GeekSugar

Paper Airline Tickets On The Brink Of Extinction

GeekSugar — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 06:00:31 PDT

Luddite travelers may need to start making geek friends because the paper airline ticket will be all but extinct by the end of May.

Replacing paper tickets, and the elaborate global system that processed them, with electronic ticketing will save airlines $3 billion annually on the roughly 400 million tickets sold outside of the United States alone, according to the New York Times.

Apparently, 96.86 percent of tickets sold in the United States, Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands last month were electronic, so it does appear that most people are able and willing to travel the digital way. Do you use electronic or paper tickets when you travel?

Source

How-To: Continue Saving Travel Dollars After You've Booked and Paid

Emily Co — Tue, 22 May 2012 11:03:26 PDT

Scouring for deals before you make your purchase is always smart, but you can save even more if you go the extra mile and get some money back after you've booked. Here are some savvy tips to get you more savings after you've forked up cash:

Air Travel: You can save more money on air tickets if the price of the flight goes down. Get refunded the difference when you buy your ticket from airlines like JetBlue, Alaska Airlines, and Southwest. Some airlines will charge an extra fee because they will consider it to be changing reservations. AirTran and Virgin, for example, charge $75, while United charges $150. An easy way to keep track of the changing airline prices is to use online price tracker Yapta.com, which will do the work for you and send you refund alerts when your fare has gone down. Be sure to also check out Yapta's other cool feature that keeps track of the flights that you're interested in buying and sends you alerts when the price drops.
Rental Car: Although Yapta tracks rental-car fares, there is an even better site that will do most of the work for you. It's called autoslash.com; it basically books the car for you, checks around for a cheaper price, then emails you when it finds a lower rate. If you want to go with the lower rate, it will rebook it for you.
Hotels: Pick a hotel with a good refund policy or one that allows you to cancel without any penalties if you want to get your money back when you spot a lower rate on a hotel.Then use Yapta as a price-tracking system for hotels, which alerts you when the price of a hotel drops. If the rate does decrease, you can just cancel your reservation and make a new one. You can generally cancel your hotel booking if you don't pay up front for your reservation, but be sure to read the fine print because every hotel has different policy.
Bonus: Alternatively, if you book through travel sites, you can get some sort of price guarantee for your flight, hotel room, and rental car. Keep in mind that every site has different requirements. For hotel stays, Orbitz will refund you the difference if you find the same room at the same hotel and dates at a cheaper price elsewhere. However, the claim has to be submitted before the hotel applies cancellation fees (which requires paying attention to hotel policies) and only works with rates that have the "Low Price Guarantee" or “Price Assurance.” Travelocity, Expedia, and Priceline all have some sort of price guarantee with some differences, so don't assume that the same policy will apply to the other sites.

Savvy Links: How Much Are You Supposed to Tip, Anyway?

Emily Co — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:30:26 PDT

How much are you supposed to tip, anyway? - The Jane Dough
The best time to buy airline tickets for every occasion - LearnVest
How to be more confident - Real Simple
Insurance you need and don't need - Free Money Finance
The doctors to see in your 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s - HuffPost Women
4 ridiculously cheap ways to stay in touch internationally - Tecca
14 ways to save on your electric bill - Budgets Are Sexy
Preserve cut flowers (with bleach!) - AllYou
This is why your boss doesn’t trust you - The Grindstone
What to do on your last day at work - The Daily Muse

Changing Your Name: When and Where to Make the Shift

Laura Marie Given — Fri, 11 May 2012 03:05:36 PDT

Once you know - in a formal sense - how to change your name after marriage, it can be difficult to keep up with all the extra steps: who to tell, which documents to change, which groups you need to notify. To make things easier, we've come up with a short, simple list that you can reference postwedding. Not sure where to start? Here's what you need to consider:

When to Change Your Name

Your name can be changed only once you've received a certified marriage license with a raised, authentic seal.
For travel purposes, it's best to wait until after your honeymoon, because the name on your passport needs to match the name on your ticket and extra travel documents.

Who to Notify
In addition to changing your passport, drivers license, Social Security card, and other official documents, you also need to address the following:

Bank and credit card companies
Home utilities companies
Post office
Human resources department
Business cards
Leases, mortgages, or rental information
Insurance policies
Medical groups: Doctor, dentist, etc.
Professional associations and licenses
School records
Gym membership
Airlines and frequent flyer programs
Email address
Social media: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
Personal or professional website
Magazine subscriptions

Don't forget to share the news with friends and family, too! Whether you're into a subtle announcement or something a bit more formal, here are seven ways to tell people that you changed your name.

Have you changed yours? Share any tips or suggestions in the comments below!

When and When Not to Use a Travel Agent to Save Money

LearnVest — Wed, 09 May 2012 12:02:20 PDT

Will using a travel agent help you save money for your upcoming trip? LearnVest has the answer.

Are travel agents back?

This question, posed by The New York Times, got us thinking. According to the piece, nearly one in three leisure travel agencies is hiring, and in 2011 travel agencies experienced a second consecutive year of growth; in fact, their bookings accounted for a third of the $284 billion US travel market.

Silly us, we thought travel agents had become passé.

But if the travel agent business is thriving, we started wondering - is there something to this? Could using an old-school travel agent actually save us money on travel?

To find out, we consulted Barbara Vong, a travel agent with Wright Travel Agency, the 2011 winner of the Best of the Best Globe Award from Travel Impressions.

Globe Award From Travel Impressions.

The first thing we learned? Travel agents usually don't charge customers for their services! Their payment actually comes through the hotels and wholesalers, meaning that we can simply tap into a free service. That also means using a travel agent should never be more expensive than booking by yourself online . . . and these are experts well-versed in where to find the best deals.

Of course, booking your flights in 30 seconds with a few clicks sounds a lot easier than playing phone tag with a live person, so it pays to know when a travel agent can help the most, and when you might as well DIY it. Vong let us in on the best times to call an agent, and some money-saving travel tips she's picked up in her line of work:

Use a Travel Agent If . . .

You're Traveling With a Group

For group bookings that involve coordinating travel for multiple people, it's always easier to use a travel agent, says Vong. “I just had a bride call me because one of the groomsmen booked his own trip through a discount travel site, and he wanted to add someone to the room,” says Vong. "The customer service representative from the travel site he used told him they couldn't do it, but they were probably just being lazy. This is a great example of when you’d rather hand the responsibility of changing that booking to a travel agent, rather than trying to fix it on your own."

Read on for more.

Is Full Fare Airfare Ever Worth It?

Leta Shy — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 05:00:16 PST

I recently took a last-minute flight to Los Angeles - which meant my usual plans of grabbing a cheap seat went out the window, since many airlines require an advanced purchase for the bottom of the barrel prices. Even so, sites like Sidestep, Kayak, and Bing can grab the best last-minute deals, but this time I decided to pay full fare on my favorite discount airliner, Southwest.

For my trip, Southwest's fares were not that much more than any discounted ticket on other airlines that I found through a search, so I knew that I wasn't paying much more than I would have to in order to fly. But I did end up paying a premium.

So why did I choose the full fare instead of a discounted ticket? Find out after the break.

How-To: Save Money on Your Air Ticket After You Buy It

Emily Co — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 13:09:02 PDT

We're always looking for cheap air tickets in order to reduce costs before we make the purchase, but did you know that you can save even more money after your buy? Believe it or not, you can actually get refunded the difference if you buy your ticket from airlines like JetBlue or Alaska Airlines. However, some airlines will charge an extra fee because they will consider it to be changing reservations. AirTran and Virgin for example, charges $75, and American and United charges $150. Savvy tip: make sure you do your homework on the fees incurred.

An easy way to keep track of the changing airline prices will be to use online price tracker Yapta.com that will do the work for you and send you refund alerts when your fare has gone down. Be sure to also check out Yapta's other cool feature, which keeps track of the flights that you're interested in buying and sends you alerts when the price drops for the weekend you wanted to jet away to New York. You can even keep track of hotel prices as well.

Have you ever been refunded the difference after the price of your plane ticket dropped?

Got a cost-saving travel tip? Join our Savvy Travel Tips group and share your expertise!

Best Credit Cards For Wedding Expenses

Emily Co — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 03:05:26 PDT

Wedding season is here again, and brides and grooms everywhere are busy calculating the expenses of their big day. When you're paying for your wedding expenses, you might decide to use a credit card to enjoy some of the rewards. Before doing so, keep in mind that you should only charge what you can pay off immediately. It's not worth going into debt for just one day, no matter how special it is.

That said, if you know you can pay off what you owe (preferably within a month!), charging the expenses on credit cards will be a neat way of earning back cash and other rewards. Here are some good options:

Best Overall Cash-Back Card

Pick the Chase Freedom card for more change in your pocket.

You get $200 bonus cash back if you spend $500 in the first three months of signing up for the card.
No annual fee.
Five percent cash back up to $1,500 in certain categories that rotate each quarter. Here's the calendar for 2012:
January to March: Gas Stations, Amazon.com
April to June: Grocery Stores, Movie Theaters
July to September: Gas Stations, Restaurants
October to December: Hotels, Airlines, Best Buy, Kohl's

When planning your wedding, aim to charge your down payment to the restaurant from July to September. And perhaps if you want to buy wedding favors or knickknacks from Amazon.com, January to March would be a good time to do so. If you're planning on using the same card for your honeymoon, you should opt to buy tickets and add hotel charges onto this card during the last quarter of the year.
One percent cash back on everything else.
The APR rate is zero percent for the first 15 months, then 15.99 percent to 22.99 percent.

Read on for more.

How to Avoid Cancellation Fees When Backing Out of a Trip

Emily Co — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 11:52:52 PDT

I'm sure many of you have had to deal with canceling trips in the past. Perhaps you were a little too eager when planning a trip and rushed ahead to purchase tickets and nights at a hotel without giving it careful thought. Or maybe something came up, and you were no longer able to travel. It's definitely a bummer canceling your travel plans, not to mention a hassle and a waste of time and money. Canceling your trip doesn't always mean heavy cancellation fees. Here are a few ways to avoid paying those annoying penalties:

For plane tickets

Pick the right airline. Opt to pick airlines that have a more lenient change or cancellation policy. Southwest is your best bet, as the airline will let you change your flights without incurring fees.
Cancel within 24 hours. There's a new rule (that all airlines have to adhere to) that lets you get all of your money back if you cancel within 24 hours of your booking. The flight also needs to be at least seven days from the time of booking to qualify.
Get refundable fares. If there is a very high chance of your trip falling through, perhaps you should consider getting a refundable fare. Those will obviously be higher priced, but if the cancellation fee will cost more than the difference between a coach ticket and a refundable fare ticket, you might want to get the latter.

For hotel stays

Change the date of your hotel stay. I found this neat little tip on Lifehacker: postpone your arrival date by a few days so you won't get hit with a cancellation fee if you're planning on canceling in less than 24 hours. It's advisable to wait at least a day before canceling, rather than canceling it right away, to make it less obvious.
Talk directly to the hotel. Most of the time, talking to the hotels directly works a lot better than the official hotline of a hotel chain. I've gotten away with penalty-free cancellations, so just talk to the manager of the hotel and let them know your situation. Read my tips on how to talk your way into getting anything you want.

Remember, if you're canceling your trip because of work-related reasons, you can always try asking your employer to expense the cancellation fees on your behalf.

Source: Flickr User Atli Harðarson

The Frugal Habits of This Billionaire Heiress

Emily Co — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 15:26:20 PDT

If you're an heiress to a billion-dollar fortune, it doesn't mean you can't be frugal in some areas of your life. Although Tamara Ecclestone, daughter of the Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone, is known to be a lavish spender, she says she does have thrifty habits. Ecclestone tells The Daily Mail:

"But I’ve learned [haggling] a smart thing to do. Every car I’ve bought, I’ve got money off. My last car? I got 20 per cent off. I love to get a deal. Who doesn’t love a bargain? . . . I am a bit obsessive about it. I turn the heating off at night and I turn the tap off when I’m brushing my teeth . . . And I like to book airline tickets as far as possible in advance because it’s cheaper."

I don't think Ecclestone's penny pinching ways are over the top, and the things that she does are habits everyone should take up. Turning heating off at night and turning the tap off when not in use are all simple ways to save money and the environment. Haggling is something that a lot of people shy away from, but it's actually quite simple once you get the hang of it (read our tips on how to haggle).

Although cutting back here and there can add a bit more padding to your bank account, the most effective way to save is the top-down method, which means you have to cut back on the big ticket items before spending less on the small expenditures. Focusing on the big picture will help you make greater strides in managing your money.