Travelore Tips: 10 Smart Ways To Save Money On Travel

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Embrace the "second city," such as Busan, South Korea instead of Seoul.

Make your New Year's resolution to travel more a reality with these tips.

You probably already know that Tuesday and Wednesday are the cheapest days to fly—even more so if it’s the off season. You already have got fare alerts set up through Airfarewatchdog, a prioritized Facebook follow on Secret Flying, and a bookmarks tab glutted with third-party booking sites. And yet, you could be doing so much more. Here are a few other ways that you can stretch your travel bucks.

GO WHERE THE US DOLLAR IS THE STRONGEST.

This is a no-brainer. Right now, $1 USD is worth $1.43 in Canada. So why aren’t we all on planes to Toronto? (Oh, that’s right: winter.) Currencies in Japan, Brazil, Turkey, Egypt, Australia, Argentina, Thailand, Sweden, Russia, and South Africa all represent favorable exchanges for Americans right now. But remember—just because a local economy has tanked doesn’t mean the cost of goods and services went with it. International hoteliers, for instance, often increase their rates to cover a drop in value. In these cases, it pays to look closely at mom-and-pop operators.

SHOW THAT ATM WHO’S BOSS.

If you travel frequently, set up an online debit/checking account through Charles Schwab Bank. There are no monthly service fees and no ATM withdrawal fees anywhere in the world. And get this: Schwab will even reimburse you at the end of every cycle for ATM fees charged by outside vendors. Pretty sweet.

INVEST IN A PHONE PLAN THAT TRAVELS WITH YOU.

Why futz around with SIM cards or rack up exorbitant roaming fees when you can just “internationalize” your phone plan? As an avid traveler, I swear by T-Mobile’s Simple Choice Plan. I pay a modest monthly rate to get normal usage of my phone in the States, plus free international data and text messaging in more than 140 countries. Phone calls abroad cost 20 cents a minute, but I usually save those for Skype, which is zero cents a minute when dialing another Skype user. With T-Mobile, there’s no million-year contract to sign nor hidden fees, and the overseas service is reliable enough—rarely 4G or LTE, more often 3G or 2G, and occasionally the dreaded E. (But whatever, E is still better than the alternative, which is dragging around a city looking for WiFi to steal.)

EARN YOURSELF SOME TRAVEL POINTS.

If you like travel but aren’t using a traveler-centric credit card, you’re going to be in a world of pain when you learn about the freebies you’ve been passing up. Without getting too nerdy with numbers, your goal is to find a card with a large sign-up bonus, no foreign transaction fees, trip cancellation/interruption insurance, and good rental car coverage. Chase Sapphire Preferred is my favorite; we earned 50,000 points for spending $4,000 in the first three months and continue to earn double the points on travel and dining (and one point for every dollar spent on everything else). How does it pay out? We recently flew Qantas from L.A. to Melbourne for free, so I’d say pretty well. It’s not the only card out there, though; traveler friends of mine also swear by the Capital One Venture Rewards Card, Barclay Arrival Plus Card, and Citi ThankYou Premier Card. To compare perks, fees, and other minutiae in the land of plastic, check out CreditCards.com.

ENTER THE MATRIX.

Chances are you’re probably already using Kayak and Google Flights to zero in on the best fare for a specific route—or see where you could possibly go based on your budget and schedule. ITA Matrix is the MIT-developed software that powers both of those search engines. And while you can’t book tickets directly through it, the easy user interface is probably the most powerful tool on the internet for unearthing the greatest variety of fares, including from no-name budget carriers you won’t find on behemoths like Orbitz and Expedia.

THINK OUTSIDE THE ROUND-TRIP BOX.

While you’re poking around Kayak, keep your eyes peeled for so-called “hacker fares,” which cobble together two one-way flights—often operated by separate airlines or originating from different airports—in lieu of a pricier round trip fare. Skiplagged is a popular app for searching one-way combos, as well as hidden-city ticketing—that thing where you book a cheaper flight from point A to point C with a layover in point B, then just disembark at point B because that’s where you wanted to fly in the first place.

SHOP THROUGH A PORTAL.

If you don’t have miles-or points-accruing portals like Delta’s SkyMiles Shopping, JetBlue's ShopTrue, or Chase’s Ultimate Rewards saved in your browser, you might as well withdraw all of your money from the nearest ATM and set it on fire. To get these valuable payouts, all you have to do is click through the portal to a list of participating shops (Apple, Nordstrom, Macy’s, Sephora, etc.) and it’ll redirect you to the brand’s official website—all while tracking your purchase and rewarding you with a set number of points or miles per dollar spent. Win-win.

PICK UP THE PHONE.

I know, I know—it’s painful. Who wants to talk to a real, live human being when you can hide behind a keyboard? But calling the property directly can land you spectacular last-minute hotel deals you won’t find online, especially as more brands offer incentives for direct booking.

EMBRACE THE “SECOND CITY.”

Hamburg, not Berlin. Busan, not Seoul. Pittsburgh, not Philadelphia. The goal is to go where all of the other tourists aren’t—and reap savings because of it. Not only do hotels, transportation, and the cost of goods and services tend to be lower outside of the biggest city, the locals are sometimes tickled that you’re even there. Though we loved exploring Taipei last year, Kaohsiung was a real trip because so many people did a double-take wherever we went, like, “Whoa, how’d you get here?”

STOP AMASSING, START TRAVELING.

You have enough stuff. What you should be asking for on birthdays, holidays, and other celebrations that require the people you love to shower you with gifts that are experiences—specifically, gift certificates that count toward experiences, like those from Hotels.com, Airbnb, Rail Europe, and high-end tour operators such as Abercrombie & Kent and Cox & Kings. Passes are another smart thing to request—a CityPASS booklet grants you discounted access to the biggest tourist attractions in a dozen North American cities, while an annual National Park Service Pass is the perfect thing for an outdoorsy road-tripping type. Alternatively, you could set up a vacation drive on a personal-fundraising site like GoFundMe, though that might be interpreted by some friends and family as a little gauche. (It helps if you're traveling for altruistic purposes.) If all else fails, there’s always travel-themed stuff, obtainable with a generous gift card from Flight 001 or Magellan's.

Written by Ashlea Halpern

 www.cntraveler.com

Travelore Tips: These Are The Best Credit Cards For Every Type Of Traveler

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For a long time, we have been recommending plastic as the best way for travelers to spend money: credit cards for big-ticket purchases, debit (ATM) cards for cash. But which cards to choose? Clearly there is no single best card. What's best for you depends on what you want by way of extras and special features. I've identified different traveler profiles and identified the plastic that best suits their needs.

My analysis is based on long-term use and not on one-time enrollment or transfer incentives. I assume you either pay your complete bill every month or have the option to do so, so I do not consider APRs, nor do I consider credit-score qualification. Many credit cards that assess an annual fee waive the fee for the first year.

If you travel to foreign countries, cards that do not assess a foreign-transaction fee are especially attractive; I note cards with this feature. Chip-enabled cards were once very rare, but chip cards will become widely available in 2015.

The Best Credit Cards for Infrequent Flyers

If you don't travel much, or you travel mainly by car in and around your home area, you probably figure that travel-specific features are less important than getting the highest monetary value.

The Citi Double Cash card basically pays off 2 percent for every dollar charged, on any purchase, anywhere. You receive 1 percent when you buy and a second 1 percent when you pay the bill. This 2 percent payout is in cash, not in miles or points limited to travel purchase. There's no annual fee.

Several cards offer payouts higher than 2 percent on charges in grocery stores, drugstores, gas stations, or other categories, subject to maximum limits, but only 1 percent on other charges. Some cards rotate high-payout categories. The highest overall payout we found was on the Blue Cash Preferred American Express card, with an annual fee of $75, which pays 6 percent on grocery charges and 3 percent on gas station charges, but several others come close.

The Best Credit Card for Occasional Flyers

If you travel enough to limit your card purchases to air tickets, hotel rooms, and other travel services, the Capital One Venture Rewards card, with an annual fee of $59 and no foreign-transaction fees, returns 2 percent of charged value on all purchases. But the payback is in "miles" you can use to buy travel services through Capital One; there's no all-purpose cash equivalent. The annual fee is $59. There is no foreign-transaction surcharge.

The Best Credit Cards for Frequent Flyers on One Airline

An airline mile can be worth considerably more than 1 cent, and airline miles are one of few affordable ways to enjoy premium-cabin upgrades. If you concentrate your flying on one airline, you should first consider a credit card co-branded with that airline -- a card that earns miles or points in the airline's frequent-flyer program that you can combine with the miles you earn by flying.

Co-branded airline cards typically earn one mile (or equivalent) for each dollar charged to the card, plus bonus miles or points on charges for tickets and other airline services. All large U.S. and Canadian airlines other than Allegiant and Porter co-brand at least one mileage-earning credit card.

The following cards include one no-charge checked bag for the cardholder; most extend that to at least one traveling companion: American's AAdvantage Platinum Select MasterCard from Citi, with an annual fee of $95; Delta's Gold Delta SkyMiles card from American Express, with an annual fee of $95; United's Mileage Plus Explorer card from Chase, with an annual fee of $95 and no foreign transaction fee; Virgin America's Visa Signature card from Comenity, with an annual fee of $49; and WestJet's RBC World Elite MasterCard from RBC Royal Bank, with an annual fee of $99.

One no-fee checked bag per flight can more than offset the annual fee for anyone who prefers to check a bag and takes more than two round-trips per year. These cards add other benefits too, ranging from a yearly companion ticket to a free visit to an airline lounge. Additionally, the United card adds primary rental-car collision coverage.

The Best Credit Cards for Very Frequent Flyers on One Airline

For really heavy users, American, Delta, and United issue premium credit cards that include the features of the base-level cards plus membership in each line's lounge club and a laundry list of other features. Strangely, the annual card fees are less than the regular lounge club membership fees.

The outstanding premium airline card is United's Mileage Plus Club Card Visa from Chase, which includes United Club access, 1.5 miles per dollar for all charges, and primary rental-car collision coverage, with an annual fee of $395 and no foreign transaction fee. But if you concentrate your flying on American or Delta, the AAdvantage Executive Card, with an annual fee of $450 and no foreign transaction fee, and the Delta Reserve card, with an annual fee of $450 and no foreign transaction fee, both earn 1 mile per dollar on ordinary charges and include club access and a bunch of other benefits.

The Best Credit Cards for Frequent Flyers on Several Airlines

The key here is transferable miles. Several cards earn miles or points that you can transfer to more than one airline program. These cards all earn one point per dollar charged, and most include bonuses.

The Starwood Preferred Guest card from AmEx, with an annual fee of $65, allows points transfers to the frequent-flyer programs of 28 leading airlines, including Alaska, American, Delta, JetBlue, Hawaiian, and several big Asian and European carriers. The basic transfer rate is one mile per point, but if you transfer in increments of 20,000 points, you get 1.25 miles per point. You can also transfer to United, but the exchange rate is only half what it is for other airlines. In effect, you earn 25 percent more miles in most airlines' programs per dollar charged than you earn with the airlines' own cards (although you may miss out on other airline-card benefits, like free checked bags).

The Diners Club's Premier card from MasterCard earns one point per dollar charged, and points can be transferred, at 1:1 or equivalent, to the frequent-flyer programs of Air Canada, Alaska, Delta, Frontier, Hawaiian, and Southwest, as well as several big foreign airlines. The card also includes access to hundreds of airport lounges around the world and primary rental-car collision coverage. The annual fee is $95, and there is no foreign-transaction fee.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred card allows the transfer of points at 1:1 to the frequent-flyer programs of Southwest, United, and several foreign airlines. The annual fee is $95. Wyndham Rewards Visa transfers points to several programs, but at a less than 1:1 ratio.

The Best Credit Cards for Foreign Travelers

In this case, think ATM cards. A few small banks' ATM debit cards incur either no fee or a 1 percent fee for local withdrawals, with no withdrawal charge. This is clearly the best way to get foreign currency. Banks offering these features include Ally Bank, Capital One 360, Charles Schwab, EverBank, TD Bank, USAA, and several credit unions.

Travelers with checking or savings accounts at Bank of America can use their ATM cards to withdraw local currency without a withdrawal charge from ATMs operated by Scotiabank in Canada and much of the Caribbean, Barclays in the U.K., BNP Paribas in France, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro in Italy, Deutsche Bank in Germany and Spain, UkrSibbank in Ukraine, TEB in Turkey, ABSA in South Africa, Westpac in Australia and New Zealand, China Construction Bank in mainland China, and Banco Santander in Mexico. Scotiabank clients get the same deal at Bank of America and the other listed banks. You do pay a 3 percent exchange fee, but that's considerably better than exchanging cash at airport change offices.

Read the original story: Best Credit Cards for Every Type of Traveler by Ed Perkins, who is a regular contributor to SmarterTravel.

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