One of the biggest expenses of any trip will be the airline ticket. While it may be difficult to find a cheap flight, it is not impossible. There are many ways that you can bring down the cost of your flight.Round the World TicketsRound the world tickets are a great option for people who plan to travel to various locations. It will also be one of your cheapest options. A round the world ticket allows you to travel to various cities for a much lower price. When planning some trips we found that it was in fact cheaper to travel to more cities than just one city. Using airtreks.com were able to find a route where we visited 10 cities in Europe and Northern Africa for $1,200 US. Round the world tickets are for people who plan to travel a lot, not just two cities. It is perfect for people who are planning the trip of a lifetime, or those susceptible to wanderlust.Discount Travel SitesDiscount travel sites are the most popular means that travelers find cheap deals. These sites are extremely popular with consumers, not only for their low prices, but also their convenience. Websites such as Kayak.com or Bing.com make it easy for travelers by filtering out numerous travel sites in order to find the best prices. Other sites such as Expedia, Travelocity, and Orbitz work like online travel agencies. Priceline lets you choose your own price.Student DiscountsMany companies that cater and market to student travelers. They can lower their prices because they use discounted vendors as well as student discounts. If you have a viable student ID feel free to book with them. Try it, even if your card is expired. Sometimes companies are pretty lax with the expiration date of your student ID cards, just don’t push your luck. Student Universe is a website that allows students to book flights and hotels, reserve bus or train tickets, as well as rent cars all for a discounted price. STA is another discounted student travel site where you can book flights and hotels, reserve bus or train tickets as well as book travel tours.Foreign Travel WebsitesAlthough discount travel sites can be extremely useful for finding discounts abroad, sometimes it pays to check out travel sites from the country you are visiting. For example, Expedia and Travelocity have different websites according to country. Sites such as the British Octopus Travel and the Spanish eDreams, may not be popular in the US, but we have often found better discounts on our trips to Europe, using their sites. Some airlines also have different websites for different countries. If you explore these sites, you may find a cheaper flight.Discount AirlinesIf you are looking to cut costs, choose a discount airline. There are many low-cost airlines to choose from that fly to many different locations. Make sure to check their sites directly because some airlines are not included in travel aggregator sites such as Kayak.FlexibilityIf you are flexible with your dates, you will be able to bring down the cost of your flight. The more options available to you, the more chances you have to obtain the cheapest flight. Prices can fluctuate greatly from one day to the next. Usually flights during the week will be cheaper that a flight leaving on Friday. Also if you leave at odd hours, the prices tend to go down. Holidays will always be more expensive for travel, however the weekend following a big holiday may prove to be your best deal.Know When To BuyYou can’t ever be certain when prices will go up and down, however there are some trends in regards to pricing. If you buy a ticket too early, you may be overpaying, also if you wait too long you take the chance that prices may rise. When you travel frequently, you begin to get a sixth sense as to the ebb and flow of pricing, however for those of us who do not there are travel predictors that can do the thinking for us. These predictors tell you if you should buy or wait for prices to lower. Bing.com and Kayak.com are good choices for travel predictors. There are some limitations to the technology, and not all cities are included, but it can come in handy.Secondary AirportsSecondary airports can be less expensive to fly into, rather than their larger counterparts. Less expensive air carriers often fly out of these smaller airports. Keep in mind that these secondary airports are often further away from bigger cities. The money you would spend taking a cab or renting a car may not be worth the money saved with the flight. If you have to rent a car nonetheless, or find a bus or train within your means, this option may be for you.Airline and Travel NewslettersIf you want to find out the latest in travel deals, you should sign up for various newsletters from various airlines and travel sites. They will alert you to discounts and any specials the airlines are offering. Some travel sites will send email when there is a sale to your favorite travel destinations or when prices drop.
East London Hotels and The Olympics: Wasted Opportunity?
The advent of the Olympic games has seen hotel groups rushing to get new properties built in Docklands and particularly East London (close to the area where most events will take place) in time for the Games’ opening. It’s not every day after all that you get the chance to open a new hotel and get full occupancy straight away, so this is obviously an attractive strategy.Even better, hotels near the Olympics sites have been able to charge astonishingly premium prices. The Travelodge in Stratford, with a normal rate of £50 or so a night is charging well over £200 a night over the Olympic period – a one-time big bonus for the hotel. A night’s stay for 3-4 August was priced at £335.95 for flexible-rate rooms (refundable upon cancellation) when I checked the Travelodge website a while ago – an amazing price – with London Docklands not even having rooms available anymore. That price is pretty rich for a budget hotel chain!Travellers who do not want to pay the price still have options in central London though – the same web search turns up much cheaper in Covent Garden, Tower Bridge, and Waterloo, not to mention the less touristy areas of central London that are even cheaper than that.But recent figures from Vive Unique, which specialises in short term rentals in London, suggest that East London hotels may not have it all their own way. East London is only getting a tiny minority of Vive Unique’s bookings, with nearly 90 percent of the business going to properties outside the ‘Olympic’ boroughs.In particular, West London is getting nearly 40 percent of bookings. Notting Hill is doing especially well and North London gets another 31 percent. Because most visitors aren’t coming just for the Olympics, but combining a visit to the sporting events with more conventional holiday activities, it’s the traditional tourist areas that are in fact seeing better business.That’s sad in a way, because there are some splendid apartments in Docklands that would be great places to stay during the Olympics.And it may suggest that East London has slightly missed the once in a lifetime opportunity to put itself on the tourist map alongside the West End. And if it has indeed, some of those hotels that opened for the Olympics could be looking very empty once the fireworks of the closing ceremony have died away for good.
Hong Kong’s Airport and Hotels
This city is an extremely accessible destination for holiday as it has a large, efficient airport and is connected to all the major airlines, and there are no lacks of low cost, budget airlines as well.Hong Kong, for me, is a tremendously exciting and fine place for holiday. I still wished I am in Hong Kong, enjoying the food, views, Disneyland, and shopping. There’s always something to do in each of the 4 days I was there. I enjoyed excellent views and great attractions, not mentioning menus that left me spoiled for choice. The shopping was fantastic and I shopped till blisters formed from carrying too heavy a shopping bag.Starting from air tickets, departing from Singapore, an average air ticket to Hong Kong is in the range of S$360 (excluding taxes and other surcharges). However, if Jetstar (budget airline) is having their occasional promotional campaign offering 2 tickets for the price of 1, then each ticket will set you back only S$128 (S$240 if you include taxes and other surcharges). That is, if you don’t mind budget flights. Dragonair is another relatively cheap source of air tickets, if you are not planning to fly by major airlines like Cathay Pacific.I took an early flight and arrived at Hong Kong at around 10.30am in the morning. The experience was a slightly different one from other airports as there’s no connecting passage way from the plane to the arrival customs (for my plane). We had to transfer to a bus to take us to the arrival hall. By a little stroke of luck, I was standing near the door of the bus, and so was the first to alight and made my way to the counters. But unfortunately, there was a long queue and that resulted in me standing for two hours before I cleared the customs. The two hours of standing and waiting was killing.Straight from the customs, I proceeded to the mass transit system (HK’s subway system), which they call the MTR, and boarded the express train to the city. The train ride to Kowloon was impressive, in particular the cleanliness of the train and seats. The MTR station itself is a very short walk straight ahead from the arrival hall and the train ride took just under 20mins to reach Kowloon.Before I left for Hong Kong, I chatted with my colleague on her impressions of the country, and she said matter of factly that all she remembered of Hong Kong was that the hotel room was crammed and small. This just re-confirmed what I had been reading on the Internet about hotel rooms in Hong Kong being small and squeezed. So I was very cautious making reservations, taking time to choose a hotel that offers a bigger room size.After much reading on the miserable small rooms in Hong Kong, I booked an executive room at Eaton hotel, which is supposed to be much larger than most rooms at around 30sqm. Part of the privileges of the executive room is the access to the club lounge, where one can enjoy free coffee, tea and snacks all day, free cocktails in the evening, free Internet access, flat screen TVs, a small library of books, newspapers, and very cozy sofas. The club lounge is really comfortable, and allowed me to rest my feet and body well after a day’s shopping.Upon check-in, the room size is quite acceptable, which is about the same size as a standard room in Singapore. But the service of the hotel is up to the mark and first rate. They provided excellent service with a smile for the four days I was there.Taking to the streets, I have long heard about Hong Kong’s extremely efficient transport system, and there is the tourist pass which has stored in it 3 days of unlimited MTR access. This is good value for money and recommended for tourists visiting the country, especially if your hotel is near the MTR stations and you will be using the system often for moving about.The MTR system links the mainland (Kowloon) to HK Island and Lantau Island (where the airport is). The signs are easy to follow and traveling from one place to another takes minimum effort to figure out.All in all, the air and land transport system is excellent in this place they call Pearl of the Orient, and they have an extensive range of hotels for everyone with different budgets to choose from.