I am occasionally asked for advice on how to plan a budget FIT (
FIT being an acronym for Foreign Independent Travel). Here are four tips on how to use the internet to research and book your travel.
1. Read hotel reviews.
Trip Advisor provides feedback from actual guests at thousands of hotels around the world. Search for your destination, narrow the field to hotels in the area you want, and sort to find hotels that match your budget. Trip Advisor will list possible hotels ranked from "best" to "worst" in each destination. Click to read the reviews that guests have written. While these reviews are a valuable resource,
take them with a grain of salt. Even the finest hotels receive an occasional negative review (sometimes reflecting only the idiosyncrasies of an occasional guest for whom nothing is ever good enough). Some hotels have been accused of gaming the system — writing negative reviews of their competition and posting glowing reviews of their own property. So read a large selection of reviews of a prospective property, written over a long period of time. Do you find recurring complaints? Or is there a general pattern of satisfaction?
2.
Look for bargain basement prices on Priceline. There is an art to using the "Name Your Own Price" feature at Priceline.
Bidding For Travel offers invaluable tips and strategies. Read the
FAQ on how to bid on hotels. Pay special attention to strategies about getting
free rebids. Click on the link for your destination. You will find lists of the hotels Priceline uses in that destination, along with their star rating and zone. You'll obtains information about successful bids and bids that failed. This will give you a good idea of how much to bid to get the hotel of your choice. Be aware, however, that once you place a successful bid on Priceline, your reservation is non-cancelable, non-changeable, and non-refundable. There are bargains to be had, but you lose flexibility.
3. Venere.com. Is flexibility more important than the absolute lowest price?
venere.com is a reliable booking engine that specializes in European hotels with over 27,500 hotels in Europe and around the world. You can sort hotels by price and find lodging that meets your budget. Whenever you book travel on the internet, pay attention to the small print. Find out cancellation deadlines. Determine whether there are booking fees or cancellation fees involved. Print out copies of your confirmations, and keep them with your travel documents.
4. Hotel websites. Don't neglect the possibility of going to a hotel's own website where you can book directly with the hotel. Again, pay attention to cancellation deadlines and save your documentation. Follow-up with an email or phone call to the hotel to confirm your reservation and any special requirements.
Should you use a travel consultant? Don't use a
travel consultant for budget travel unless you are willing to pay a consulting fee. Commissions from budget hotels are not enough to compensate your travel adviser for the time spent on research and reservation management (assuming the budget hotel even bothers to pay the commission). For luxury hotels, it's a different story. A luxury travel consultant can usually provide a better value than you can find on your own.
travel consultant (search here on Google)copyright (c) 2008 by David J. Ourisman. All rights reserved. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website..
