A Few Travel Tips Going Into The New Year

As we begin the year, I thought I would write about travel tips that can help you find a good deal or help to plan a great vacation.

• Use Google Flights to search using the calendar
  • It can help you find the best deal to your preferred destination.
  • It can also help you pick a destination by looking at the map. Simply click on the map and it will show you how much it costs to fly to cities throughout the country and the world.
  • You can refine your searching to a specific airline or alliance if you are have elite status.
  • Overall it’s a great search tool.

•  Sign up for Expert Flyer
  • Use the free account to set seat alerts to let you know when a more desired seat becomes available on your flight. Simply enter in your flight information and review the seat map and click on your desired seats and it will email you when they become available.
  • Consider a paid version to search for flight availability for both paid and award flights.
  • Use the paid version to set alerts for award space or upgrade space.
  • Use the paid version to look at all available fare classes so you know how full a plane is at the time of boarding.

• Use social media for customer service with airlines and hotel chains.
  • Tweet your airline or hotel chain if you need assistance
  • Follow your preferred travel companies so you have the ability to direct message them once they respond to your original tweet
  • Remember to not give personal information over a regular tweet such as your record locator or frequent traveler number.
  • This form of customer service is often fastest and often times gives great results.

• Sign up for your airline, hotel or rental car programs frequent traveler program.
  • Always use your number when you book a flight, stay in a hotel or rent a car
  • All flights, stays and rentals earn points
  • Most program miles or points do not expire as long as you are active in the program.
  • It is easy to be active, all it takes it earning a few points a year through a shopping portal, or via a hotel stay or rental.
  • After some time, review your balance and utilize it
    • If you have a few miles consider
      • Buying a short one way flight on an airline that allows those bookings
      • Get a subscription to a magazine or newspaper that you like
      • Use a cash plus points option for a reduced price hotel stay
    • If you have a lot of miles consider
      • Book a trip in a luxury cabin on a partner airline
      • Airlines are typically are more generous with making premium cabin travel available on partner airlines rather than their own flights
      • Redeem points for  a luxury hotel you could never afford to stay at on your own such as Park Hyatt, St. Regis or Ritz Carlton property

• Consider using a miles and points travel card to help you earn miles and points faster
  • Utilize a card that offers a lot of transfer partners such as Chase Sapphire Preferred, Citi Thank You or Amex Starwood Card
  • Put all travel expenses on those cards and pay your bill every month
  • Use manufactured spend to meet card bonus point opportunity such as new card sign ups
  • Transfer your points to your preferred program when you have picked out an itinerary or have a specific trip in mind that you know is available.
  • Only transfer as many points as you need and keep the rest in the transferrable program

• Use an app such as TripIt or Traxo
  • Use the apps to track all your frequent traveler memberships
  • Stay on top of your programs easily
  • Consult them when you need the number on a booking

What are your travel tips? Please comment below so we can all benefit.

Photos: Google / Google Flights / Expert Flyer / Traxo / Tripit