Cathay Airlines has a special offer to introduce their new round trip flights from Chicago to Hong Kong.

Basically the deal is that the round trip airfare from Chicago to Hong Kong is only $100.

The main catch is that there are only 100 tickets that will be sold at this price. 

The other catch is that a lot of people are trying to get these tickets.

25 tickets will be sold each Thursday during July at 3:25 pm central.  i tried…

Today's Best Travel Deals (Travelocity)

Travelocity has a good deals section of their website.  You can search for specific travel deals based on your choice of destination and dates.

Cheap One Way Flights (Travelocity)

Travelocity makes it really easy to find cheap one way flights.  Just change the slection at the top of their search box from round trip to one way.

Tuesday Morning Travel Deals (Travelocity)

Travel is cheaper if bought on a Tuesday. 

Travel companies offer deals on Tuesdays because they want to attract travel shoppers who are more active on the weekends.     

Cheap Hotel Room Price Deals (Travelocity)

Travelocity offers cheap hotel deals through their Secret Hotels program.

It is the same idea as hotwire where you get a low price, but you don't know the exact hotel until after you purchase it.

The hotel choices are backed by the Travelocity guarantee.

If you use a travel agency to book your travel, make sure you are aware of the "shift share" strategy.

Basically, the travel agents have a hard time making money selling airfare.  Airlines stopped giving commissions in the early 2000's, but some travel agents have special agreements with certain airlines.  In order to make more money, travel agents try to shift a share of their customers to the airline where they get some commissions.

This means that sometimes…

If you are looking for a flight, make sure to check out AirfareWatchDog.com.  I had never heard of the site before, but I read about it the other day and then someone recommended it to me today.

Since I am looking for a round trip flight in August to the west coast, I am open to using all possible sites to find the lowest price.

Once thing I really like about AirfareWatchDog.com is that I can set up an email alert based on the exact trip I am looking for.  I'm…

Skyscanner.com is a site I had never heard of until a friend said she uses it a lot to find cheap flights.  She told me it was Skyscanner.net, but when I searched for it, it took me to Skyscanner.com.

I just did a search for a flight from Minneapolis to San Francisco in August.  The best part was I was able to search for the entire month of August to see the different prices throughout the month.  Since my trip is flexible, this is a nice feature.

What I…

I really like to use one or two online travel comparison sites when I shop for travel.  I usually use Kayak to search for flights and Expedia to search for everything else.

I know that Southwest doesn't publish their rates on the big comparison sites.  Sometimes I will go to the Southwest site and soemtimes I will forget to do that.  Either way, it is annoying that all of the flight information can't be found in one place.

This is why I am writing this blog…

I think I have found the best priceline bidding strategy.  Most budget travelers know that when you are looking for a cheap hotel or flight deal on priceline, their name your own price feature delivers good prices, but also a difficult process of bidding and rebidding.

In order to have the best bidding strategy, you need to start thinking like a Wall Street investment bank.  The investment banks figured out long ago that prices change so fast that no human bidding strategy…

As I look for a cheap flight, I realize I haven't kept up with the airline mergers and news.  I have been trying to figure out where Northwest (merged with Delta) and other airlines are, but now realize they no longer exist.  For anyone doing similar research, here is an updated list of available major airlines:

AirTran Airways

Alaska Airlines

Allegiant Air

American Airlines

American Eagle Airlines

Atlantic Southeast…

I just got back from Bali, Indonesia and I can't say enough about the cheap flight to Bali I found on Korean Air.

The flight was cheap primarily because I bought it as part of a tour package.  The overall 9 day tour was only a little more than the price of a flight to Bali if I had purchased it on my own.

I flew on Korean Air from Chicago to Seoul, South Korea and then from Seoul to the Denpasar airport on the Indonesian island of Bali.

Yes,…

Just wanted to pass along this travel tip that you can save a lot of money in Orlando if you get the Magicard.

The Magicard is a discount savings card for the Orlando area.  If you are going to Orlando, it is worth picking up.

For example, you can get 50% off the normal hotel rate at the Best Western, 50% off rounds of golf, discounts on car rentals, etc...

The best part is that the discount card is free.  It is an effort by the Orlando tourism…

I just got back from Bali.  One of the ways I lowered my costs was to buy food & alcohol in the supermarkets.

There wasn't always a large market available, but even the small markets offered food and drinks at a much lower price compared to within the restaurants and bars.

Too many people think they need to eat each meal at a restaurant when they are traveling.  This will add up very quickly and will also pack on the pounds.  It is so easy to get some…

I just got back from my trip to Bali and I wanted to share a budget travel tip to lower restaurant bills - explore the side streets to find the best value for restaurant meals.

When we were in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia, we went to some great restaurants that had some pretty reasonable prices.  However, when we found some side streets, we found shops and restaurants that had much lower prices with the same quality of food.

The shops and restaurants on the side…

When I was in Bali, Indonesia, I was not used to the idea that I couldn't just drink the water from the tap.  I started buying bottles of drinking water and quickly figured out that this was an expensive, wasteful and stressful activity.

There definately was a strategy to buying bottles of clean drinking water.  The bottles were much cheaper at markets compared to what was available at restaurants.  The price between markets was also very different depending on what type of…

I just got back from my trip to Bali.  The best thing I learned is to negotiate everything.  You can really save a lot of money. Train yourself to be a better budget traveler by improving your negotiation skills.

From hotel rates, souveniers, taxi fares, etc... everything could be negotiated in Bali.  The same is true in almost every travel destination.  Americans are used to a price being on a label with no negotiation possible.  This is not true in the rest of the…

I'm really excited that I'm going to Bali.  I leave in a few days and I'm almost ready.  I have done so much research that my brain hurts.  I bought some snacks for the long flight so I won't have to buy stuff from the airline and in the airports.  I got a new backpack and some new ligth weight clothes.  I went to the doctor to get some shots and some meds in case I get sick from drinking the water or from getting an infected mosquito bite.

I have the opportunity to take a…

What is the goal of cheap travel?  It really comes down to two things.  Either you are trying to save money or you are trying to extend the time you can stay on vacation.

First, some people have to travel as cheaply as possible becasue the don't have a lot of money.  For other people, they might be able to afford a luxury resort, but they go with a cheap hotel becasue they would rather invest the money or buy something else.  No matter why you want or need to save money,…

Everyone wants to know the best strategy for finding cheap flights.  I have bad news for you.  Just when you think you have found the best answer to the question, the answer will change.

In the past, the best way to find cheap flights was to call your travel agent.  Then we all got giddy over the fact that we could go to online travel sites and search for cheap flights on our own.  Then we got specialty sites such as Kayak.com that did a great job putting all of the flight…