105 Supersmart Strategies

PART FOUR: PACKINGPack as little as possible Your goal is to never check bags (more on that in a minute). That means packing light--even if it means doing laundry at your destination--and cramming your belongings into as small a space as possible (those compressible mesh bags are a godsend). Most airlines charge for bags over 50 pounds, and some charge for far less, or for checking bags at all; Spirit Airlines just began charging $5 to $10 for every checked bag. If your bag is over 50 pounds and the airline allows two checked bags per person, simply pack in two smaller pieces of luggage instead. Sure beats ironing By now we all know to roll our clothes as a way to best utilize space and avoid wrinkles (it's better than folding). As for the clothes that won't handle rolling well: Layer them inside plastic dry-cleaning bags--friction is what causes wrinkling, and the plastic is friction-free. Hang them upon arrival. FedEx it yourself There are companies that will ship your luggage (or your skis or your golf gear...) so you don't have to schlep them to and from airports. Here's the thing: Most simply ship via Federal Express or a similar service. You'll save half--or even more--by going directly to FedEx. WWMD: What would Martha do? Rather than racking your brain to remember what you take every time you go away, create a master list on your computer of the items you always pack; then do a "save as" and customize copies for different kinds of trips (beach, city, skiing). Also make a list of the stuff you have to do at home before leaving on a trip, such as putting a hold on the newspaper and lowering the thermostat. It's a germy world Go out and buy a big box of antibacterial wipes in travel-size packets, and then put some in your luggage and some in the trunk of your car. (Or remember to never touch the remote control in your hotel room.)

PART THREE: BOOKINGAre you comparing apples to apples? Fees and taxes can raise prices dramatically, so find out if they're included in any price you're quoted. Booking engines keep travelers in the dark by bundling their taxes and fees or by waiting until late in the booking process to show them, and some charge more than others. Get a trigger price Do the necessary research so you'll know a good deal when you see one. What do we mean by "necessary research"? Start by taking a look at Farecast.com, a newish website with reams of historical airfare data, and then do your shopping around. Airfares change like that, and you have to be ready to book at a moment's notice--or the fare will disappear. Beware any checked boxes Some travel sites will automatically add extras that you might not want--most notoriously, travel insurance. Rail Europe, for example, tacks on a $10 per-ticket insurance fee, which online customers pay unless they notice the pre-checked box and opt out. If you see a checked box on a website, look closely for the fine print. Delete your cookies Websites put cookies on your computer that let them know you've been there (which is how they remember your name). Travel sites, however, have used them to avoid showing you the same price every time you visit. Delete your cookies and they'll treat you like a new customer. How you delete them depends on your computer and browser, but the option is usually available under the "Tools" or "Preferences" menu of Explorer, Safari, and Firefox. Some cookies serve a useful purpose, so delete only the ones associated with the booking engine. Connections are a drag Whenever possible, fly nonstop ("direct" flights may in fact make a stop on their way to the final destination), and depart early in the day, before delays have a chance to bungle schedules. In winter, you should avoid hubs such as Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis, and New York; these airports are likely to experience weather-related delays. It's your honeymoon! And that's super. But if you say so when you're booking a trip, you'll get charged a higher price (it's just like with weddings, when flowers cost more than they usually do). The time to announce your honeymooning status is when you arrive at the airport. Same goes for a major anniversary or any other special trip. Bid low, score big While Priceline is now a full-fledged booking engine, it's most valuable for its bidding system. We like it for hotels in cities, but be wary of two-star hotels and below, and research neighborhoods in advance. BiddingForTravel.com has examples of successful bids. The law of supply and demand means you'll do better at business hotels on weekends, at resort towns on weekdays, and anywhere off-season. Be receptive Subscribe to e-newsletters from airlines, hotels, and travel sites. The best deals are last-minute, and to get them you need to hear about them immediately. Sales are contagious When an airline slashes fares, competitors that fly the same route tend to follow suit. So if a carrier doesn't have availability, or the times or connections are less than ideal, scope out its competitors. Psst! Secret fares you'll never see at booking engines Tour operators that book packages with charter flights (such as Vacation Express, Funjet, and Apple Vacations) also sell just the flights--for far cheaper than regularly scheduled ones. The potential downside is that charter flights usually go once a week, so if you miss your flight or the plane conks out, you're stuck. Consolidators, which sell discounted fares on regular airlines, are another resource. The best ones, like 1800FlyEurope.com and India specialist HariWorld.com, work out deals with the airlines that fly to a certain area. We now live in a grasshopper's world Remember the fable of the anal-retentive ant and the seize-the-day grasshopper? These days, the grasshopper wins. There's rarely need to book a trip more than two months out. In fact, you often pay more. The few exceptions when you should reserve well ahead: busy times (e.g., holidays), trips for large groups, exotic destinations with few flights, when it's a special event like a wedding (and you have no flexibility). Confirm all of your reservations It's a particularly good idea with hotels and car rentals during peak travel periods, when they're more likely to overbook and hand your room or car over to someone else. And confirm your cancellations, too Get a confirmation number or, even better, a confirmation e-mail. If you don't have proof in writing, you're facing an uphill battle if the charge eventually shows up on your credit-card bill. Moron alert! If you call a company and the person who answers sounds like an idiot or a jerk, hang up before saying your name. Call back later. (To find out which keys to press to reach an operator at hundreds of companies, go to GetHuman.com.) Maximize your cell phone Turn it into an address book, with contact info for airlines, hotels, car-rental companies, and your car and health insurers. (Get a local phone number, too, in case the toll-free one won't work overseas.) And if you use your cell to store loyalty-program account info, you can toss those membership cards. Welcome to our country! Now go home If you don't have enough blank pages in your passport, or if it expires in six months or less, some countries won't let you in. (Not sure if you need a visa? See state.gov/travel.) In the U.S., the rule is that you now also need to have a passport if you're entering the country by air from Mexico, Canada, the non-U.S. Caribbean, the Bahamas, or Bermuda. People arriving by cruise ship may also require a passport as early as January 1, 2008. Why a hotel room is kind of like a rug Few price quotes are non-negotiable anymore--that goes for a rug in India or a hotel room anywhere. Don't accept the first rate you see; ask if there are unadvertised specials, or if the hotel can do better. Play up whatever you bring to the table--you're with a group, for example, or you visit often. Instead of a lower rate, you may end up with free parking or an upgrade. Just make sure the person you're wooing is in a position to deliver. One word: plastic Pay for all bookings with a credit card, so you'll be protected in the event the airline or tour operator goes out of business. Without evidence, you have no case Bring a copy of whatever is included in your rate. Otherwise the hotel might, say, charge you for breakfast, or the car-rental agency could try to give you a compact instead of a minivan. They'll find it a lot harder to argue if you have it on paper. A few thoughts on travel insurance If all you have reserved are flights and hotels, insurance generally isn't worth it: You can rebook a flight and only suffer a $100-per-ticket (or so) fee, and hotels rarely have strict cancellation policies. But if you're headed on a cruise or a once-in-a-lifetime adventure, such as a safari, insurance looks better and better, because tour operators and cruise lines (which are less likely to get any last-minute bookings) tend to penalize those people who cancel. You should also consider buying travel insurance when you think the odds are decent that you won't be able to take the trip for one reason or another. Just make sure you understand up front exactly what is and isn't covered, which situations allow you to cancel, and what the cancellation time frame is. What about when disaster strikes? Some people believe they should get insurance in case there's a terrorist attack or natural disaster. Recent history has shown, however, that travel companies are incredibly sensitive when such events occur, and they almost always drop their usual restrictions and allow their customers to rebook or cancel without penalty. Of course, there's no guarantee that this will always be the case.

PART TWO: LOYALTY PROGRAMSThe royal treatment Members of loyalty programs get better service, fewer hassles, less paperwork, and great freebies and perks. So before you reserve anything (hotel, airline, car rental, etc.), join the loyalty club, even if you're only planning on doing business with the company a single time. Don't be a hoarder The value of frequent-flier miles is in decline. Don't sit on them hoping that someday you're going to trade them in for a round-the-world ticket. Use them ASAP to get upgrades, free tickets, even (ahem) magazine subscriptions. Some airlines--such as Continental and American--have online calendars that make it fairly easy to see when miles can be exchanged for free flights and upgrades. Sell your mother for 10,000 miles More and more airlines (including United and US Airways) are insisting you have "activity" in your account every 18 months or it'll be closed. Amass miles any way you feel comfortable: credit cards, car rentals, hotel stays, purchases from partner companies, whatever. Airlines simply cannot be trusted Don't assume that miles will be added to your account automatically. The burden of making sure you get credited is entirely on you. Check your balance online, and if the miles fail to show up within a week after you've flown, contact the airline reward program.

PART ONE: TRIP PLANNINGThe best advice is lots of advice Clip any newspaper and magazine articles. E-mail friends, friends of friends, and even like-minded strangers (via message boards) for advice. Ask for tips from bloggers who specialize in destinations. Check out user-review websites like TripAdvisor. Don't rely on any single source, even Budget Travel; look for a consensus. Flexibility pays off When it comes to booking a flight, being flexible with dates used to mean doing a lot of data entry. Flexible-date searches at Travelocity, Kayak, and many airline sites now make it a snap to see how much you'll save by changing your dates. Think outside the hotel-room box Renting a house, condo, or apartment--or swapping homes--may be better, especially for groups. The Internet has made locating such non-hotel options a million times easier. Three vacation-rental websites: VRBO.com, HomeAway.com, VillasIntl.com. Three home-swapping websites: HomeExchange.com, HomeLink.org, Intervac.com. Someone has to pay the tennis pro's salary When you stay at a hotel, you're essentially paying for all the services offered--gym, water sports, concierge, tennis courts--even if you never use them. So figure out what's important to you, and what you can do without. Pick the right guidebook Browse to check that the research isn't stale and that you trust the writer's sensibility. Time Out is reliable for big cities, and Lonely Planet is still best for off-the-grid trips. Call a travel agent when you're... Planning a complicated trip, traveling with a large group, going on a cruise, hoping for advice on the destination. Always ask: Has the agent been there? Scout from above Use Google Earth's cool satellite images to gauge the exact distance between the hotel you're considering and the beach, a highway, the Eiffel Tower, the subway, Chernobyl.... The best price is out there somewhere And there's no one simple way to track it down. Start with meta-search engines like Kayak and SideStep, which scour multiple sites for flights, hotels, cruises, and car rentals. Orbitz, Travelocity, and Expedia are good for getting a feel for what's out there--though they often don't search all airlines, and they tack on service fees. Keep hunting Think like a bloodhound: Prices for car rentals and hotels fluctuate, so never give up sniffing out a better deal. When you locate one, snap it up--and cancel the old reservation. Just make sure the cancellation policy won't bite you in the rear. Call hotels directly Certain special rates are only sold over the phone; others are only sold online. Note: Cancellation policies for these can be strict. Know thy neighbors For cruises, tours, and other group experiences, ask who'll be joining you--how mature they are or aren't, whether everyone will already know each other, and so on. For hotels and resorts, make sure there's not a wedding or a convention during your dates. For cruises, check out CruiseCritic.com. Why packages can be major bargains To fill rooms and seats, hotels and airlines will resort to rock-bottom prices. For obvious reasons, they don't like to publicize these rates, so they sell a certain number of rooms or seats to companies that bundle them in packages. That way, no one knows exactly what the airfare or hotel alone costs. Here are a few things to bear in mind before you buy a package: 1. The only way to know if it's a deal is to see what it costs to book separately. 2. Don't trust the packager's hotel description or star rating; research the hotel on your own. If you don't like the hotel being offered, you can usually upgrade. 3. Ask about the flight's times, connections, airline, and change and cancellation policies. 4. Extra nights are often available at a ridiculously low rate. Buy drugs Get and fill prescriptions for sleeping pills and medicine for traveler's diarrhea. At some point in your travels, you'll be extremely relieved that you did. Silverjet! Eurofly! Zoom! It seems like there's a new airline every day, and because they don't show up in booking engines, figuring out who flies where is a headache. Bookmark DoHop.com--it lists which carriers serve an area. Third-party bookers often get second-class treatment Wrong as it is, hotels are nicer to guests who seek them out than to those who come via a third-party booking engine. Whenever possible, book directly. If you see a low rate elsewhere, ask the hotel to match it. Hotels will almost always undercut any middleman--which isn't all that difficult, when you consider that booking engines tack on fees In case of emergency Old rule: Bring a photocopy of your passport with you. New rule: Scan your passport and e-mail it (and your itinerary) to yourself and to someone you trust back home. So much for Tuesday after midnight For years, many "travel experts" have theorized that some or other weeknight was when airlines released fantastic deals, but that's hogwash. "Garden-view" equals parking lot Words can lose their meaning (if they ever had much of one in the first place), and you can't assume your definition is the same as someone else's. A few words and phrases you should cast a gimlet eye on: boutique (when describing hotels), centrally located, charming, chic, garden-view, low-fare (for airlines), luxury, quaint, recently renovated, romantic, stylish, suite, villa, walking distance. Plus: Hotel rating systems aren't worth a whole lot. What makes a hotel four-star versus three-star can be something as silly as a phone in the bathroom. The proof is in the picture If a hotel or condo doesn't post photos on its site, ask for images to be e-mailed. But don't assume photos are entirely trustworthy. Images shot with fish-eye lenses make rooms seem bigger than they are; or the hotel may send a photo of a room that's better than the one you reserved.