The Ultimate Travel Hacking Guide
By NomadicMatt | Published: September 12, 2011
Travel Hacking is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot these days. You see it on many travel websites that seek to explain how to become a travel ninja or ultimate traveler. Travel hackers are the people constantly chasing miles, rewards points, and elite status. They are looking for every possible way to game the system.
Most travel hacking is about using miles and rewards to get free flights or accommodation. True travel hackers accumulate points and status like a badge of honor. Need to take 16 flights in 30 days to get a certain elite mileage status? No problem. Get triple miles on a new route? No problem, I’ll fly it tomorrow. Sign up for this card, fill out this form, or enter this contest to get 5,000 hotel points? Easy. These travelers remind me of that scene in “Up in the Air”, where the main character says, “I don’t do anything if it doesn’t benefit my mileage account.”
However, for me, travel hacking is more than that. It is about bringing costs as close to zero as possible. Since only the die-hards really want to spend hours and hours putting together mileage routes that might get them 100 extra miles or reading the fine print to find a loophole they can exploit, I’ve put together this guide for the casual traveler who still wants to travel cheap, but who might not have the time nor the desire to be a black-belt-level travel ninja:
How to Hack to A Flight
Since flights are usually the first thing people research when they travel, I thought I’d deal with this subject first. Searching for a cheap flight is easier said than done these days. I recommend signing up for Airfarewatchdog so you can stay alert to cheap flight deals in your area. Flexibility is key to finding cheap flights, as deals are sometimes around for only a few hours. A day can mean the difference of hundreds of dollars. But if you need flights on a certain date, then you need to work the system a bit.
Let’s look at an example. Say I am flying from New York City to London. This is a popular route, and is served by a lot of airlines. I picked the date October 17th with a return date of October 27th.
Step 1: Use a site like Kayak as your baseline. They search multiple websites at once so you can see prices across the board. Moreover, I also like how they let you search a few days before and after your selected date. In the US, I also like Travelocity, but there are tons of good aggregators around the world.
Kayak returned these results for flying from New York to London:
Step 2: Cross check with other, more global aggregators like Skyscanner or Momondo to see what they come up with. These two are my favorite as they tend to search a wider range of booking sites as well as discount airline carriers. I never book a flight without checking these sites first. (Another good one is Mobissimo.)
Skyscanner results:
Momondo results:
Step 3: Find the lowest fare and head to that airline’s website to see if it is less. Sometimes airlines price tickets less on their own websites than they do on aggregators as a way to entice people to book directly. As we see above, the lowest fare is $592.19 USD on a low-cost airline called Mandarin Airlines (actually, when you click the link it sends you to Astraeus Airline) with Iceland Express next at $676 USD. I couldn’t find a booking form on Astraeus (they are a charter operation partially owned by Iceland Air) but checking on the Iceland Express website, we see the price is the same:
Step 4: Next, check the airline’s foreign website to see if the price is cheaper in another currency. (i.e. britishairways.co.uk instead of britishairways.com) Depending on your currency, you might be able to take advantage of the exchange rate and book in another currency while getting charged in your own currency, thereby saving money. On our example, this doesn’t work because we are going from the United States to England and the English Pound is worth more than the US dollar. Additionally, the Iceland Krona is not worth less than a dollar. However, if we were going the reverse way, this would work. I’ve used this method when flying to New Zealand since their currency is worth less than the US currency.
Step 5: Check alternative routes. Most major airports have expensive fees and taxes that can add a lot of money to the price of a ticket. I like to check other big airports and then see if taking a discount flight to my final destination is cheaper. This is especially good in Europe since they have so many airlines. For our example, maybe flying to Dublin is cheaper, and then I can just take a quick Ryanair flight over to London. (Turns out, in our example, it isn’t.)
Step 6: Check the airport’s carriers. One thing I do quite a bit is to go to the airport’s website and see what airlines fly into it. Sometimes you find small carriers that are not listed on aggregators or other search engines. This is sort of my last double check to make sure I checked all possible airlines. After all, I don’t want to find out later that there was an airline that offered a cheap flight but wasn’t listed on an aggregator. (Not all airlines appear are on flight search engines.)
After I do all that checking and work, I then compare the prices of each search and see what is cheapest. I might look at a few more websites and search for a lot of deals if I’ve found big differences between the numbers. Moreover, it is also good to play around with the dates of your trip. Sometimes leaving a few days before or after can make a big difference in price. In our example, it didn’t really make a huge difference when I looked at it. Most of the major airlines were much higher than what we found during that period:
So our $593 USD flight to London on Astraeus airline looks to be the best deal and is more than $200 USD cheaper than most of the major airlines and $100 USD cheaper than Iceland Express. Notice that Astreaus only appeared on 1 booking site and that booking site was not US-based. That’s why it is so important to check multiple sites from all over the world, because not all sites check all airlines. All this work took me about 45 minutes.
Note to Critics: While much of the above is pretty common sense “shopping around,” many people don’t know about these overseas websites or that you can book on an airline’s foreign website. So while $200 USD isn’t a huge savings, I write for a beginner audience and you would be surprised at how few people know about this sort of stuff. I think of my parents whenever I write a post. They are very, very unsavvy travelers so I am writing for their level of knowledge. That way I don’t assume too much about what people know and don’t know.
The second way to fly is to use frequent flier miles to fly for free. And this is where the real “travel hacking” comes into play. And that means earning airline points and miles any way possible. This is the preferred method of travel hackers. There are plenty of ways to get thousands of miles without ever setting foot on a plane, but you have to be willing to put the time and energy into it. However, I found the work to be worth the thousands of dollars in free flights. Here are the major ways to get lots of free miles besides actually flying:
Sign up for a branded airline credit card: Whether you love Delta, fly United and the Star Alliance, live and breathe Jetblue, or are hooked on Oneworld, all U.S. carriers have a branded travel credit card that gives you 25,000-30,000 points when you sign up and make one purchase. That’s a free economy ticket right there. Airline credit cards are the best way to kick start your mileage balance. I’ve used these cards to collect over 500,000 frequent flier miles. (Here’re my tips on looking for a good one.)
Watch out for special promotions: I sign up for all the airline mailing lists. I always watch out for special 2-for-1 mile deals. Or when they have special card offers to earn extra miles. Last year, British Airways offered a card that gave you 100,000 miles just for signing up. That was a first class ticket home. American Airlines just gave me 1,000 miles for watching a demo on their new shopping toolbar. I once got 5,000 miles for joining Netflix. Marriott is giving away Silver status, and Delta recently gave away miles for watching a video about Bose headphones. Promotions help. It’s how I fly business class for free most of the time.
Sign up for a non-airline credit card: Sign up for a non-airline credit card like a Starwood American Express card and you can get 10,000 sign-up points. When you convert 20,000 points into miles, you get a 5,000-mile bonus. I highly recommend signing up for this card too but signing up for any “points” card like the AMEX travel card or a Capital One card will do. Afterwards, you can transfer your sign-up bonus points to the airline you use and redeem them for flights.
Take the AA challenge: If you are taking a long trip, go with American Airlines. By paying $300, you can take the 10,000 point challenge. If you accumulate 10,000 points in 3 months, you get 1 year platinum status, which gives you get automatic upgrades into business class as well as lounge access. They do not advertise this on their website, however. You must call customer service and ask to take the challenge.
Do a mileage run: If you are only a few thousand miles away from some form of elite status, you can do what the travel ninjas call a “mileage run.” This means you find cheap fares or special bonus mileage offers and take that flight. It can be a weekend getaway, a week away, or an afternoon jaunt. I’ve known people to fly around the country in 1 day simply to get a huge cache of bonus miles. Yes, you spend a bit of money on the flight, but having that elite status for a year will be well worth it.
Buy miles: This isn’t actually a way to get a free flight but it’s a good way to get a cheap business class flight. Many airlines run special offers where you can get 100% bonus on any miles you buy for up to 100,000 miles. This usually costs around $1,300 USD. However, that amount of miles is enough to go business class somewhere in the world so you essentially get a business class ticket at an economy class price.
Note: You will have to sign up for airline frequent flier programs in order to be eligible to redeem miles.
Note #2: Most travel hackers sign up for lots of credit cards as they have the largest one time bonuses (think 30,000-50,000 miles). If you aren’t comfortable doing that, it will take longer to accumulate miles. Opening credit cards don’t necessarily hurt your credit. It’s not opening them that is a problem. However, if you are opening and closing card every month, then you’ll have a problem and I don’t recommend “churning” cards. However, opening a few cards per year is not going to ruin your credit.
Some good sites worth following for more travel hacking deals:
How to Hack Your Accommodation
Outside of flights, accommodation is usually the next big travel expense. Luckily, it’s quite easy to get free or cheap accommodation.
Hotel Deals: Getting a sweet deal on a hotel is actually really easy, especially if you are in the United States. Simply head over to Priceline or Hotwire and bid on rooms. When you know your dates, just head to Better Bidding first to see what similar people bid on and won at. Use that as your baseline. I used this method to get a hotel room in Times Square, New York during Christmas for $85 USD per night. (That is a huge bargain!)
And, just like with airlines, many hotel branded credit cards offer huge sign-up bonuses, which can get you lots of points to redeem for free accommodation. There are also non-credit card promotions that can get you some points, too.
Stay with Locals, Stay for Free: Use Couchsurfing or similar sites like Global Freeloaders, and Hospitality Club (who merged with another site called Servas) to find a local who is willing to host you during your visit to their city. You’ll get a free place to stay (sometimes a bed, a couch, or an air mattress), a local who can help show you around, and the chance to learn a bit about the local culture. It’s a much better way to learn about a city than staying at a hotel. I am a particular fan of Couchsurfing and have used it often.
Work for Your Accommodation: Many hostels around the world will let you work there in exchange for free room and board. All you do is clean a few hours in the morning, and you get the rest of the day to yourself. Hostels are usually thought of as places for singles to party but there are variety of hostels out there for all people and all ages. Don’t be afraid to look into this just because you “aren’t in college anymore.”
House-sit: If working for a hostel isn’t your idea of a good time, then consider house-sitting. In exchange for watching and cleaning someone’s home while they are away, you’ll get a place to stay in the area you are visiting. Good house-sitting sites include:
Go Camp in a Garden: The concept is simple: people offer their gardens for you to camp in. You can search for suitable sites by place, and they range from the basic “here’s a spot for the night” to the more glamorous that offer full access to the house. The offerings are mostly in the UK. There are a few spots dotting the rest of the world, but most locations are in the British Isles. It’s growing in popularity around Europe. Check it out at: Camp in my Garden.
WWOOFing: One of the most popular ways people get free accommodation is to work for it. World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) is a global organization that connects travelers, foodies, agriculturalists, or anyone really that wants to work on organic farms that need laborers. In exchange for working on the farm a few hours a day, you get your meals provided and a place to stay. Sometimes I’ve heard of people getting paid if they stay long-term, but generally they don’t. I think this is most popular in New Zealand and Australia, but you can find farms anywhere in the world. (For example, I had friends work in a winery in Argentina.)
Visit WWOOF for more information.
How to Hack Attractions
Flights and rooms are your biggest budget busters, but cutting down on the cost of attractions is also essential as we move toward the goal of “the no cost trip.”
City Tourist Cards: City tourist cards, while costing money, offer unbelievable savings for those who want an attraction-heavy vacation. If you plan on seeing lots of museums, attractions, and historical sites, you’d be foolish not to get one of these discount cards. As a general rule, they will save you about 50% off the cost of what seeing the attractions individually would have cost.
Find the Free Days: Most museums have special discount times or free nights. Before you go anywhere, make sure you look on the museum’s website to find out if they offer free visiting hours. Even famous museums like the Louvre and the Guggenheim offer free entrance at certain times. If I don’t have a tourist card, I always look up the museums I want to visit to see if I can get in for free.
Don’t forget that many attractions offer military and student discounts, so make sure your carry that kind of identification around! If you don’t have one or aren’t a student or in the military, next time you are in anywhere in Asia, pick one up. You can get them made for you really cheap. Just saying.
How to Hack Food
To learn ways on how to save on food, you can visit my article on how to eat cheap around the world. However, here are some of my favorite tips:
Outdoor Vendors: Small stands that sell hot dogs, sausages, sandwiches, and the like are great places to get a cheap and quick meal. While in Sweden, I lived off these types of vendors — I could get a sausage for about $4 USD. In Amsterdam, FEBO and their croquettes kept my stomach full. In Costa Rica, the empanada seller filled me up for a dollar. These quick and inexpensive meals won’t win any Michelin stars, but they will keep you full without emptying your wallet.
Street Food: In most places around the world (and especially in Asia), the streets are lined with little food stalls and areas where food is cooked openly on the street. You grab a plate, sit down in a little plastic chair, and enjoy a delicious meal. Street food is some of the best food in the world. Meals at street stalls (different from street vendors, who have a bit more permanent set up) cost less than a dollar most of the time, and are a great way to really experience the local cuisine. Many places — like Thailand, for example — wouldn’t be the same if the street food disappeared.
Lunch Specials: Many restaurants, especially in Europe, offer lunch specials where items on the dinner menu are offered at a huge discount. You can get an amazing afternoon meal for a fraction of the cost you’d pay for the same meal in the evening. I usually tend to eat my “nice” meal during lunch because lunch specials and plates of the day are about 30-40% off what I might pay at dinner.
Buffets: While they don’t always serve the best meals, buffets offer great value for your money, especially since they are all-you-can-eat. You can fill up on one meal for the entire day. (Well, I can’t, but I can fill up for most of the day and avoid snacking.) Buffets are a good economical choice, and give you the most food for your buck. They typically cost around $15 USD.
How to Hack Transportation
Lastly, let’s cover transportation and getting from point A to point B on the cheap:
Get a Tourist Card: Besides offering discounts on attractions, city tourist cards include free local transportation. You can’t get much better than that. This is also another reason why I like city tourist cards – free buses, ferries, trams, and trains.
If you don’t want to do that, just walk: Your two feet are the cheapest way to get anywhere. (Though not always the fastest.)
Car share: Sharing a ride is a great way to lower costs. Finding someone going your way to help with gas costs or driving can go a long way to greatly reducing how much you spend on transportation. These sites are good for finding car shares:
Travel forums are also good places to look for travel buddies, as are bulletin boards in any hostel.
Get Paid to Drive: In North America, there are a lot of companies that will pay you to drive someone’s car from point A to point B. Maybe they are moving, or the car was bought online – who knows, but you are essentially a car courier. They give you the car, a date to get it to the destination, and gas money. It’s great for long-distance travel. In Canada, hittheroad.ca is the major national company. It’s hard to find a national company in the US, but this website provides a good directory of cars on the move: Autodriveaway.
While no trip may ever come close to 0, reaching for the goal is what’s important as it keeps you looking for creative ways to travel. If you can take the “normal” cost of a trip and cut 50-75% off it, to me, you’ve travel hacked. Travel hacking is more than being just a mileage and points junkie — it is about finding ways to travel first class on an economy class budget.
Awesome guide! I’ve always wondered how travel ninjas do it.. all those miles and points. Seems pretty addicting! Too bad you usually have to sign up for credit cards to get ahead…
Kelly, I agree. The biggest downside of signing up for lots of credit cards that Matt didn’t mention is that it can hurt you credit rating, which could hurt your ability to get a mortgage, for example.
On the other hand, when you’re a nomad, who needs a mortgage!!!! Woo-hoo! Go Matt! This is one of your most useful articles!
See the note in a recent update to this post about that!
Wow, comprehensive stuff there Matt, kudos! How about a ‘how to hack bargain train fares’? Or is that coming up?
Excellent tips and tricks. Every time I need a flight the first place I check is kayak.com. Good call.
..what an impressive post! Great tips, especially the rent-a-courier option. But about FEBO… ew!!!!!
That was my first thought about FEBO as well hahaha
Wow! Awesome (and very compact, stuffed) post Matt. Not only are you serving us great ebooks, but also all those excellent posts giving us guidance.
We really appreciate all the how to-info you are producing for us all! Kudos!
It’s my pleasure!
Check out the mileage converter on WebFlyer.com – it shows you how to convert points from one program to another.. especially helpful for the programs that aren’t affiliated.
For example, it is seemingly impossible to convert your 20,000 AMEX points to LAN mileage (since they are not directly affiliated) …but WebFlyer shows how you can first convert them to Starwood Preferred Guest (at a ratio of 999:333), then convert the SPG points to LAN mileage (at a ratio of 1:2) and you’ll end up with 6,660 miles! I’ve also found that the site has good deal watches & bonus promos.
^ pardon my math : /
you get the idea.
I know getting a credit card can be really scary for some. But it has earned my wife and I thousands of dollars in free travel and I’ve been doing it for just over a year. Upcoming trips that aren’t costing us anything (or very little) …
Nashville – Hawaii, first class
Nashville – Costa Rica. business class
New York – Buenos Aires – Santiago – Easter Island – Lima – Miami, business class (from 1 credit card signup bonus)
Yes it is addicting
These are really solid tips Matt. I find the lunch specials and free days (for museums, etc) are things that I use the most when I’m travelling. Also, the tips for saving money on flights are important as well, considering the cost of purchasing a ticket is likely one of the largest up front expense of any journey. I find a way to additionally save money is to not feel a sense to do everything listed in the guidebook. Some of my best travel experiences have been had doing random wandering or just visiting an unlisted local market around the corner.
I wish I had this post a couple of weeks ago. Very helpful tips in getting the most out of your buck when flying.
Epic guide! I’m bookmarking for future reference.
Amazing advice, thank you so much for sharing! I’m definitely coming back to this before my next trip.
Great summary of travel hacks and resources, Sam!
Airfare checks: If searching the airlines’ own websites, I’ve noticed there can be fare differences if searching on a Tuesday/Wednesday compared to a search on Friday or the weekend. There aren’t any guarantees here, but perseverance goes a long way, too.
Cheap eats: In Germany, I seek “Imbiss” (snack places) which sell döner. Vegetarians could have additional options here with falafel, salads, rice, roasted potatoes, fries, etc.
Amazing advice, thanks so much for sharing! I’m definitely going to refer back to this before my next trip!
Interesting article. Didn’t know about house sitting and being a car courier. Bookmarking this post.
For parents, googling the name of your destination + “parents” or “family” should bring up local parenting sites and/or blogs that often feature discount codes and freebie family-friendly stuff…
Great tips Matt, especially about Flyertalk. The site may be a bit overwhelming for a first time user so I would recommend starting here:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/milesbuzz-370/
All latest and best miles deals will be there and it’s a great place to start on the site.
And YES! on the street food. How I miss Southeast Asia and my 4-5 $1 meals everyday…
Wow, really informative post! Especially about the flights….I think I will have to look into getting one of those credit cards…
And I thought I was the only one who had found iceland express ><. This is a really good guide, it definitely taught me a few things I didn't know. Are you heading back to Europe as well? I'm going to fly to Oslo on Iceland express and then head down to Egypt by land, with probably no money (hopefully a little though). It would be awesome to meet up if it worked out.
Jeez Matt, how long did that take to put together? Great job. If you do have train hacking tips as one of the other commentators said that would be great for, whilst I think I have my system down, I have no doubt you’ve got some other ideas which could be great.
Cheers
If you are good about paying off your balance. I also setup my bills to come off my credit card that earns points. Also some vendors will allow you to attach your points account to their system so can earn double points depending on who you are with.
Required expenses can have some benefit.
Great summary of useful ideas, thank you!
I would also recommend this one: Shortest guide to free or radically cheap travel
http://zze.st/shortest-guide-to-free-or-radically-cheap-travel/
Great tips, thanks for being so in depth! I need a place to stay for 3 months in Aus, so Im going to look into some of these ways to find a cheap (of hopefully free!) room. Cheers! : )
Fantastic details Matt!
I complete surveys for marketing firms, scored miles this year through Bose by watching a promo video of less than 5 minutes, get miles each time I order pizza with my bank debit card so I don’t even have to use the airline’s cc.
Airline FF programs are free and many airlines are partnered now so they’ll recognize and honor each others miles – that’s usually outlined in the membership or partner section of a given airline’s site.
Great list, I’ve been searching out posts like this one recently and have organized them in a free google site index list by Type (Work, Flight, Hostel), Cost, Location (World, Europe, Asia…) so that when I finally do travel I have all these great resources saved up in one single location. How do you organize all the resources you’ve collected over the years?
It’s a shame that you forgot the greatest feature of Kayak : it can compare multiple destinations on multiple days at once.
Ex: I want to fly from Paris or Nantes, to Dubai or Abu Dhabi, with a departure on 14/09 +/- 3 days, same with the return +/-3 days.
For that I enter :
departure: PAR,NTE
arrival: DXB,AUH
And the classic +/-3 days option.
Now that’s HOW you find the cheapest ticket.
Looking for cheap eats? Try the cafeterias at colleges & hospitals. Don’t sneer, many are offering healthy & tasty menu options. A hospital cafeteria near a museum is going to be a lot cheaper for lunch then the museum cafe. Sometimes I’ve gotten museum admissions for free or 1/2 off & then blown the savings on the food – tiny portions & nothing spectacular except the price.
Matt:
You forgot to mention Helpx.net
By the way, I saw you posted a screenshot of Iceland Express. Just wanna say that, I have very negative experience with the airline, so do many locals. Don’t use them!
Thorough review Matt – this page has been bookmarked for future reference!
Excellent ideas as always..I wish someday I will as nomadic as you!
Great ideas Matt. I bookmarked this for future reference when I return to Turkey
Great list Matt!
I’ve been working on a list on my site with some links to working in exchange for accommodation and hospitality exchange. I’ve been a fan of some of those sites you mentioned as well.
Thanks for sharing!
My sister WWOOfed in Australia. SHe’s going back soon. She plans on starting a farm, and I’d love to get over their and WWOOF for her myself. That’d be sweet. Also, i can’t down anything that shows love to buffets haha! I love eating!
All this extraneous air travel just to build up points is really bad for the environment. People should consider local traveling that reduces their carbon footprint.
Matt,
I think your section Step 4, on “different currencies” is a bit misleading.
“On our example, this doesn’t work because we are going from the United States to England and the English Pound is worth more than the US dollar.”
Obviously, it doesn’t matter that the pound is worth more than the dollar. What would be relevant if (a) the site gives you the option to charge you in multiple currencies, or (b) your credit card gives you a preferential rate on exchange over the one the site offers.
For instance, say the current bank exchange rate between USD and GBP is 1.5.
- The travel site offers a flight at $100 USD or $145 GBP. Obviously it’s better to buy the flight in GBP.
- Or your credit card offers an exchange rate at 1.60. Obviously it’s better to buy the USD option even if the GBP is a bit cheaper.
I doubt you will save too much with this technique however.
Scott
No, I use this all the time when going to countries that have a lower currency value. NZ works great for this. Booking fares in the US for airlines based in the UK also works great too.
“On our example, this doesn’t work because we are going from the United States to England and the English Pound is worth more than the US dollar.”
Sorry, I’m with Scott on this one. The only thing that matters is the ultimate charge on your credit card. It makes no difference whether a British pound costs more than a dollar, or a NZ dollar costs less.
The exact charge in your home currency depends on the exchange rate used by your credit card company when they record the transaction. It just doesn’t matter that one British pound buys more than one dollar (or more than one rupee, ruble, martian moolah, whatever).
Some companies do have different pricing structures in different countries. It could be worth checking out, but it has nothing to do with which one is the “biggest.”
One warning about kayak.com searches. I have seen several instances where searching on specific dates gave a lower fare than the flexible date search that covers those same dates. It’s rare, but happens. Kayak staff provided an explanation (one provider is not searched with flexible dates), but claimed “it wasn’t an error”. So be aware you may not be seeing the lowest fares using the flexible dates search.
I also travel using low cost carriers, Allegiant airlines Bellingham Washington to Phoenix $39 one way – just be careful of add on fees like luggage This march went from Seattle to Tampa via Dallas for $115 one way. This flight stops in Dallas with a change of planes. Seattle to Dallas, same flight$131 so the cost is less going on to Tampa with a stop in Dallas than just going to dallas.
This summer went on a home exchange to LA. Cost for accommodation was zero. Used Global Home Exchange at 4homex.com as they offered a free listing at http://www.globalpacificvacationhomes.com/freeNYC.htm The people from LA stayed in our home while we stayed in theirs. While in LA we stopped at Costco. Got $59 admission ticket to Universal studios which included 5 separate admissions anytime within a year. This works out to $12 a ticket per time I go. Compared with the one day ticket at the gate which is around $79. Costco also has specials to Disneyland and other attractions.
We have also travelled on home exchanges to New York St. louis, Phoenix, Australia, Canada and Europe. With no accommodation cost, vacations are affordable by swapping homes for vacations.
This just saved me 400 dollars! Van YVR to London Gatwick. Very helpful tip to check what airlines fly out of the airport and then search each airline. This is how I found flights for $609 compared with $1115 using all the other search engines
Well, then my work here is done!
matt, props to you, but to say you got a 200 dollar saving is a little bit of gilding the lily – i’d say kayak is a pretty common site and most people who know this blog should know kayak. and the point about currencies being worth more than others etc, well this has little to do with anything. its more about luck as to which currencies are going to wpork. sometimes flights are cheaper on home sites because airlines like to keep benefits for their own people.
air new zealand for example. if youre booking from the US, yuou’ll get a much better deal on a domestic flight in new zealand if you book via the .co.nz website.
similarly, with Lan.com, you’ll save HEaPS on domestic flights within chile if you book within the Chilean part of the site (which sadly you cant access with a US ip address….) sometimes 66% chepaer than the US part of the site. nothing to do with va;ue of currency though.
but credit where its due, a 100 dollar saving trans atlantic is nice.
Such a great info! Although, I don’t really like credit cards :S
Wow. I wish I had these 2 weeks ago when I purchased my tickets to New Zealand. I ended up going through Vayama, they seemed to have the best deal for what I was looking for. Google flight search just launch, but seems to be limited to major cities, has anybody else used it yet?
I’ve used it a bit. I haven’t found huge savings from it.
I like Vayama too.
Great tips, I’ll use some of these. Thanks for this useful post. R
Hey!
Thank you for mentioning HitTheRoad.ca
Now I know how to classify ourselves. We’re Travel Hacking facilitators!
wow, that was a ton of useful information! thanks matt! i consider myself to be a pretty experienced traveler, but I didn’t know about a lot of those websites. I especially didn’t know about the car courier thing, i thought that died out in the 80′s.
It’s been long enough….it’s now retro
Every traveler should remember this !!!
Good tips. Will try on my trip to New Zealand next year.
Great information Matt. So many article these days forget what real budget travel is in all it’s forms. Will cross-post.
Very informative and detailed guide to hack an affordable trip! Thanks for sharing with us.
Useful tips here. Thanks.
Many hotels, airline lounges, coffee shops, etc. make it difficult to send email unless you’re using webmail or have a VPN (a VPN that works, that is). I found a useful guide to how to get around these limits at http://bit.ly/G46Pm.
For a beginner traveler like myself, these are very useful tips. I’m hesistant to sign up for the credit cards just for miles because I’m just a college student but the travel hacking tips definitely helped me get a cheap ticket to Bilbao!
Just pay off your card at the end of the month.
Great guide I learned a lot of new tips. I know one hacker recommends a credit card that gives you miles. Use that card to buy dollar coins from the US Mint. Once you get the coins take them to the bank and deposit them so you can pay your credit card bill resulting in free miles.
The Mint now puts limits on your ability to do this. You’re only allowed a small purchase each month and I think they have started charging for shipping but I’m not 100% sure.
this is a great article Matt mate, after all my travels i STILL havent signed up to an airmiles account :S stupid i know, i use a british passport and always thought that we don’t get great offers compared to North America. Any knowledge in that area mate?
Great article. I’ve bookmarked it for reference! Btw, small point but Servas.org is still around – they did not merge with HospitalityClub.org. If anything, they have closer relations to Couchsurfing than to Hospitalityclub.
I really agree with what you are saying here; with flyertalk.com I was able to gain the ability to travel to Europe and South America in Business/First class for less than coach. I go on a lot of exotic repositioning cruises, four of which have been transatlantic. I could not have afforded to go, if I had to pay true fares to these places.
In the last two years I have redeemed through the techniques described through you a: $6,000 United First Class ticket to Brazil, $1,200 TAM Brazil First Class to Sao Palo–Buenos Aires, $4,500 TAP Portugal Business Class LIS-EWR, $2,000 Continental BusinessFirst to Lima, $3,000 LOT Polish Business Class EWR-WAR-BCN-PMI, $1,600 Continental/Alaska First Class New Orleans-Alaska.
As well hotel loyalty should not be missed. I really like Hyatt however, under today’s economy I really have good things to say about Holiday Inn, for international travel. Great Platinum benefits, fantastic point earning options, as well as hotel truly around the world.
My favorite air programs are US airways for easy status (you can even buy it) cheap club membership, (something everyone should invest in, as airport clubs are great around the world for free drinks, snacks and places to sleep and relax. Also programs such as BMI, Avianca, Air France’s Flying Blue, allow you to buy points and then have cheap award/mileage specials (US Airways always has great options to buy miles, good for award flights on all Star Alliance flights) for flight awards/upgrades. Several of these programs allow for a joint miles and cash option which is a great deal, BMI being the best in this area; also many of these programs allow for one way, stopover, and open-jaw awards.
If you are wanting to buy tickets I recommend Virgin Atlantic for it’s Premium Economy as well as Turkish, Air France, ANA, and BMI for this lower cost option; which earn 125% mileage on most flyer programs. Really spending time studying flyertalk will help master the frequent flyer world.
I will end this by saying, that travel by ship, I have found often to be MUCH more cost effective than land based trips, with a degree of comfort that would be much more expensive on land. A recent example, is my October 30, 2011 Royal Caribbean, Palm de Morica (island off of Spain) to Colon Panama, Repositioning Transatlantic Cruise, only cost me $300 for the 14 night cruise. I should add, that included a $150 onboard credit for an ocean view cabin. Loyalty with Royal pays off: thus a key point in life as in travel, Loyalty is a big deal, with benefits.
My advice is to master the benefits as stated and think of cruising when wanting to explore exotic locals. On ship most things are included, and not having to constantly pack and unpack is a great thing. Plus going back to the safety of a gleaming “Hyatt at Sea” is a great thing!
Great post Matt, I only just came across it. I get pretty overwhelmed with Flyertalk, most of the time they don’t talk in english.
I love hacking flights, it’s time-consuming but I’ve found that I can usually save about 50% on long-haul flights if I try a few different things which can amount to a thousand dollars worth of savings.
I’ve got the process down to a fine art now and have started Flightfox.com to connect “hackers” with non-hackers, so that travellers who don’t have the time or knowledge to “hack” flights, can crowd-source their flight out to those who do. It also creates another income stream for hackers or those willing to put in the effort to search/learn.
If you have time, let me know what you think.
Cheers,
Lauren
Great tip, Matt, thank!
I’d like to share a site that I use often when looking for accommodation in Southeast Asia:
http://www.seasiahotelier.com
Its kind of like Kayak, but for hotels. It a directory of hotels, by country and city, and you can browse through to find what in your price range (I’ve found that in most of SE Asia, two-stars hotels are the best bargain if you’re looking for something a bit more than what hostels offer, and are more than adequate for backpacking). Then when you enter your check-in and check-out dates, it searches major hotel booking websites for the best room rates (this is where it is similar to Kayak).
Happy and Safe travels everyone!
If you haven’t already added it to the list http://www.bookingbuddy.com is also a great resource searching through several other websites, databases, etc. and comparing flights (or other). It pulls from the usual including Kayak with the option to add more sites to compare. Easy interface as well.