travel

Right on the heels of Skybus’s $10 deal, Spirit Airlines is offering a $0.01 airfare promotion with a lot more destinations (than Skybus) available.The only problem: the promotion ends today at 11:59 pm ET. So, if you have been generally looking for some airline tickets, hurry up to Spirit Airlines and see if you get lucky.

The image above shows an example airfare for travel between Detroit and New York.

Of course, like all promotions, “limited seats”, “limited dates”, and other blah blah applies, so read the fine print carefully.

Here is some information on extremely cheap airline tickets. The newly launched Skybus Airlines is offering $10 one-way deals for flying between Columbus, OH and a few other cities across the country. Your flight has to either originate from, or terminate at Columbus (you can’t fly between City A and City B without stopping at Columbus).Nice deal. But first check out the quirky requirements.

Outside food and drink are prohibited (good luck enforcing that one. I’m sorry sir, we’re going to have to turn this plane around if you don’t dispose of your sandwich).

Customer service: “We don’t have a phone number. Seriously. We’d love to chat, but those phone banks are expensive. And a good website like skybus.com is even more convenient.”

Hmm. Interesting. Check out the full list of Skybus Airline’s “Rules of Flying“.

Just for kicks, I tried booking a Skybus roundtrip ticket between Seattle, WA and Columbus, OH and here is what I got:

Now that’s called a “cheap ticket”. On Expedia, for the same dates, the minimum airfare is currently $242 between the two cities. In fact, notice that Skybus actually operates from Bellingham, WA near Seattle (@ 90 miles from it)….from Bellingham to Columbus, Expedia is currently $402!Yeah…I can live without eating on the flight if it’s going to save me at least $200.

First, some general thoughts about buying airline tickets. It’s like buying company shares in the stock market. The first time you see a fare, it raises some “stock market-like”questions; for example: is it going to rise or fall in time to come? should I wait for a better time or buy immediately? what will happen if the price falls suddenly after I make the purchase? and other similar questions. So, to make a long story short, buying “good deal” airline tickets has the same kind of anxiety attached to it as buying a “good” stock.

A few days ago, I booked two tickets to Philadelphia as a part of our short vacation plans over the Memorial Day weekend. To avoid spending a ton of money on airline tickets later, I decided to book them right away (for once, didn’t really procrastinate). Searched on major websites: Expedia, Orbitz, Farecast, etc., and as usual….found cheaper deals on airline websites directly. Both Continental and Southwest were offering low fares, but went ahead with Southwest (flight schedule suited us better) and finalized the purchase. Here is a summary.

Today, I was just tinkering around travel websites, trying to check the ticket prices again (I am into this habit of checking prices of things *after* I have already purchased them…may be to reassure myself that I was not ripped off…or something like that), and found out that the fares had dropped significantly over the weekend! It felt like all those times when I bought something on “sale” just to find out that the “regular” price dropped below the “sale” price on the next day (which happens almost every time).

Fortunately, thanks to Southwest, it took me less than 2 minutes, about 8~10 clicks, and no human intervention to avail the new reduced fares (all you need to do is “change” your current itinerary…and book the same flights again and new fares are applied like magic).

That saved us $100 in all. The new prices are pretty cool considering it takes more than 3.5 hours to fly nonstop from where we live to Philadelphia (and for some weird reason this price is even less than the current “sale” prices advertised on Southwest). It’s a pity they don’t refund the amount to your credit card…but the credit for future travel is good enough for us. Will apply that towards a Las Vegas trip later in the year.
Experience with Farecast.com

The first time I booked tickets on Southwest, I sort of relied on Farecast.com’s price “forecast”. At that time, it was telling me that fares will hold constant over the next 7 days. However, that forecast didn’t really come true…fares dropped within 4 days. So personally, as a forecasting tool, it wasn’t of much help to me.

However, although Farecast did not correctly predict the fall, it did follow the rise and fall in airline fares faithfully (may be it adjusted the graph *after* the prices changed…who knows). It’s prediction capability was pretty much useless, but the graph showing the price history was handy. It showed me that ticket prices are at rock bottom at about $160 and average price is around $220. So, the moment I saw something selling at $167, I knew it had to be a good deal.

I wanted to mention this to make a point that don’t rely too much on price forecast. Remember it’s like the stock market….the best predictions can go way off target. By the way, I am curious to know what kind of algorithm Farecast uses. Please enlighten me if you know more about this.

Some quick lessons

• Expedia, Orbitz, or other travel portals may not be the cheapest options (at times)…sometimes it’s cheaper to book tickets directly on airline websites.
• Don’t rely too much on price comparison and/or price forecast websites. I have found that, many times, there is a disconnect between the prices on these websites and the prices offered on airline websites. It pays to do your own homework in this matter.
• Your work is not done once you buy your tickets (especially if you booked very early and suspect that you have paid more than the average price). Look out for dropping fares.
• Click here for a comparison of price refund policies for different airlines. Southwest and JetBlue are the best ones out there.
• If the price of your stock falls, no one gives you a refund. So I guess things are not as bad with the airline ticket booking.

In the latest edition of the TIME magazine, there is an interesting article titled “The Space Cowboys” featuring some folks who are betting their money on the rise of space tourism in the years to come. Some of the big names that are toying with the concept (toying = already invested a ton of money and/or efforts):

• Richard Branson (..I mean Sir Richard Branson of the Virgin fame)
• Jeff Bezos (Amazon.com founder)
• John Carmack (co-creator of Doom and Quake computer games)
• Jim Benson (founder of Compusearch)
• Elon Musk (Paypal co-founder)
• Robert Bigelow (Budget Suites of America)
• Burt Rutan (creator of SpaceShipTwo)

Here is what the magazine says about Branson’s Virgin Galactic venture

Welcome to the prelaunch program of Virgin Galactic, which hopes to be the world’s first private spaceline, with liftoff by 2009. The adventure-addicted British entrepreneur says that over its first 10 years Virgin Galactic will send 50,000 civilians on a thrill ride more than 62 miles up into space-to escape gravity and ogle our small fragile planet. Initial cost for the two-hour adventure? $200,000.

Later on the article mentions this:

And despite the ticket price, sales are already closed for the first group of 100 passengers, called Founders.

If you thought entrepreneurship is only about starting new websites…think again.

And now time for some interesting articles of the week.

• Say No To Credit Card 0% Balance Transfer Arbitrage by Jim @ Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. I have indulged myself in this 0% balance transfer game in the past and have heard tons of arguments supporting and opposing the idea. In this post, Jim summarizes some of the potential pitfalls in making money with 0% balance transfer offers.
• How Your Credit Score Can Cost You Money - Even if You’re Not Trying to Get a Loan @ Debt Free. An elaboration on some costs that are partially decided by your credit score. It will be a fruitful exercise to read this post in light of Jim’s post mentioned above. Earlier, I shared my point of view on this issue through this post Bad Credit Hurts - How And Why?
• 5 Great Ways To Leave A Tip by Jeffrey Strain @ Personal Finance Advice. It’s all about money-art I have never seen such creative ways of leaving tips. Personally, I don’t like it when people crumple money…there is nothing like the feel of handling fresh crisp bills.
  
• PF Bloggers: Attitudes About Debt And Credit Cards by NCN @ No Credit Needed Blog: NCN has classified some personal finance bloggers based on their borrowing habits. I wish to draw attention to this post because of the comments it has gathered. For example, here is a part of a (ridiculous (?)) comment:
  

  You are fooling yourself by thinking the use of credit cards gives you points, regardless if you pay off the balance. Would an alcoholic carry a bottle of bourbon in their pocket to earn points to buy an airline ticket? That’s how ridiculous credit cards are.

  And there are some interesting replies to that comment.

• Spending Money as a form of Escapism by Matt @ One Million and Beyond: This might just sound like the story of most 20 something folks. Sometimes, I think we do understand the meaning of the word “escapism” but we don’t want to attribute it to our behavior…it’s sort of trying to escape from escapism.

Spaceshipone photograph source: www.scaled.com

I was just thinking about how much money we have spent over the recent past in travelling from point A to point B. After briefly jogging through the memory lane, I came up with some uncomfortable numbers and these are listed below. I was calculating only the fuel expenses for road travel and ticketing expenses for air travel. Lot of overheads (car buying cost, maintenance, rentals, hotels..etc) are not included…it’s just plain and simple travel expenditure. Data for the just the last 4 years is included; at times, rounded to nearest reasonable number. All this is between me and my wife…so these are not per person costs.

Here are the numbers for our travel by road:

• Miles travelled: 56,000
• Average mileage for our Nissan: 20 MPG
• Gasoline required: 2800 gallons
• Average cost per gallon of gasoline over the last 4 years: $2.04
• Total amount spent on gas (calculated): $5712
• Cost per month average over 4 years: $119
• Average cost per mile travelled: 10.2 ¢

The car is not used regularly for to-and-fro office journeys, so most of those miles are highway miles on weekends. Btw, I also owned a motorcycle in this period..and put about 3000 miles on that…but that’s a different story for a different post.

Here are the numbers for our air travel:

• Miles travelled: 60,500 (holy cow!)
• Total amount spent on air tickets: $5981
• Cost per month, distributed over 4 years: $124.6
• Average cost per mile (domestic): 12.6 ¢
• Average cost per mile (international flights): 9.2 ¢

Yeah, international travel is much cheaper when it comes to $$/mile, plus international flights have free food and drinks . Roughly, with our air travels, we have been through at least 15 different airports (including arrivals, destinations and stopovers) spread over 7 US states, and 4 other countries.

• Total amount spent travelling in the last 4 years (air+road): $11,693 ..and climbing. (I am uneasy)

Every penny of this amount was spent using credit cards. The car travel gets budgeted every few months and air travel was budgeted on per flight basis…so fortunately, there has never been a debt issue due to these amounts. I wish we could cut on these travel expenses, but that line of thought is not looking very hopeful right now. So, budgeting wisely is our only option for quite some time to come.

Before I finish, below are a few quick (and unconventional) suggestions on saving those few cents off your travel:

• For the road: Sam’s Club gasoline is not always the cheapest, look out for prices at a Walmart nearby. If you are in Texas, check out HEB; their prices are very close (sometimes better) than Sam’s or Walmart.
• For domestic flights: for approximately 7 out of 10 times, we have found better ticket deals on the airline websites directly than any of the travel websites/agencies. You must check out the airline websites before you click “buy” on Expedia or Orbitz. Usually, these fares change everyday. So, sometimes if the fare is not available (or is more expensive than you would like), check it again the next day.
• For international flights: except for British Airways (BA) and certain Asian airlines, most airlines offer very good ticket deals directly through their website…check them out. This is especially true if you are booking well in advance. BA deals are better done through travel agents, in my opinion.

Any thoughts about your travel expenses and unconventional travel tips?…travel “hacks” if you prefer it that way.

Image source: www.milestonesweb.com