Travel Hacks to Save Money

Believe it or not, there are numerous travel hacks and methods to save your hard-earned money when it comes to travel planning. Many travelers often fail to take advantage of a simple travel hack known to some but not to most. The typical traveler will find the cheapest hotel and the least expensive airline fare and believe that this is the absolute lowest price the market has to offer. In most cases, this price is not going to be the cheapest price available. Right now, you are probably asking yourself, “How can the price get any lower?”

Well, if you are familiar with the fast-food restaurant concept of “combo meals”, where in the combo, the overall price is technically lower than purchasing each item separately. The restaurant is practicing a “bundling” concept to lure you into its doors by artificially lowering the price while making a huge profit on sales volume down the road. If you capitalize on this sales practice, you are taking advantage of a “hack”.

Well, the same concept is true when it comes to prices of vacation packages. Generally, if you purchase your vacation package from a particular supplier that specializes in vacation packages (air+hotel+rental car+tours or other combinations), chances are that their price will be much lower than purchasing your vacation items separately from multiple suppliers.  At this point, you may be asking how can tour operators do this. Well, it is simple.  Tour operators capitalize on their partnerships and contracts with other travel suppliers to offer travel at a much lower or super competitive rate. So, since the tour operators are fulfilling contract obligations and partnerships with other suppliers, those other suppliers are offering deep discounts in return to fill empty airline seats, hotel rooms and place clients in rental cars. This is known as a business-to-business “win-win.” In the case of the traveler, this concept now becomes known as a travel hack. In fact, it is one of the most commonly used and best travel hacks a traveler can employ.

From reading this short article, you may now start planning your next vacation in a very different way. Look for travel agencies or travel suppliers that specialize in comparing travel pricing by multiple suppliers to help you find the best deal and value for your hard-earned money. If you are one of those travelers that likes to pick a hotel and then several weeks later pick an airline. Well, you are probably not spending your travel money very wisely and using the existing travel hacks in the system. In closing, I hope these travel hacks and tips will help you save money and most importantly your valuable time.

Travel agencies study these concepts and trends, and in my opinion is one of the reasons why travel agencies continue to stay in business. Agencies specialize on matching travel suppliers with travelers seeking a particular travel solution. Since the majority of travelers will use air transportation to get to their travel destination, other travel suppliers and tour operators are heavily partnered with airlines to achieve volume discounts which are then passed to the traveler. With that said, there are hundreds of partnerships between travel suppliers and airlines. In fact, some airlines even have a “vacations” division and is one of the primary reasons why there exist published and unpublished airfares.

Before moving forward, I would like to describe the difference between published airfare and unpublished airfare. Basically, a published fare is openly available for purchase by the general public. For example, an individual could call the airline, or check for prices online, and published fares will be immediately available for purchase. Unpublished fares are an entirely different animal and are not something every traveler can research or find.

If you call an airline looking for information concerning an unpublished fare you would be out of luck. Those fares are not offered for sale by the airline online, over the phone or even at the terminal. Unpublished airfares are also known as private fares or consolidator fares, or wholesale fares. These hidden fares can be up 20 to 60 percent off the regular fare. So, to take advantage of unpublished airfares, please consult your favorite travel agent. Generally, unpublished airfare is contract airfare or airfare that has been established as part of a partnership between two or more travel suppliers. For example, in order to establish a win-win situation and increase sales volume, an airline may offer reduced airline seats on certain routes to various hotel chains and resorts. Those reduced airline seats now become unpublished air when purchased in combination with i.e., a resort stay. So savvy travelers that learn to win the travel hack game, learn how to find travel suppliers that combine travel supplier offers, and then market those offers as vacation packages (hotel+air+rental car, etc.).