Web-Savvy Ways to Make Travel Easier and Cheaper
December 11th, 2007 (4:00pm) Samuel Dean 18 Comments
Earlier this year, eMarketer did an interesting study showing that niche travel sites online are making a big dent in the market for more traditional travel services. There are so many niche sites, though, that it can be hard to keep track of which ones can really save you money, time and hassle. In this post, I’ll round up some guaranteed winners, starting with the really useful TripIt.com.
TripIt can be a big organizational help if you travel a lot, especially if you don’t have access to any kind of assistant who can help you. The beta service organizes all of the aspects of your trip—airline reservations, car rental info, hotel details, etc.—into one master itinerary. This saves you from having to aggregate everything in one document, or worse, carting around a bunch of pieces of paper with your plans. You just e-mail plans@tripit.com with your details, then it creates a master itinerary, and you can access and print it from anywhere you can get online.
Some travelers relish the thought of negotiating best prices and tracking travel options while others are more inclined to simply avoid hassle, even if they pay a bit more. If you like to get the lowest prices, and are willing to do a bit of extra legwork, try Kayak and Farecast.com. Kayak was founded by some veterans of the online travel industry who reasoned that by avoiding specialized deals with travel agencies, they could help travelers get the best prices. Kayak scours hundreds of travel sites for deals. Farecast.com does very useful graphs of how airline tickets have risen and fallen in price over a certain amount of time, so you can buy low, as seen below.
For optimizing your airport parking, and quick access to limos and other services, try AboutAirportParking.com.
Do you travel internationally a lot? If so, many travelers cite Mobissimo as having the best deals. The site has a much larger database of international flights than most do.
I’m always surprised by how many people will spend time trying to save on airline tickets, but then pay top dollar for hotel reservations. You can get really good hotel deals at Priceline.com and you even get a greeting from Captain Kirk on the home page. It’s especially good for getting discounts at luxury hotels, and you can bid for the best prices.
For a dozen more tips on convenient online travel solutions, including the super useful sites SeatGuru.com and FlightAware.com, see my previous post and the reader comments there.
Do you have any good tips on online travel sites and services?
18 Comments Post your own comment
Airline Fanatic says: December 11th, 2007 5:18pm
Nice post. I particularly like the idea of Tripit, especially if it integrates well with my Google Calendar.
I put together a 5 step guide to the perfect flight where I outline what I do every time I book travel for myself. Kayak is definitely tops, but you have to do a little more research to make sure the experience you get when you fly is better than the low price you paid for your ticket.
Great sites for saving on flights « Great Ideas in Teaching says: December 11th, 2007 8:44pm
[...] Great sites for saving on flights http://webworkerdaily.com/2007/12/11/web-savvy-ways-to-make-travel-easier-and-cheaper/ [...]
Dragoljub Profirovic says: December 12th, 2007 1:42am
My travel experience when trying to cut costs has shown that you are dealing with unreliable airlines / hotels frequently. Any problems you encounter after you have booked your vacation can result in hours waiting on the phone to get the issue resolved. If the aforementioned risk is not enough, consider the amount of time you spent searching for a bargain when you can clearly afford the additional $200 for a trustworthy service.
WhichBudget says: December 12th, 2007 1:51am
I agree with Samuel that there are so many niche vertical travel search engines out there that the web is becoming saturated with these.
If you’re looking at traveling to Europe or Asia, we’ve put together a very comprehensive list of budget airlines serving the airports in these regions (we’re gradually adding North/South American routes too). See http://www.whichbudget.com for more info and don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Martino Matijevic
WhichBudget
Archaeogeek says: December 12th, 2007 5:02am
If you’re in Europe then http://www.skyscanner.net/ is great for sourcing the cheapest option (day/time) for the flight that you want, which is handy if you can be flexible about your journey. I’ve never understood (well, the cynical part of me understands very well) why the airlines don’t make it clear that the cost of a flight might vary considerably from one day to the next.
Holiday Travel The Web Worker Way » jdrohn.com says: December 12th, 2007 8:41am
[...] Web Worker Daily has a great writeup on travel sites. Of the site mentioned, I have used Kayak.com pretty extensively to book some of my business travels, and was always very pleased by the service. [...]
Ben says: December 12th, 2007 10:54am
There is also YowTrip (www.yowtrip.com) which is helpful to find fellow travelers. It makes it super easy to share all kinds of things about your travels as well. You can share your journals, pictures, videos, and tips that you discovered.
Tim says: December 13th, 2007 6:02pm
Worth mentioning flight comparison sites are http://www.kayak.com , http://www.sidestep.com (both for US flights) and http://www.momondo.com (for all European low cost flights).
For hotels I think http://www.hotelscombined.com is great for comparison, whereas http://www.tripadvisor is great for reviews.
Helga says: December 14th, 2007 3:35am
Hi there
I just want to point out http://www.dohop.com, a flight search engine that searches more than 660 airlines around the world for best prices and connections. Dohop is not a booking tool in itself, but forwards you to the airline or OTA where you can book your trip.
Definately worth checking out.
Happy holidays :)
Great Travel Links for 12.17.2007 » TravelBlog Archive » Family Travel says: December 17th, 2007 6:58am
[...] The Web Worker Daily blog has web-savvy ways to make travel easier and cheaper, and consultant Nicole also has 5 tips from a traveling [...]
Perceptive Travel Blog » Blog Archive » PT Travel Linkfest 12.17.2007 says: December 17th, 2007 1:33pm
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Ric Garrido says: December 25th, 2007 6:08pm
My newsletter, Hotels-and-Points, and http://www.frequentguest.net show travelers ways to use hotel loyalty programs to discount the cost of upscale and luxury hotels.
danzar1972 says: January 2nd, 2008 4:53am
I would also suggest a travel site called Trabber - http://www.trabber.com
Very useful to find the best air fares.
Angie says: January 2nd, 2008 4:16pm
Great post on sites to save money. I definitely agree that it’s interesting how people work so hard to save money on flights and then pay top dollar for hotels. Not only that, but sometimes it’s just really hard to find a good hotel, something that fits your mood and personality and gives you the best out of your vacation. Finding cheap travel that still fits your needs and personality seems to be really difficult. You should check out this site: http://www.roomforyourimagination.com. It’s has some really funny videos, and I think it showcases the whole point of hotels–to fit your personality and your style. My favorite video is from room 223 called Labels. It’s so hilarious! Gymnasts is good too! You need to go check it out! These videos are awesome…I work with them so I have the inside scoop!
Web Worker Daily » Archive WWD Coffee Break: Social Travel, Spreadsheets & Networking « says: January 23rd, 2008 8:00am
[...] No Comments Travel with a Buddy - Personal travel assistant site Tripit (which we’ve written about before) is taking a step beyond just helping you organize all the emails that make up a travel [...]
Web Worker Daily » Archive TripIt Goes Mobile « says: April 7th, 2008 2:00pm
[...] your travel itinerary by collating confirmation emails that you forward to it - in the past, and liked it. Now they’ve tweaked the service to make it even more useful to those on the go, with the [...]
Ricardo says: May 9th, 2008 11:52am
Hi,
I suggest you take a look at the flight search engine Jetcost too:
http://www.jetcost.co.uk
Louise says: May 29th, 2008 8:12am
This is a nice post…
When mentioning flight comparison sites; however, http://www.travelmarket.com/ is definitely worth checking out as well! It searches for the cheapest prices among the latest flights.
http://www.travelmarket.com/