Travel can be tricky. There’s a lot to plan — where to stay? what to see? what to eat? — and everything costs money. Lots of it. Even the most frugal individual can find themselves (and their wallets) overwhelmed by something as seemingly simple as booking a trip. Luckily, there are a few tricks out there to help keep your budget in check — not to mention your sanity.
1. Split it with a friend
You’d be hard-pressed to find a company that doesn’t offer some kind of referral program these days, but there’s very few that offer as compelling a reason to share with your friends as free travel.
We recently announced our new referral program. For every friend who signs up using your referral code, you accrue an additional $10 in credit. In the same ballpark you’ll find Hotel Tonight, where both you can get credit toward your next booking by signing up your friends.
Combine the two, and you end up knocking some pretty significant bucks off your next trip.
2. Fly smart
When it comes to buying plane tickets, patience is a virtue — the first ticket price that pops up on Expedia is not always going to be the best deal. Instead, take your time, set price alerts, and prowl great cheap flight aggregators like Orbitz and SkyScanner.
And if you really want to up your travel game, sites like AirFare Watchdog and Yaptalet you track flight prices on individual flights and monitor price forecasts for certain routes, so you can buy at the optimal time for the lowest price.
It takes some elbow grease, but saving money on your plane ticket can help reduce what is (most often) the greatest single cost sink of any trip.
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Our Saavy Traveler series for tips and tricks to travel like an expert.