Expedia launches rewards program

You may have your favorite travel site, but often when you book matters more than which online agency you use. Tuesday at 3 p.m. Eastern is when airfares are their lowest on average, according to FareCompare, which gathers fare data from the same sources that major travel agencies use. But FareCompare is the only company that makes such a specific claim about the best time to shop for fares. It's hard to check independently. One voice of dissent is Airfarewatchdog, which scours travel databases for for flights and then fetches special sales that the major online travel sites miss. The site says there is no special hour to book plane tickets. Now The Wall Street Journal has weighed into the mix, reporting a vaguer claim that Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are generally the best days to buy fares. One of its sources is Bob Harrell, who tracks fares for his consulting firm Harrell Associates. Airlines tend to make the bulk of their promotional fares available on Sunday night and Monday, says Harrell, and they tend to hike their fares at the end of the week. Harrell did a study of the past 90 days of fare changes for the Wall Street Journal, and found that prices for tickets tend to drop mid-week. The Journal also used Kayak to do a daily check of fares in 10 markets for the past two weeks. It again found that mid-week prices were lowest. So, what to make of all this? It seems best to buy your tickets in the middle of the week. That said, the biggest factor on the price of your ticket can be how far in advance you purchase your ticket. Early-bird buyers get the best fares. Buy a month or two in advance if you can. (See our earlier post: "For the lowest airfare, study says book eight weeks in advance.") Another tip: Use the fare prediction tools at Bing Travel and FareCompare to see if you should buy now or wait later for specific itinerary, based on historical data.

Yes, this can happen to somebody who is in the business, and who travels all the time. Seth Kugel, the New York Times' Frugal Traveler, writes this week about his experience getting ripped off while attempting to rent a London apartment via Craigslist. How did it happen? Much to his credit, Kugel admits that he just plain did some stupid things -- starting with using Craigslist, which is the Internet's unregulated Wild, Wild West, where scams abound. After finding an apartment at what seemed to be a fantastic price, he contacted the agent, who demanded that Kugel wire money to the owner's British bank account. Neither a credit card nor PayPal would be accepted. Kugel had made many such payments while living in Brazil, and so he agreed. Days before heading to London, however, Kugel received a message from the apartment agent, stating that he'd been arrested and that the flat was shuttered because the landlord hadn't paid taxes. The agent said he would try to get Kugel a refund, which of course never came. It was all a scam. How could Kugel have avoided getting ripped off? After going through the experience, and after doing plenty of research to find out what happened, Kugel himself is a great source of information, laying out a series of tips including: Use reputable and tested sites. Ones linked to at visitlondon.com, for example, not rental agents found randomly via Craigslist. Check for previous scams. Search Web sites like Scamwarners.com, Fraudwatchers.org, Scam.com and 419legal.org, to see if people have reported similar scams. And here's the biggie, absolutely critical tip: Always use a credit card. Credit cards will usually refund your money if something goes wrong. As the Craigslist scam information page (which I wish they forced you to read before clicking on an ad) notes: "NEVER WIRE FUNDS VIA WESTERN UNION, MONEYGRAM, or any other wire service—anyone who asks you to do so is a scammer." Now Kugel knows—and so should you. MORE FROM BUDGET TRAVEL: Trip Coach: Vacation Rentals Can You Spot the Travel Rip-off? Are Vacation Rentals Still Legit?

If knowing the exact hotel you're booking matters less to you than getting the best deal in the right neighborhood, then nothing trumps the name-your-own price deals on Priceline. Simply choose your desired city and class of hotel and state what you're willing to pay. If you're worried about over-or underbidding, check out the new site The Bidding Traveler. It studies other people's successful bids and then uses that information to recommend the smartest bids for you to make. As you know, bidding too high on Priceline is a waste of money. But if your bid is too low, Priceline will reject it, meaning you'll have to change your request slightly to make another offer. Escape this dilemma by going to BiddingTraveler.com. Enter your destination and travel dates. The tool works for hundreds of cities. But we found that, so far, there's only enough data for useful advice in ten major cities: Boston, Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York City, Orlando, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, and London. More cities should have useful data in the coming weeks as more people use the site. Next, select the districts you're willing to stay in and the highest star rating of the hotel you want. The site will then suggest what starting bid and final offer you should consider. You can then select how many bids you're willing to make. The site will then tell you what dollar amounts to bid for each re-bid until you're successful. A tip: These days, Priceline accept or declines bids near instantly, but you will still burn up time when you're bidding and re-bidding. If you're in a rush, tell The Bidding Traveler that you'll make a few bids. The Bidding Traveler then takes you to Priceline, where you can sign in and follow its instructions. Budget Travel has written in the past about other sites displaying successful buys on day-by-day, such as the excellent BetterBidding and Bidding for Travel. (See "Search Strategically.") But those sites are far more complicated to use than The Bidding Traveler. MORE FROM BUDGET TRAVEL Priceline now guarantees your hotel bid is the best deal Think you know Priceline? Is Hotwire a safe bet for European hotel bargains?