Budget Travel's hot winter deals, money-saving tips

The good news is that you can still get great deals for now through January 6. The bad news is that you won’t have as many options as you normally would. You’ll find it easier if you’re flexible — both on where you go and when you go.  Erik Torkells, Editor of Budget Travel magazine shares hot winter deals and practical advice:

Why you should consider a package
Packages — where you pay one price for several parts (usually at least air and hotel) — can be major bargains. Here’s why: To fill rooms and seats, hotels and airlines will resort to rock-bottom prices. For obvious reasons, they don’t like to publicize these rates, so they sell a certain number of rooms or seats to companies that bundle them in packages. That way, no one knows exactly what the airfare or hotel alone costs.

And this time of year, the hard part is finding an airfare — and packagers may have airfares that no one else does. Moreover, during busy times like the holidays, you can get stuck wondering if you should first buy your airfare or reserve your hotel. With a package, it happens simultaneously. (And it’s easy. Let’s face it: If you were the kind of person who really liked planning travel, you probably would’ve planned a holiday trip a long time ago.)

A few things to bear in mind before you buy a package:

1. The only way to know if it’s a deal is to see what it costs to book separately.

2. Don’t trust the packager’s hotel description or star rating; research the hotel on your own. If you don’t like the hotel being offered, you can usually upgrade.

3. Ask about the flight’s times, connections, airline, and change and cancellation policies.

4. Extra nights are often available at a ridiculously low rate. Sites where you can find good package deals include our own BudgetTravel.com, as well as LastMinute.com, LastMinuteTravel.com, and Travelzoo (the listings are advertisements, but often good deals nonetheless. The meta search engines, Kayak.com and SideStep.com, and also search for packages.

If all you want to do is visit family, and all you need is airfare, your best bets are Kayak.com and SideStep.com.

General advice for buying a last-minute package
Some tips that may be useful no matter where you want to go:

• If you’re willing to go on Christmas Day or New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day, you’ll probably find space, but nothing at great bargains.

• Getting flights back on the weekend of Jan 5-6 is tough—it’s the busiest weekend in the season. If you can come back after Jan. 5–6, it opens a lot more possibilities.

• Broaden your horizons. Destinations like Argentina are sold out completely, but Chile is not as popular, so the chances are better to get space down to Santiago than to Buenos Aires.

• Look for travel companies that offer daily departures on their packages (versus ones that only have weekly flights). This gives you more flexibility to find a good airfare.

• Don’t be daunted just because the place you want to visit requires a visa (Rio in Brazil, for example). Tour operators have longstanding relationships with visa processing companies that allow them to expedite a last-minute visa request (although it might involve a “rush” surcharge).

Tactics for dealing with a weak dollar
The U.S. dollar is in the dumps. As I write this, €1 is worth $1.47, and £1 is worth $2.05. Even the Canadian dollar is worth more than the U.S. dollar. Many experts say the situation could get worse.

While I don’t have any easy answers — sorry — I do have a few strategies to get more for your money. First, consider countries where the dollar still goes relatively far. I went to Buenos Aires, Argentina, last year and was amazed how far the dollar goes. As a New York Times writer pointed out, when you order wine you can go straight to the bottom of the wine list. (In fact, three Budget Travel editors are headed to Argentina this winter.)

Mexico also remains a terrific value. It helps if you travel beyond the tourist grid—the farther you get away from places like Cancún and Cabo San Lucas, the better values you’ll find. Getting there costs more in transportation, but you’ll spend far less once you’ve arrived. This strategy is true for anywhere, and especially within Europe, where the countryside is far more affordable than the cities.

Ultimately, to avoid traveler’s remorse—when your credit card bill makes you wish you’d stayed home—you’ll need to pay close attention to where and how you spend every dime, even if that’s exactly what most of us don’t want to do when we’re on vacation.

Renting a house or apartment
It used to be a pain to find a house, condo, or apartment to rent, but the Internet has made the process so much easier. Renting is one of the very best values out there right now, especially for families and other groups. (Very few parents want to pay for a hotel breakfast for the entire family for one day, let alone several days!) HomeAway.com is an easy one-stop website for home and apartment rentals. Looking for a place to rent is a lot like searching for a hotel on Expedia. Just type in where you want to go and the dates you want to travel, and you’ll be presented with a bunch of options, with many photos. Past renters are also allowed to write reviews of the experience, so you can get a sense of whether it might be right for you.

There are also independent renters out there — to find them, try Googling your destination and “house rental” and seeing what comes up. I was looking for a house to rent outside Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and searched for the town of Yelapa. Palapainyelapa.com had great rentals for around $150 a night.

If you’re intrigued by house-swapping — and the idea of paying nothing for lodging certainly has an appeal—check out these three house-swapping websites: HomeExchange.com, HomeLink.org, Intervac.com.

General advice for looking for travel bargains
1. Use the meta search engines. There’s no one simple way to track the best fare or rate down. Start with meta-search engines like Kayak.com and SideStep.com, which scour multiple websites for flights, hotels, cruises, and car rentals. Orbitz, Travelocity, and Expedia are good for getting a feel for what’s out there—though they often don’t search all airlines, and they tack on service fees.

2. Whenever possible, book directly. If you see a low rate elsewhere, ask the hotel to match it. Hotels will almost always undercut any middleman — which isn’t all that difficult, when you consider that booking engines charge fees. (Besides, third-party bookers often get second-class treatment. Wrong as it is, hotels are nicer to guests who seek them out than to those who come via a third-party booking engine.)

3. Negotiate! Few price quotes are non-negotiable anymore — that goes for a rug in India or a hotel room anywhere. Don’t accept the first rate you see; ask if there are unadvertised specials, or if the hotel can do better. Play up whatever you bring to the table — you’re with a group, for example, or you visit often. Instead of a lower rate, you may end up with free parking or an upgrade. Just make sure the person you’re wooing is in a position to deliver.

Even after you’ve made a reservation, keep hunting. Prices for car rentals and hotels fluctuate, so never give up sniffing out a better deal. When you locate one, snap it up — and cancel the old reservation. Just make sure the cancellation policy won’t bite you in the rear.

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