Finding Travel Bargains - like a TWO-CENT ROUNDTRIP!

So I thought I'd start off with a recent story about how I was able to find a round-trip airfare to Las Vegas for 2 cents (plus airport security fees and tax). This was an airfare that I bought, not anything where I used frequent flier miles to get a free flight.

A while back I somehow stumbled onto Travelzoo and subscribed to their weekly e-mail. What I love about them is that they send out a list every week of the top 20 travel bargains they find. They aren't trying to sell them or pressure you, they just have links to the companies that have the bargains being offered. I like that about Travelzoo. Sometimes the deals are for airfares, some for cruises, some are hotels -- there are usually a great variety.

The lists are always interesting to look at, and often you can find a travel deal that is so good, it's hard not to go. Last year, they had a May 16 sailing Alaska Inside Passage Cruise on the Princess Line (no slouch) for 7 days for $499!!! That was for an inside cabin, of course, but you could upgrade to outside cabin for $200 for a $699 total -- an Alaska Cruise on a top line for under $100/day! I tried to figure out how to take advantage because it seemed like such an amazing chance, but the timing just didn't work out. Still, it was fun imagining...

Sorry about the detour. Now the 2 cent fare. A few months ago, Travelzoo's list of Top 20 deals had a listing for penny airfares on Spirit Airlines. Spirit is a lesser-known airline that flies between many cities in the U.S., the Caribbean, Mexico etc. Sometimes they fly out of smaller airports (for example, near us they don't fly out of Philadelphia or Newark but they fly out of Atlantic City). But they do serve major cities, like in New York they fly out of LaGuardia. I had occasion to fly them about 3 years ago to Detroit and their service had been fine.

The deal Spirit was offering was for 2 consecutive days in June and 2 consecutive days in September -- they were offering 1 cent fares on flights between many of their cities. They had a list from each city showing all the 1 cent destinations available. Now I figured the reason the promotion was for two consecutive days was that they figured most people would take the penny fare one way and pay regular price when returning a few days later (which would still have been a good deal). But being the deal game-player that I am, I had to see if they would really ring up a 2-cent roundtrip if I went on the first day of the promotion and came back the next. I saw that Las Vegas was a destination available from Atlantic City. I asked to fly to LV on day 1 and return on day 2. I figured that it would be a kick to just fly out there and have fun for a day or so if I could do it at (almost) no cost. Sure enough the fare came back as 2 cents!

So I went ahead and booked it -- fly out, maybe see a show, play some games, and for not much more than it would cost for an evening out locally. As I mentioned, you can't get around security fees and departure taxes etc. so the final price actually ended up at $20/roundtrip, but the fare was really just 2 cents.

I also booked the same 2-cent deal on the other two-day pair of the promotion, between Atlantic City and Fort Lauderdale, and again got the 2 cent deal!

Now the kicker, or the extra smile: when they sent me the notice that my confirmation was OK, there was a note that they could reduce my airfare if I joined their frequent flier plan! I thought it very funny that they were offering to reduce a fare below 2 cents, but I went ahead and applied, and they said the fare was now $0.00.

I was able to take these trips and make the deals because my schedule is fairly flexible -- I recognize that this isn't the case for everyone. But still, I think for anyone who likes to (or needs to) travel, it would be worth doing some things to help find bargains so our travel dollars go further -- after all, wouldn't you like to take the money you saved on an airfare and get a nicer hotel, or eat at a nicer restaurant? Every dollar you don't spend on something, gives you more to spend on something else that you prefer.

So I would suggest you visit Travelzoo and sign up for their weekly e-mails. You just might find a special that makes that 'dream trip' affordable. I would also suggest that you check around your area to see what are the smaller airports that might get traffic from bargain carriers. The more airports you can select as a point of origin, the more discount alternatives you may consider. The added benefit is that those smaller airports are often less crowded and easier to navigate as far as parking and avoiding long lines at security.

I have some other travel tips for future posts, but I figured this would get you off to a good start.

Good luck finding your own travel bargains, and let me know what great deals you can find!