Please post any links, articles, or advice you have on ways for folks to save on travel

Airport Discount Parking coreynyc

Bidding For Travel Nack

Cheap Tickets B$ Aff mackerdack

FlightStats.com - this compares ontime ratings for the flight you are about too book. ams

http://www.fly.faa.gov to check airport real time stats ams

Groople mackerdack

Hotwire B$ Aff mackerdack

Kayak crimson

Longterm Parking.com crimson

Luxury Link mackerdack

Mobissimo Travel crimson

Orbitz B$ Aff mackerdack

Park Sleep Fly (special rates for 1 night hotel stay and 14 days of parking, et al) crimson

Quikbook mackerdack

SeatGuru.com to check the seats on any given plane. They tell you whether or not a seat is bad or good. ams

Sidestep.com (Airfare, hotel, & rental car price search) crimson

Smarter Living's Last-Minute Web Fares crimson

Travelocity.com

TripAdvisor mackerdack

Total Travel Insurance crimson

Trip Advisor digThisXL

WhichBudget crimson

Making Priceline Do Your Bidding
By SUSAN STELLIN

LET'S just say at the outset that I'm not a bidder by nature. I've never set foot in an auction house, never bid for anything on eBay, and never - until recently - been tempted to try out Priceline, the name-your-own-price travel service. But after hearing about all the great deals people were getting on hotel rooms, like $100 a night at the Waldorf-Astoria, where the rack rate starts at $296, I decided to take the plunge.

For a trip to California in September, I tried bidding on a car rental in Oakland and a hotel room in San Francisco. I didn't succeed in either case. After increasing my offer for the rental car a few times - starting at $15 a day and gradually increasing my bid by a dollar - I felt the beginnings of an addiction take hold. I managed to walk away from my computer rather than overpay for what I wanted. I already had a good deal on a car reservation - $145 to rent a compact car for five days from Thrifty, so I quit when my Priceline bid approached $120; the saving wasn't worth giving up the ability to change or cancel my reservation, a Priceline requirement. On the hotel, I gave up when my $80-a-night bid was rejected, since I had friends to stay with free.

Advice From Users

But I did learn a lot about Priceline bidding strategy, thanks in part to the community at BiddingForTravel.com, a site devoted to the ins and outs of bidding on Priceline.

Though Priceline also sells airline tickets, car rentals and travel packages, these days the buzz is mostly about hotels. You can bid on some travel services on eBay, and Hotwire is an "opaque" seller of travel services, meaning buyers can choose, say, a flight between New York and Los Angeles, based only on a price and find out the carrier and flight times after they buy. But Priceline is the main travel bidding site.

If you're not already a Priceline aficionado, here's what you need to know about getting a hotel bid accepted, plus tips even old hands may find helpful.

First you enter your travel dates and destination (plus other information, depending on whether you want a flight, car rental or hotel, specifying such requirements as car size and hotel category), then enter the price you're willing to pay. I started at $65 a night for a four-star hotel in the Union Square East area of San Francisco. (For hotels, you can pick one or more neighborhoods, based on maps Priceline displays, but you don't find out the name of the hotel until your bid is accepted.)

Priceline displays the total price, including taxes and fees, then if you choose to continue and enter a credit card number, Priceline searches to see if any of its partners accept your offer. (Priceline tries to keep the list of its partners, which often changes over time, a secret.)

If Priceline finds a match, the deal is done, and you see which hotel, flight or car rental you bought - there's no backing out now. If no vendor accepts your price, Priceline typically gives you the chance to rebid, though you have to change some aspect of your offer besides the price, like changing your travel dates, adding another neighborhood or broadening your range to three- and four-star hotels. You can also increase your bid.

If you rebid a few times and still don't have an offer accepted, or you don't want to change your bid, travel date or desired neighborhood, you can try again later - 72 hours later for hotels and a week later for car rentals or flights.

Sounds easy enough, but strategy is key to a winning bid - and that's where BiddingForTravel comes in. Sheryl Mexic, a Texan who turned her hobby into a full-time job, started the community as a club on Yahoo in 1999. Its main draw is its message board, where people post winning Priceline bids; for example, $70 a night, accepted in early September by the Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers for a late-September stay.

The site also explains how to bid, lists hotels its users have gotten through Priceline (organized by city) and offers specific bidding advice if you post a request. One recommended trick: if you want a four-star hotel in a particular neighborhood but don't want to change anything about your offer except the price, add a neighborhood where you know there are no four-star hotels.

Susan Cohen, a BiddingForTravel fan who lives near Albany, said that the site gave her the confidence to try Priceline three years ago. Since then, she figures she's had at least 20 successful Priceline bids, mostly for hotels. Recent examples are $55 a night at the Wyndham City Center in Washington, D.C., for a midweek stay in July, and $36 a night at the St. Petersburg Hilton during the Columbus Day weekend (the hotel reserved for the wedding she attended was charging $250). "I would never think of picking up the phone and just making a reservation anymore," Ms. Cohen said.

One issue some Priceline bidders mention is receiving second-class treatment when they check in, though others say they've always been treated well. Natalie Miranda, a Las Vegas resident and frequent bidder, said she's gotten the cold shoulder only once, at a hotel near Kennedy Airport. "The lady when we checked in kept saying over and over, 'I see you booked this through Priceline,' " Ms. Miranda said in a telephone interview, explaining that her room had no heat and a bad odor.

Though Brian Ek, a Priceline spokesman, calls the notion of such Priceline prejudice "an urban myth," Ms. Mexic said she's heard the complaint too many times to dismiss it entirely.

"When we started Priceline, we assumed that eventually the Internet would foster sites like that," Mr. Ek said of BiddingForTravel. "They're there, certainly it's freedom of speech, there's nothing we can do about it. But we have no comment on them."

Handling Hotel Reservations

Yet it seems pretty clear that Priceline owes no small amount of its business to the BiddingForTravel community, which essentially provides at no charge some customer support that Priceline doesn't offer. (One complaint about Priceline is that it's difficult to get through to a real person when you call.)

Other drawbacks of using Priceline: you can't cancel or change your plans and get a refund, and with hotels, Priceline doesn't guarantee bed type. After your bid is accepted, you can call the hotel and request, say, two doubles; users said hotels were usually obliging.

Finally, past performance is no guarantee of future results. With the travel industry rebounding, frequent Priceline users say that really low bids aren't cutting it anymore. Saturday arrivals seem to be especially tough, with hotels holding out for guests who want Friday night, too.

Other tips from Priceline users: make a back-up reservation you can cancel in case you are shut out on Priceline, and start your bidding early, though last-minute bids sometimes work out.

"For Vegas, it's got to be either way ahead or the week prior," said Chris Vitous, a regular bidder who lives near San Diego. Lately, he said, he has run into a few brick walls: "I tried to bid for a friend recently and couldn't get anything for a decent price."


NY Times, October 24, 2004, PRACTICAL TRAVELER
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/24/travel/24prac.html

Luxe Hotels, Low Prices

TRAVEL: Secrets to finding a four-star room at a great rate--in 15 minutes or less.

The great deals on plush hotel rooms these past few years got you used to lavish accommodations. Scoring low rates was often as easy as one-stop shopping at Expedia.com or Travelocity.com. No more. The hotel business is booming, and luxury on the cheap seems elusive. The likes of Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott, Omni and Wyndham now put most of their best rates on their own Web sites. And along with higher room charges come the surcharges, for such things as leaving before your reservation is up ($50 on average).

But luxury at a lower price is still within reach, for both business travel and getting away from it all. Whether you like to book quickly, get upgrades, stay in nice venues overseas or take more time in exchange for better bargains, we have a strategy that will work. And if you don’t mind booking a hotel in a particular neighborhood without knowing the exact hotel, you may capture an even better deal.

Exploring just a few options can land you a much lower rate, or a hotel that suits your trip perfectly. Take the case of Phil and Carolyn Jimenez of Freeport, N.Y., who decided to visit Washington, D.C., last December to tour the White House. Phil first went to Expedia and spotted a room at the Wyndham Washington for $99. Wyndham’s national reservations line quoted him a rate of $119, but the same room was just $78 on Wyndham’s Web site.

Next, Phil tried playing the membership card--another strategy that’s often worth a try. But Wyndham’s site jacked up his rate to $167 when he entered his AARP number. With discounts like that, who can afford to retire?

Because he’s a member of Hilton’s frequent-stay program, Phil checked Hilton.com, where he found a $119 rate at the Capital Hilton that included a full breakfast for two in the hotel’s restaurant. (He then called the hotel, which would not offer him a lower rate.) Because the Capital Hilton is closer than the Wyndham to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the Jimenezes picked convenience over cost and stayed at the Hilton.

QUICK SAVINGS
Have 15 minutes? That’s all you’ll need to nab an upscale room for less using the following method. Start your search online with Expedia, Orbitz or Travelocity. Each of the "big three" agencies drums up slightly different mixes of hotels and roughly equivalent rates.

Next, choose a hotel you like from the search results, then visit the hotel’s own Web site to check for a lower rate. If a hotel belongs to a big chain, you’ll generally get the best prices through the chain’s site. Hotels that are independent or part of small chains, however, divvy up their deals between the online travel agencies and their own Web sites. You need to look at both an agency’s site and a hotel’s site to cover your bases. A case in point: Expedia recently offered a $169 room at the Monaco hotel in San Francisco if you booked more than two months in advance. The Monaco is part of the 39-hotel Kimpton chain, and its own Web site (www.monaco-sf.com) was selling the room for $149.

Last, call the hotel and ask for the lowest rate. You may find the best deal by negotiating directly. Be politely persistent. Ask the clerk, "Is that the best you can do?" Inform him or her of any better deals that you have found elsewhere. Consider dropping the name of a rival hotel nearby that features comparable amenities.

Some hotels are free to negotiate lower rates than what Web sites offer, and some aren’t. For example, several big chains, such as Hilton, discourage their front desks from undercutting the rates posted on their own Web site. And some individual hotels discourage their staff from undercutting rates posted with online agencies. Still, it’s worth a call.

If you want to stay at a specific hotel and a Web travel agency says that it’s booked, check the hotel’s own site. Web agencies occasionally inform you that some hotels have "no availability." But that phrase and similar ones mean only that rooms are not available through the agency. For instance, when we recently inquired about a room at the Westin Copley, in Boston, Expedia responded that it "could find no available room" for the dates we had chosen. But Westin’s own Web site listed vacancies.

If you have more time, other strategies are worth exploring. You can try checking the lesser-known online booking services listed on page 103. Also, you may gain a negotiating edge by calling a hotel’s front desk directly, instead of a central reservation line. Hotel managers often have the leeway and incentive to offer lower rates that agents at a chain hotline don’t, says Ed Perkins, a travel expert with online newsletter MyBusinessTravel.com.

When you call a hotel may sometimes work to your advantage. Sundays are often best. The staff members who set rates are usually off from work and the front desk may feel freer to deal, says Peter Greenberg, author of The Travel Detective.

Try taking the extra step of calling the hotel again on the day you’ll arrive to see if it has lowered its rates at the 11th hour. This often happens when the hotel is not as full as expected.

LUXURY UPGRADES
Demand for the top luxury hotel rooms leapt last year, suggesting that room rates will rise this year. In response, consider this strategy for savings: Choose a room in a slightly less lavish hotel, such as one in the Westin or Renaissance chains, instead of booking into a truly tony one, such as the Ritz-Carlton. Then, when you check in, upgrade to a suite. Upgrades range from free to $100, usually based on how palatial the suite is. It often costs $15 to $275 less to reserve a standard room first and to upgrade on arrival than it does to book a suite straightaway. The best time to ask for an upgrade is in the early afternoon on the day you arrive--typically before business travelers check in and snap them up, says Joel Widzer, author of The Penny Pincher’s Passport to Luxury Travel, who has upgraded on arrival about 450 times.

Tom Barnes of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., landed a room for one night at Miami’s Clinton Hotel South Beach in October by submitting a winning $75 bid at Priceline.com (more on Priceline shortly). On arrival, Barnes paid $100 to upgrade to a suite with a Jacuzzi and a private, ocean-view balcony that would have cost $300 had he booked directly with the posh hotel first. "Upgrading has been so successful for me that I’m spoiled," Barnes says.

You’ll boost your chances of upgrading if you join the frequent-stay rewards programs of the hotels you visit. Members are given preference for complimentary upgrades and first choice of fee-based upgrades. To the members go other spoils, too, such as free breakfasts and newspapers.

BLINDFOLD BOOKING
You can often save as much as a third off online travel agencies’ and hotel Web sites’ best deals by booking through two Web services that sell rooms (as well as airline tickets and rental cars) without disclosing the name of the hotel until you buy. We’ve found that at both Hotwire.com and Priceline.com the rates offered for four-star hotels are usually the best values. Our kvetch is that neither site refunds your money if you cancel.

Hotwire is the easier of the two to use. Choose your destination neighborhood, and the service lists rates from unnamed hotels, which are labeled from one to five stars. Hotwire will also show you a set price in advance; Priceline doesn’t give you that information. At Priceline, you submit a bid after you specify at least two neighborhoods and star class. Tip: Before you place a Priceline bid, gauge how low you can go by visiting the message boards at Biddingfortravel.com. There you’ll find other Priceline users’ successful and failed bids. (It takes about 15 minutes to set up an account to view the message boards.)

For example, over the past July Fourth weekend, Julie Hauer of Ashburn, Va., vacationed with her husband and daughter at the Omni William Penn, in Pittsburgh, for $70 a night, although the best rate on the Omni Web site was about $125. To arrive at her $70 Priceline bid, she researched recent successful bids for four-star hotels at Biddingfortravel. Hauer has had much success with this method, but she saves it for times when the hotel’s exact location doesn’t matter. "I’ve handled too many business trips to chance Priceline for those," she says.

When using Priceline you might have to cool your heels for 15 minutes or more before you learn if a hotel will accept your bid. If your bid is rejected, you can revise it to include hotels in another neighborhood or a different star level (or you can wait 72 hours to resubmit the same bid or even a higher bid). But the potential savings can justify the sweat. Successful bids we’ve seen listed at Biddingfortravel are often 20% (or more) lower than what we’ve seen at Hotwire for hotels with similar star ratings. (Hotwire says that there is no independent evidence that customers routinely find better deals at rival Priceline.) One more tip: Instead of using Priceline’s main Web site, use its page on auction site eBay (http://pages.ebay.com/travel), where you can earn free "anything points." For example, reserving a four-star hotel room at Priceline through that page can get you 1,500 points, which you can use to buy $15 worth of goods on eBay or exchange for about 700 American Airlines frequent-flier miles.

BOOKING ABROAD
If you’re traveling overseas, you’ll need to follow a slightly different method for booking hotel rooms. First, use your favorite travel guide to identify hotels in neighborhoods where you plan to stay. We’ve been pleased with the ratings for hotels at TripAdvisor.com (see the box on page 103).

Then start your search for deals by looking for those hotels at your favorite online travel agency. Unlike U.S. hotels, overseas hotels often don’t offer the best deals on their own Web sites. It’s still wise to check with the hotels directly, however. And be sure to contact the hotel by e-mail or fax because it’s important to have written confirmation of your reservation when dealing with hotels overseas.

If you use an overseas Web site, be cautious. Natalie Lundsteen, an American living in Oxford, England, narrowly avoided being tricked. When she recently tried to book four nights at the Villa della Fonte hotel in downtown Rome using what she thought was the hotel’s own Web site, the site claimed that her requested dates weren’t available and suggested another hotel. She phoned the Villa della Fonte directly, and the owner said that not only were rooms available but they were about $13 less than the Web site’s quote.

If you’d like to try saving money by booking blind, Hotwire has begun selling hotel rooms in London, Paris, Rome and other major European cities. Priceline also offers rooms in major European cities. But, again, the sites do not reveal hotel names before you buy.

Hotel-booking BOOKMARKS: Little-known Web sites
Groople (www.groople.com) helps groups get away at great rates by booking rooms (and other travel products) in bulk. It stands out from other booking services, which typically limit the number of rooms you can book at once. Expedia restricts you to three rooms, for example, and Orbitz allows only two. Travelocity uses Groople to book reservations of five or more rooms.

Luxury Link (www.luxurylink.com) offers discounted prices on stays at upscale hotels and resorts. A recent example: three nights for two at the PGA National Resort & Spa in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. The best price at www.pgaresort.com was $1,119, but Luxury Link had it for $629. The site also offers many packages weekly by online auction. You can hunt by destination and travel month. One downside to all of the deals at Luxury Link is that you must be flexible about your travel dates--which you pick from a limited range after you pay.

Quikbook (www.quikbook.com) covers only about 1,000 hotels, mostly upscale, in 74 cities. Using Quikbook became easier in 2004 with the introduction of a "search by neighborhood" option. Another perk: Any deal that you must prepay is marked "Prepay" on first sight. For example, a $195 room at San Francisco’s Campton Place was recently marked "Pay When You Stay," instead of "Prepay." Travelocity.com offered the same room for $250, and it did not clearly say upfront that you had to prepay to book its rate.

Sidestep (www.sidestep.com) baldly rips off the rates offered on most of the sites you might otherwise visit (plus dozens more) and automatically lists them from lowest to highest. Copycat Web sites, such as Kayak, Mobissimo and Qixo, also turn up deals, but they search fewer sources.

TripAdvisor (www.tripadvisor.com) is the best site we’ve found for reviewing and rating hotels. The site traffics in reviews from travel professionals, such as Fodor’s, and ordinary customers. It also lets you find rates at specific hotels by searching many online agencies simultaneously. Plus, travelers use its message boards to swap tips on countries from Albania to Zimbabwe.

Kiplinger’s Personal Finance
Vol 59, Issue 3, Mar 1, 2005
by Sean O’Neill
©2005 The Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc.

Travel bargains: Where to find them fast online

Priceline.com offered the lowest rates. Hotwire.com was usually the runner-up.

Shop around at travel Web sites such as Expedia.com and Orbitz.com and you'll get good deals, and aching fingers. A fast way to find even bigger bargains is to head straight for the clearance racks of the travel industry: Hotwire.com and Priceline.com.

These sites get the flights, rooms, and cars that the airlines, hotels, and car-rental agencies are trying to unload quickly. Markdowns can top 40 percent or more. The trade-off: Unlike other travel sites, Hotwire.com and Priceline.com won't tell you which company you're doing business with until you enter your credit- or debit-card number. For that reason, the two are called “opaque” travel sites. What you don't see is what you get. And everything is final sale; no refunds or exchanges.

We tried both sites to see which turned up the best deals. We also compared them with the leading traditional (“transparent”) travel sites, Expedia.com, Orbitz, and Travelocity. We found that the opaque sites were almost always cheaper by a comfortable margin than the big, traditional travel sites. And although Priceline.com dug up lower prices than Hotwire.com in our head-to-head competition, the latter was so much easier to use that you may not mind paying a few extra bucks for the added convenience.

At Hotwire.com, you type in when and where you want to travel and the type of car you're after (for example, compact or midsized), and the site presents you with a big grab bag of travel options. To use Priceline.com, you enter bids based on your itinerary, which can be a tricky process.

The competition

We tried the opaque sites by first identifying five itineraries for which we wanted to rent cars. We then went to Hotwire.com for rates on a car in five different cities on different dates. We took the prices at Hotwire.com and chopped 25 percent off to start bidding on identical itineraries at Priceline.com. In four out of five tries, our successful bids required modifying our requests, which added 10 to 20 minutes to our shopping time. You can't rebid for the same itinerary within seven days, so we chose to upgrade or downgrade vehicle types from, say, economy to compact, instead of changing dates or locations.

For all five queries, Priceline offered the lowest rate. Hotwire was usually the runner-up, although in two cases Orbitz matched Priceline's bargain rate. However, both times Priceline offered a car from Hertz; Orbitz vendors were second-tier operators--Ace in Los Angeles and Fox in Las Vegas. Another surprise: We found that Priceline's recently launched transparent site did not find lower prices than Expedia, Orbitz, or Travelocity.

Our results mirror a 2003 study of opaque travel sites by Consumer Reports WebWatch, a grant-funded project of Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports. WebWatch spent about $38,000 to bid on airline, hotel, and car-rental reservations. Priceline.com led seven travel sites, including Hotwire.com, by providing the lowest rate 47 percent of the time, often saving hundreds of dollars.

Getting started

Although opaque sites can cut your costs, they're not the best choice for every trip, especially if you have your heart set on a specific hotel or if you must follow a set schedule, since times and even dates could fluctuate. If you're flexible but uncomfortable with not knowing where you'll end up staying or which airline you'll be flying, visit the “partners” sections on Hotwire.com and Priceline.com to get a list of their airlines, hotels, and rental-car agencies. Most of them are big brand names.

Two other considerations: Cancellations are never allowed and changes are generally not an option. And you can forget about earning loyalty mileage or points at opaque sites. Also, as with other major travel sites, you will pay a small booking fee for airline tickets: $5 at Hotwire.com and $2.50 to $9.95 at Priceline.com.

Here are some tips to help you squeeze the best deals from the opaque sites:

Get the inside scoop. Find shopping and bidding tips from other travelers by visiting sites such as BetterBidding (www.betterbidding.com).

• Shop the big sites. Before you head to the opaque sites, get a handle on market rates at Expedia.com, Orbitz, and Travelocity, as well as at sites run by airlines, hotels, and car-rental companies. Make sure that you nail down total prices, including taxes, surcharges, and booking fees.

• Don't lowball. If you do, you'll add steps to the booking process at Priceline.com. Of course you don't want to overbid, either. A good opening bid: up to 80 percent of Hotwire.com's rate.

• Get it right. Input the wrong dates or airport codes and you may be out of luck.

• Charge it. If you use Visa or MasterCard, you won't pay for services you don't get, e.g., if a hurricane destroys your hotel.

• Keep your receipt or confirmation. You'll need it for proof of purchase just in case the Web sites and the travel suppliers mix up your itinerary.

Consumer Reports, Jan. 2006

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if you're traveling to Branson, MO and

1. you're not pressed for time but just like to explore the area AND
2. you like to tour new resorts and get paid after a timeshare presentation,

go to the IMAXX theatre and there is a booth there where a CSR will offer you free show tickets. DON'T accept the free show ticket offer (not unless you haven't seen any of the shows in Branson but IMO, cash is better since you can get cheap tickets elsewhere using coupon booklets), instead ask if there is a cash incentive to attend a 90 minute presentation to any of the timeshare resorts. the one over there is Fairfield resorts (unless they have moved). The CSR usually offers between $75 to $100 cash. if you don't act interested with the $75, they increase the cash incentive to $100 (there is an old guy who is generous, he offers $100 cash outright). ask for a 90 minute guarantee that is signed by the CSR, it gives you a guarantee that after 90 minutes and they are not done with the presentation and tour, you can leave and get your cash gift, no questions asked. Just be firm in saying NO and head for the gift center. But if you really want to buy timeshare, its up to you. Keep in mind, this is not for everyone especially those who have limited time and would rather not "waste" 90 minutes of their time listening to a presentation and touring resort facilities. If you have a hard time saying NO and easily get pressured, stay away from this kind of offer(s) where there are lots in Branson.