Surfing for Savings
These websites can save you
big money when you book
your next trip
• Twitter.com Surprise! This trendy social-networking site, best
known for its brevity (posts are no
more than 140 characters in length),
offers a new way to find vacation
deals. Just create an online account,
then type a company’s name in the
site’s “Find People” box. Next you’ll
see the company’s username—click
on that to check out deals. Bargains
can be fleeting, so act fast. Twitter
fares from United, such as Phoenix
to Denver for $53 one way, last only
two hours. JetBlue lists discounts on
25 to 50 seats per flight on Mondays:
we found one recent fare from New
York City to Chicago for just $19.
Starwood recently featured rooms
starting at $69 at its Las Vegas hotels.
CruiseSource.us also posts sales, such
as a $798 special for a seven-night
cruise on Royal Caribbean, with a
$150 onboard credit plus $50 toward
shore excursions. To subscribe to a
company’s Twitter feed, just click on
the “Follow” link.
• Voyij.com This site searches for domestic and international deals—
last-minute specials and undersold
inventory, from hotels to flights—and
posts them in one place. You can plug
in an originating city (to learn what’s
on sale today) or filter searches by
dates, hotel ratings, price, or desired
experience (beach or skiing, for example). We recently found a room at
the Tropicana on the Vegas Strip for
$29 per night.
itineraries on 12 quality factors such
as legroom, aircraft age, and security
wait times, with each flight scoring up
to 100 points. We found a January fare
from Boston to Los Angeles, with one
stop, for $257 roundtrip and a total
of 75 points. But spending $42 more
pushed our trip quality to 95 points—
pointing us to a nonstop flight with
more legroom. (Another website,
fly.com, has a similar service; its
“Why Me?” feature shows amenities
and explains why you may want to
choose one flight over another.)
Deal Ever”: make an online reservation that includes a Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday, or Thursday and get 20
percent off midweek dates. Sale rates
are valid for travel booked from
January 1 through March 30.
• Inside Trip.com Yes, lots of airfare search engines are on the
Web, but this one has a twist: it rates
• BedandBreakfast.com Last- minute planners can access hundreds
of the upcoming week’s “Hot Deals”
at B&Bs, country inns, and historic
hotels. Specials posted once a month
can include discounts for B&B getaways booked online. If you visit the
site in January, you’ll find its “Best
• TripAdvisor.com This is a popular site for traveler reviews—
with more than 25 million posted—
but it also offers new features to
help you book cheaper trips. A “Fees
Estimator” calculates the total cost
of domestic flights—going beyond
base ticket prices from airlines and
factoring in baggage fees. And a new
vacation-rentals calculator (find it at
tripadvisor.com/#Calculator) compares the cost of a hotel with a rental.
A recent scenario: Two people staying five nights in Miami could have
saved as much as $330 by booking a
rental instead of a hotel. —Laura Daily
