How to Snag a Pricing Airline/Vacation Glitch

I’m very fortunate to have friends whom are also avid travelers, and I’m even more fortunate that they provide loopholes and tricks of the trade for ways to find more travel steals. I’ve had friends that have been able to go to Hawaii for just over $300 (3 nights, round trip airfare, and hotel included) and other friends that have found deals from NY to South Africa (round trip) for just $395. I’ve been able to find similar deals such as my trip to Jamaica in 2012 which was only $700 for 7 days and included the round trip airfare and was also all inclusive (it was a steal.. and I was broke). Granted, it’s not as big as a discount some of the other deals that I’ve heard from others, but these sort of deals are actually more common than you probably think.

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Most beautiful places in the world

**Grand Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia pictured above

Seeing that as I love to travel (or should I say the thought of traveling), I’m always scouring the internet for unique places that most people might not have heard of. I’ll go to sites like  Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, Examiner, etc. where they sometimes feature articles of some enchanting places. After compiling my top 10 places, which was more difficult than selecting my favorite cafes, I’ve listed them for you below. If you’ve been to any of these places, I’d love to hear your feedback as to how your experience was. This reminds me that I need a travel buddy to hopefully visit half of these places. They’re just magical. Almost Disney magical.

1. “Tunnel of Love” Kleven Ukraine

   

2. Antelope Canyon, Arizona

   

3. Blue Lagoon Galapagos Islands, Ecuador

   

4. Havasu Falls Grand Canyon National Park

   

5. Hitachi Seaside Park, Ibaraki

   

6. Wisteria Tunnel Kawachi Fuji Gardens, Japan

   

7. Sea Cliffs Varadero, Cuba

   

8. Maldives

   

9. Ice Canyons, Greenland

   10. Plitvice Lakes, Croatia
   
   

Traveling tips and deals!

**Santorini, Greece pictured above. I’ll be going there this year. Yes. Yes I will.

I’ve had the biggest itch to do some serious traveling this year and I’m planning to conquer both Thailand and Greece. So what do you do when you have an itch? You scratch it. And what do you use to scratch it? Anything that can alleviate the itch the quickest and is most effective. In this instance I have an array of tools to scratch my itch. I’ve learned that in order to get the best bang for your buck, you need to create alerts for certain destinations and you’re even able to set a threshold as to how much you’d like to spend with some of these sites. There’s obvious trends that you need to pay attention to such as seasonality (summer is typically the most expensive for any destination). As tedious as it may seem, it’s always best to compare numerous travel sites so that you’re getting the best deal possible. Here are some tips when considering which places you’re looking to go to:

• If you’re planning to travel during “high- traffic” times such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, Memorial Day Weekend, etc. it’s best to book your flight/hotel at least 12- 16 weeks prior to your trip.
• If you have the luxury of traveling during flexible dates, it’s best to travel AND book during the week (Tues or Wed specifically) as these are the days when flights are typically the cheapest.
• Social networks! I can’t begin to tell you how many deals I constantly see on facebook and twitter (probably because they’ve already “cookied” me and they’re simply retargeting me).
• Delete your cookies every time you’re searching for a new flight or vacation. Every time you search for a specific flight or vacation, that site drops a “cookie” and establishes you as a user on their site. What happens is that each time you continue to search for the same flight/vacation, travel sites will hike up the prices because they’ve established you as a user and will continue to raise the price. By deleting your cookies, they see you as a “new” user and will send you the cheapest prices since they believe that you haven’t visited their site with the same search before.

Now that you know this, here are the sites that I’d recommend to go to. I won’t lie, I stole some of them from my friend Krista who covered a similar topic in late January.

• VacationExpress.com – This is for all your Carribean and Central American needs (Probably the best site if you’re looking to go to these destinations)
• Europeandestination.com – You’re able to plan a multi- city trip here and the prices are amazing!
• Travelzoo.com – everything from flights, hotels, and vacations all around the world can be found here. This is typically my “go- to” site.
• Kayak.com – extremely easy to navigate and you’re able to set alerts for a certain price threshold
• Expedia.com – self-explanatory.
• Airfarewatchdog.com – you’re able to set alerts here as well for certain cities during a certain month or a specific date.
• Southwest Click ‘N Save– It’s all over the social networks and they always have hella cheap deals.
• Groupon and Living social getaways- great vacation steals!
• Vacationist.com– a little bit more expensive but it’s also more luxurious (definitely stole from Krista)

Happy travels!