Keeping your travel bug alive: The dos and don’ts of traveling on a budget

July 21, 9:39 PMCharleston Budget Travel ExaminerLesley Hager

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If you’re like me, you have a very special pet…the travel bug.  Unfortunately, if you’re like me, you don’t have the money to feed this special pet.  So, you need some help.  Lucky for you, I’ve been there, done that…and on a very tight budget.  I’ve compiled a list of dos and don’ts for traveling on a budget so your travel bug won’t have to starve to death.

DO

• Do be lazy. Use the best search engines when searching for cheap airfare.  Using one search engine is easier than using ten.  So, use search engines that scour the entire net and all the travel sites in search of the best price, rather than going to one travel site at a time.   My personal favorites are www.kayak.com and www.cheapoair.com.  These sites search the typical travel sites such as Expedia and Travelocity, plus they search the airline’s sites too.  They do the work for you.  Kayak returns results to you with an all inclusive price, meaning all taxes and fees, so there are no surprises when you go to make the final purchase.  Cheapoair returns results to you with fees included, not taxes, so keep that in mind while you are using this site.
•  Do become a regular!  No matter what airline you fly on, be sure to sign up for their frequent flyer program.  I’ve been able to redeem my frequent flyer miles for several free flights.  Be consistent…give your frequent flyer number to the agent at check-in EVERY time you fly. 
• Do ask for a good gift this year!  Whenever someone asks you, “What do you want for Christmas?” or “What do you want for your birthday?”  Don’t give the typical answer: “nothing.”  Because you know…yes you do…that that person is going to get you something anyway…why not ask for something you will actually like and something you will actually use?  Ask them to buy airline miles for you with your favorite airline…its easy, most miles can be purchased directly from the airline’s website. 
• Do check out your local airport’s home page.  Many times, when I visit my local airport’s websites, I find deeply discounted flights on airlines I wouldn’t typically think of using and airlines that don’t typically appear in travel search engines.  For example, Yeager offers a direct flight from Charleston to Orlando for $44 each way on AirTran.  These tickets can be purchased on AirTran’s website at www.airtran.com.  Tri-State airport also offers a direct flight from Huntington to Orlando for $38 each way on Allegiant Air (www.allegiantair.com).  Had I never been to Tri-state’s home page, I would never have known that if I book a trip for two to Las Vegas between right now and January 2010, I can fly and stay in Vegas for free!  All you have to do is purchase a flight and hotel for one person and the other person’s flight and hotel are free!  The packages were actually pretty reasonably priced too…a 4 night trip to Vegas with hotel and airfare for two people worked out to about $320!  How cool is that?
• Do answer yes to this question:  So, you come here often? Whenever you stay in hotels, be sure to sign up for their frequent guest program.  Most all hotels have them.  Once you build up so many points, you are able to cash them in for free room upgrades, free night stays, etc.
• Do Staycation.  Even if you can’t gather the money to fly off to some exotic far away location, remember that there are lovely places to see and do right here in Charleston and West Virginia. Also, just a few hours of driving will land you in some great out-of-state cities as well:  Columbus, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Charlotte…just to name a few. 

DON’T

• Don’t think that going straight to an airline’s website means that you won’t get the best deal when searching for airfare.  I’ve often found that going directly to an airline’s site, for example, www.delta.com, will give me cheaper airfare rates than using the traditional cheap airfare sites such as Expedia, Travelocity, Priceline, Hotwire and the like.
• Don’t think you have to just sit there and take it!  When travel plans get interrupted by delayed or cancelled flights (and trust me…they will at some point), don’t think you have to sit there and take whatever excuse the airline’s customer service representatives dish out…you DON’T!  You paid, in most cases, a lot of money to travel with them, and you deserve good customer service, which is hard to find among airlines these days.  Ask the airline to give you a voucher to use on a future flight for your inconvenience.  The majority of the time, they will issue you a voucher to ensure you are a repeat customer.  And, poof...instant savings on your next trip!  Just remember, most of the time, these vouchers have to be used within one year.
• Don’t be too cool.  When you travel, you go to see the world…a new place, new sights, new sounds!  You don’t go to sit inside of a hotel room the entire time you are gone.  If you want to look at four walls, you can stay home and do that for free.  Your hotel is just somewhere to lay your head and sleep, and you probably don’t want to be right in the action for that—too noisy.  So, don’t be super choosy about where exactly your hotel is located at your destination.  Of course, choose some where safe, but don’t worry about being right in the action.  Chances are…you can still be right in the action 2 blocks away.  For example, if you stay on the Vegas strip, you will pay more money, but staying 2 blocks back from the Vegas strip will save you much more money.  And, it would just be a quick five minute walk to the hot spots.  This means, more money to put in those lucky slots. 
• Don’t diss Charleston.  Everything those big cities can do, Charleston can do better.  So, don’t think that flying out of a bigger city’s airport necessarily means cheaper airfare.  When pricing airfare from Charleston, I often find that the airfare is the same if not just a teeny bit higher than flying out of larger cities such as Pittsburgh, Columbus or Cincinnati.  Think about it, if you drive to Pittsburgh from Charleston to catch a flight, you have to spend at least 8 hours driving time to and from and about $100 in gas.  It’s easier to fly from Charleston and pay the extra $50 in airfare to do so.  Plus, if your flight gets delayed or cancelled right from the get go, you’re close to your home and will not have to spend the night either stuck in an airport or stuck in an airport hotel. 
• Don’t be a pack rat.  Every summer, to clean out my apartment…err…mostly my closet, I organize a yard/garage sale.  If you haven’t used it, looked at it, or wore it in the past year…you don’t need it!  Your trash will always be someone else’s treasure, so stick a price on it, put up a few signs around the neighborhood, and voila—instant money to help finance your trips.
• Don’t be a quitter.  Quitters suck.  Period.  This is the most important don’t on the list.  Even I believe this…and I’m naturally a very negative person.  If you want to go somewhere bad enough, then you can do it.  It just takes some creativity and planning.  Maybe you can’t see Ireland in the summer because flights are too expensive…but you can see Ireland in the winter when flights are much more reasonably priced.  Maybe you can’t fly on a Saturday because airfare is much more expensive, but you can fly on a Tuesday when airlines drastically reduce airfares.