Deals and Offers

If you plan your vacation well using these traveling tips and online resources, you’re bound to save money on the best travel deals out there.

Photo by Grecotel

Each year, millions of us travel (mostly during the holidays) — suffering through the long lines, flight delays, and the crowds at the airports as we go our not-so-merry ways. As an alternative, it might be wiser to do your traveling before the peak season, when the specter of increased fares arrive.

Imagine how much more relaxed your friends or family (or whoever picks you up from the airport) will be because they don’t have to wade their way through the airport parking lot at its fullest. At work, you might find it easier to nab days off before any vacation peak travel periods, when everyone else wants to use up their vacation days. Besides, you have the chance to burn up those airline miles you’ve been accumulating from your credit cards without having to fuss about blackout dates.

Plan Your Vacation With These Traveling Tips and Online Resources

1. Air Travel Tips and Package Deals

Before you book a flight, skim through the offers at sites like Travelocity, where many bargains abound such as these:

• Save 20% or more on air fares through this link
• Book air and travel together to Save $315 on average, via this link
• Travelocity’s Race To Savings promotions and weekly deals.

The extra planning and research that you do can save you a bundle. Also, to help you narrow down your choices and compare costs, you can also use sites like Expedia or Orbitz. In the past, I’ve also used Yahoo! Travel and Priceline to find flights and hotel rooms with good results. In fact, if you use Priceline’s Name Your Own Price hotel service feature, you may actually save up to half off on your hotel stay.

If you’re just looking to spend time away from home, start with a resource like AAA’s Last Minute Deals; you can often find reasonable rates to locations across the country here. If you’re in the Midwest and want to go to the beach, try visiting a spot like San Diego or a city in Florida. Those of you on the East Coast might want to check out a destination like Chicago or Kansas City.

What if you want to go abroad? The Portland Business Journal sees lots of opportunities for low-cost international travel. Along these lines, check out this convenient table we prepared for details on the cheapest travel rates.

When you travel overseas, make sure you ask about the weather as well as the discount on the rates in the off-season. Spending your time off marooned in your hotel room because it’s the rainy season isn’t a good bargain. In contrast, if you’re headed to the Southern Hemisphere, check a local news site to see if you should pack your warm weather clothes and snazziest sunglasses.

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Time to get ready and shop for halloween! Here’s how to save on seasonal purchases.

Who dressed YOU? Photo by juhansonin

I don’t think it’s too early to start thinking about the approaching holiday season. Before long, we’ll be faced with little ghosts and goblins at our doorstep for Halloween. Then we’ll have our families over (or we show up at their doorstep) for Thanksgiving followed by the whirlwind of activities we have on Christmas. In my household, we make it a tradition to prepare for these special occasions, where we have as much fun getting ready for these events as experiencing the events themselves.

So we’re off to make sure we’ve got all the seasonal materials we need.

How To Save Money on Seasonal Supplies and Decor

The best time of the year to pick up seasonal supplies is always that period of time right after the season is over. Then, you’ll get at least 50% off and sometimes up to 90% off the materials, supplies, decorations or costumes you’ll need to dress up your family and home for next year’s holidays.

Another great idea to save yourself a bundle is to shop used. I’ve picked up several fantastic items off of my local Craigslist site, again for extremely attractive prices — that is, for at least half price. You’re also bound to get some lovely wares from eBay or your neighborhood garage and estate sales.

Now if you’re big on crafts, such as my sister and other family members are, then one other way to be frugal on holidays is to make your own costumes and decorations. My sister tried it last year and had fun embarking on her Halloween DIY project; unfortunately, she says she’s not planning to try this again as it was very time-consuming (there are 6 kids in her household at this time). Although she absolutely enjoys crafts, it still took her many days and nights at the sewing machine to get everyone’s outfits together.

If you’re short on time or would rather wait till the end of summer to start prepping for the holidays, or if you’re looking for something specific you can’t find on discount, then you may want to hit the online sites to do some comparison shopping or avail of some product research.

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Race on to some travel discounts with Travelocity’s Race to Savings promotion.

Travelocity is offering a great travel savings promotion right now, to coincide with the start of a new season of the Emmy award-winning reality television show “The Amazing Race”. They claim drastic reductions on rates for top hotels and resorts and no minimum spending requirements to get the discounts, so if you’re planning to travel this fall, check out the following “Race To Savings” promotions, with up to 40% off hotel bookings and up to 60% savings when you book hotel and air reservations through Travelocity:

Travelocity’s Race To Savings Promotions

1. Race to Savings Fall Sale
2. Race to the Beach
3. Race to Savings with Weekend Travel Sales
4. Adventures Near and Far

You’ll have to act fast though, the race… I mean these offers end on 11/15/08.

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