Last-minute travel bargains

The key to finding travel deals at the last minute is persistence. You are going to have to do a lot of comparison searching but if you know how to use the search engines this can be done in a relatively short period of time.

Start out by looking at the travel booking sites because many times they have special offers that they make available and these can vary from month-to-month, week-to-week, or even day-to-day. There may be an incredible deal sitting on one of these sites today that was not there yesterday.

I always tell people to look in the travel section of the Sunday newspaper. Travel agencies and booking sites will usually only pay for printed ads when they are offering special programs and deals and they know that a large percentage of older travelers do not have Internet access.

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Last minute travel deal

You can find travel deals at the last minute if you have determination and persistence and some luck. Many times you can actually get better prices when you decide to leave in less than a week.

The more flexible you are the better the deals you can get.

If you have a copy of the Sunday newspaper, check in the travel section, which is the first place to start looking for travel deals. This is where the small companies and local travel agencies will offer their last-minute prices in order to fill seats and rooms.

The first thing to do is book your flight. No flight no trip. One way to save money on flights is to book stand-by-seating. This means that you agreed to fill a seat at the last minute when somebody else cancels or does not show up. Airplanes will fly to their destination even if the seats are not all filled and because of this the airlines will fill the seats for less money because they do not want the seats to go empty. However stand-by- flying is becoming increasingly difficult, as airlines have cut down on their number of flights in order to ensure that they have less empty seats.

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Travel deals last minute

Have you ever decided to take a vacation and leave in just a couple of days?

We have done that. One morning while were living in Tulsa, Oklahoma we decided to go to California and hour later we were on the road. Since this happened many years ago before we had Internet access we were forced to plan our trip as we traveled. Our planning items included a road atlas and that was it.

My how things have changed. You can plan your entire trip on the Internet including booking your flights, hotel reservations and rental cars and have everything done in less than an hour and be packing your bags.

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Fly drives (flydrives)

Sometimes I travel a great deal for speaking engagements even though I do try to stay in the South during the wintertime and the big question always is should I drive, which I sometimes do or should I fly and rent a car which I usually do.

I have come up with a rule of thumb for myself and that is if the distance is over 500 miles I will fly and rent a car when I get there. However, sometimes when Mary goes with me it is nice just to take a long drive and spend time together in the car. I always love traveling with my wife. Once in a while we will string speaking engagements together and drive the whole trip. This can be difficult to do as my church will allow me to be gone during a Sunday service once in a while but they don’t like it when I’m gone two weeks in a row. It is nice to be wanted.

Let’s say that we’re going to take a trip of 1500 miles and work out a price for the round-trip, both ways, by flying and by driving to our destination. We are not going to be concerned, for the purpose of our discussion, with the expenses incurred after we reach our destination.

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Cruise tips

People who know how to travel and how to book cruises and who also know what to do during the cruises can save a lot of money during the cruises. Below is a list of nine ways to save money which will make your cruise much more pleasant. The more money you save on your cruises the more cruises you can take.

Number 1. Negotiate. Most people do not know that you can actually negotiate a price for your cruise. Start out by offering the cruise company one half the asking price and act like you are only partially interested in actually taking the cruise.

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Flight for less money 

Flying for less is not difficult if you will just take a little time and start several weeks before your trip.

A friend of mine booked a flight from Melbourne, Florida to Seattle, Washington and then called and asked me if I thought he got a good price. I just happened to have my computer on and within three minutes found that he had paid $200 too much. I didn’t have the heart to tell him because he had already booked it and it was now too late. I just told him, call me next time before you do anything. He must have gotten the message because the next time he came over and I booked his flight for him.

 There are ways to save money on flights, but calling the airlines on the phone is usually not one of them. I have used the Internet for years to book all my travel arrangements as I sometimes travel a lot for speaking engagements and the savings really add up.

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