletter Cruise News, featuring opinions and tips to some of the web’s best cruise bargains.

Hotels

Priceline.com revolutionized the way consumers bought travel, allowing them to name their own prices for everything from hotels to flights to rental cars. Today, with the abundance of airline travel sites, most online travel veterans use Priceline.com for one thing: hotels. Try bidding $99 for a four-star hotel in pretty much any American city, and you’ll often end up staying in one of the city’s very nicest hotels. If $99 is too steep, bid $50 or $30—even these low prices are often accepted at top hotels.