Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Christmas Travel- How to save a Blunder

Do you always end up buying a full price (no promo) tickets coz all the Promotional tickets are over?

Here are some TIPS for you to ensure that you enjoy a great holiday and save on the extra penny for travel, which you can shell out at something extra at your destination.

1) Checkout online deals. People always make mistakes by only looking at TOP airlines likes SIA, Cathay or Qantas. Try searching for local airlines (country you are visiting). For e.g: If you are visiting Colombo, you would be lot smarter to fly on Srilankan Airlines than Singapore Airlines which might cost you $100 more per pax. Imagine the money you save with tickets can buy you a sensual massage at the resort............

2) Checkout NATAS fare deals. This local singapore travel association typically host a travel fare during september or peak season. I am sure they will have one more around Chinese new year. so grab tickets during this time. Very cheap Lah (LOL..am turning singaporean day by day). ..

3) There are some local travel companies which gives good deal for a fair price. Check out some of the these.

www.airfares.com.sg (Misa Travel)- Dont have to pay in advance while booking. You can block tickets and pay later.
http://flights.chanbrothers.com/cbflights/ Didnt use them, but good enuff as i heard from other. Sometimes give best market prices.
www.zuji.com.sg Somehow i feel its a rip-off. If you compare prices with other companies, they sometime charge way too high.
www.priceline.com.sg Perhaps the only good thing about this site is, you can set your own price for a ticket. If the airline accept it, you might get a deal for $300 return to Sydney (cool yeah?).
http://p2ptravel.com/ Pretty OK site. Has some good deals.

4) Try to plan your vacation in advance, however do not book your tickets in advance. Most of the promo fares start coming in 1 and half month before your travel date. But once it comes out, go grab it fast before it last :-)

5) If you are one of frequent flyer, check out deals at airline website. They sometimes give away 10-30% discounts on tickets. Might come in handy during this season.

6) Try to get foreign exchange before you leave singapore, since it might turn out to be a costly affair at the airports abroad and you might be ripped off with the forex rates. For e.g In Srilanka, they do all transaction in USD and if you give them another currency. They rip you off by giving u a nominal exchange rate.

Hopefully this will help you in the coming holiday season, christmas and chinese new year. Enjoy your trip and travel safe.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very good information. I have been traveling around the world for a while now. It would behouve of you to listen and apply this useful info, especially if you don't want to lose any money when exchangeing the local currency for your own. Usually you can get real good currency rates in the city you are traveling to, don't exchange your money while you are still close the the airport, the rates aren't as good for you because they are looking to rip you off. For example, when I was traveling to Japan from Seatle, USA, the exchange rate was 100 yen to $1.25 American dollars, here in Japan it's a lot better with a rate of almost 125 yen to $1.00 US dollar.