Travel Deal of the Day (October 29, 2008)

Hyatt is offering 21% off various hotels for stays until February 1, 2009.

The Deal:
Save 21% off of North American Hyatt hotels for stays until February 1, 2009. Rooms must be booked by November 5, 2008. Rooms must be paid in full and are non-refundable. New Year’s Eve is a blackout date for the promotion.

How:
Go to the Hyatt 21% Off Sale.

The Inside Scoop:
Compare rates using this sale with other discounted rates, such as AAA and Senior Rates (if applicable). If other rates are comparable in price, it may make sense to book another rate as rates booked under this sale are non-refundable (whereas other discounted rates may allow for cancellation without penalty).

Travel Deal of the Day (October 27, 2008)

The five-star Palazzo in Las Vegas is coming up on winning bids on Priceline.com at $79/night, which is truly an extraordinary price. If you are considering a Las Vegas trip, this is a great opportunity.

The Deal:
BiddingForTravel.com, a website posting winning bids for people winning hotels on Priceline.com, is showing winning bids at the five-star Palazzo for $79/night. All the normal caveats about bidding on Priceline still apply, but this is a great deal that you should take into account if you are going to Las Vegas.

How:
Find information about the winning bid at BiddingForTravel.com. Go to Priceline.com, to bid for a hotel.

Travel Deal of the Day (October 24, 2008)

This post is a follow-up regarding a post from around a month ago where I discussed the benefits of not paying for a rate with breakfast (in some situations). Assuming your hotel rate does not include breakfast, I am finding that Costco can be very helpful in providing you to the tools for a reasonably priced breakfast while on the road.

The Deal:

Though I am not a big advocate of gift cards, it appears that the economic conditions have caused some restaurants to provide gift cards to Costco at a discount. It is now possible to find gift cards to two major coffee/breakfast restaurants, Starbucks and the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, at Costco. Assuming you are vacationing in a location with either of both of these chains (in a convenient location), I would highly recommend pickup up a gift card before you leave for vacation as you can save money – first, by avoiding the overpriced hotel restaurant, and second by receiving around a 20% discount at either Starbucks or the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf (when you purchase the discounted gift cards).

Travel Deal of the Day (October 21, 2008)
As I have mentioned previously, deals are very available this year due to the slowing economy. Southwest Airlines is also offering deals – even around Thanksgiving.

The Deal:
Southwest offers its best fares via its DING tool – an application that allows you to see daily (sometimes multiple times per day) sale fares that are not otherwise available on southwest.com. I have seen DING fares that have been available a few days before Thanksgiving or even on Thanksgiving day. While these discounts are not available on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving or the Sunday after Thanksgiving (very high-demand travel days), the fact that deep discount fares are readily available in some markets around Thanksgiving means that demand is down – so, if you have not purchased your Thanksgiving tickets yet, I would take at look at the fares offered each day via DING.

How:
Download DING at southwest.com.

Travel Deal of the Day (October 17, 2008)

Though economic downturns normally mean quite a few deals, usually finding a sale during the week between Christmas and New Years Eve has been next to impossible in major tourist destinations. Well, this year is quite different. You have an opportunity to find excellent deals, especially through blind bidding websites such as Priceline.

The Deal:

Look out for excellent deals on hotels in leisure destinations, even during the week between Christmas and New Years Eve, on blind bidding websites such as Priceline and Hotwire. Here is a prime example, BiddingForTravel.com, a website where people post their successful hotel bids on Priceline, is showing successful bids at the Hyatt Maui over New Years Eve for $199/night. The fact that Hyatt is putting its rooms in Maui on Priceline during its busiest few days of the year demonstrates that there are going to be incredible deals using Priceline over time periods which have been off limits previously - such as Christmas week and the week between Good Friday and Easter. In most situations, hotels can offer huge discounts using the bidding feature on Priceline and Hotwire and generally not worry about impacting traditional rates, as only a small segment of travelers would be willing to bid for a hotel room (at a deep discount) and accept whatever hotel is given to them by Priceline or Hotwire. Hotels generally did not have to engage in this kind of discounting over truly high demand weeks (such as Christmas week) as all the rooms would be purchased at standard rates. This is not the case this year, and you may benefit tremendously by using Priceline and Hotwire this holiday season.

Travel Deal of the Day (October 15, 2008)

If you are planning a trip to Disney next year, there is a new deal that may save you on admission.

The Deal:
Walt Disney World and Disneyland will be offering free admission on your birthday during 2009. Disney is also offering additional perks for Disney passholders that do not need free admission on their birthday but would like other perks. To be eligible for this deal, you must register on the Disney website.

How:
To find full terms and conditions or to register, go to the Disney Birthday Deal.

Travel Deal of the Day (Ocotber 13, 2008)

Now is a great time to find deals in Las Vegas. Due to the slow economy and the fact that fall (in general) is a slow travel period, you can find excellent Vegas deals. Here is a list of some notable deals:

1) MGM Grand starting at $69/night;

(2) Mirage starting at $71/night;

(3) Venetian starting at $119/night; and

(4) Third night free at MGM Signature.

Travel Deal of the Day (October 8, 2008)

The Entertainment Book has very good travel deals – now is a perfect time to buy one at a discounted rate for 2009.

The Deal:
The Entertainment Book provides discounts on a variety of products and services. The travel deals can be excellent, especially for car rentals and airline tickets. The book contains multiple car rental coupons – one of the free day car rental coupons (by itself) will pay for the entire book. The restaurant discounts can also save you a lot of money.

The coupons are generally valid from November of one year through October of the next year. Usually, the books are only available at full price when sold in October or November. With the frequent bookstore coupons available (such as the weekly Borders 30% or 40% off coupons), this is an excellent time to buy an Entertainment Book.

The Inside Scoop:
If you will be on an extended vacation in a major city with expensive attractions (such as Miami, Los Angeles, or Honolulu), it may even pay to buy a book for that city before you leave for your trip. In Hawaii, for instance, a single luau coupon can save you $30 - $70. When this discount is added to other attraction and restaurant coupons as well as other coupons that may be used for nationwide chains, the book easily pays for itself.

Travel Deal of the Day (October 6, 2008)

If you are on the road a lot, you may drink a lot of Starbucks coffe. Unfortunately, this can be hard on the wallet. Costco is now offering a deal on Starbucks gift cards that may save you money.

The Deal:
Buy $100 in Starbucks gift cards for $80 at Costco.

How:
Go to your local Costco store. (This deal does not appear to be available on the Costco website.)

Travel Deal of the Day (October 3, 2008)

There are a number of reasons why this fall may be a great time to visit Hawaii. Given the focus of this blog on deals, I thought it would be good to post now about some reasons why you may save money traveling to Hawaii this fall versus other times in the near future.

The Deal:
You are likely to find excellent deals in Hawaii this fall. There are a number of reasons why prices on hotels in Hawaii have become more reasonable – one major reason is the slumping economy. If you are contemplating a Hawaii trip, here are some factors/deals that you should consider:

(1) With fare increases, fuel surcharges and the elimination of Aloha Airlines and ATA Airlines, it has been more expensive and more difficult to find low fares to Hawaii. But as the economy has deteriorated, fares must come down to account for lower demand. As noted below, it is also a very good time to use miles to Hawaii.

(2) American Airlines has continued the trend of devaluing their frequent flyer miles by raising a coach ticket from 35,000 miles roundtrip to 45,000 miles roundtrip from the Continental US to Hawaii. Other airlines have not yet matched this increase. This makes it a good time to use your miles on those other airlines. (As always, it can be an excellent use of miles to obtain First Class tickets to Hawaii - when you consider that a journey from the East Coast to Hawaii is longer than the East Coast to Europe, it is quite a deal that a First Class ticket to Hawaii using miles is usually less "expensive.")

(3) 10,000 miles (roundtrip) is now the new standard for frequent flyer tickets between Hawaiian Islands. There is still one excellent deal on frequent flyer tickets between Hawaiian Islands – United Airlines offers a roundtrip on its partner Island Air for only 5,000 miles roundtrip. But United is raising the price of frequent flyer tickets on Island Air on October 15, 2008 – so, this is an excellent time to redeem miles (miles redeemed before October 15, 2008 can be used for travel up to 330 days from the date of purchase).

(4) Due to the slumping economy, hotel rates have either declined or remained the same as last year. Hawaii had been seeing massive price increases for hotel rooms (room prices increasing at a pace far greater than inflation). I have seen excellent deals – hotels that were routinely $300/night are now often below $200/night.

Some examples (of course, exact rates vary based on the availability on your selected dates):
Grand Hyatt Kauai has been appearing in Priceline bids for around $150 (incredible deal on a hotel that routinely had been selling for double or triple that price);
Sheraton Maui routinely has rates starting at $150 - $190;
Hyatt Maui has third night free deals including free breakfast for around $200 - $225; and
Sheraton Waikiki has premium oceanfront rooms for $170 - $190.

What is great about these deals is that many of them last until Christmas Day – meaning that the slumping economy has forced hotels to offer deals into the highest demand time period.

Given the slumping economy and the fact that fall is generally the low season for vacations, the next few months are an excellent time to visit Hawaii if you are looking for deals.

Travel Deal of the Day (October 1, 2008)

If you are looking at Thanksgiving tickets, you are probably noticing very high airfares. When purchasing expensive airfares, you should keep in mind that the Coach airfare is not always the cheapest airfare.

The Deal:
Many airlines offer Coach fares with free upgrades to First Class. During very busy travel periods such as Thanksgiving, these discounted first class fares may actually be cheaper than the least expensive coach fare available. When checking for Thanksgiving airfares, you should check both Coach and First Class, as you may be pleasantly surprised that the First Class fare is actually cheaper than the Coach fare.