How To Save BIG & Travel Smart this Summer 2024!

What’s included this week:

The Cheapest Days To Travel: Currently Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday are the least expensive days to travel should you have a flexible schedule. Selecting a departure or return on one of these days can sometimes result in savings by as much as 30% off for your booking.

Consider A Red-Eye Seat In Premium Economy: The amount of money you’ll pay buy upgrading to a spacious seat with ample leg room in Premium Economy (or Business Class) is often less expensive than paying for a night in a hotel followed by a flight the next day. If you are willing to endure an overnight flight and the duration is more than 5 hours in the sky, you can get a decent sleep in a better seat and save a lot of cash versus flying in the morning and paying for a hotel the night before.

You Can Score Tours For Free: We love walking tours in my household to quickly get acquainted with our surroundings. You can find many completely free or almost free walking tours and guides by visiting the website FreeTour.com

Keep Your Credit Card Information Safe When Booking An Excursion: If you are visiting a new area or country where you would prefer to book tours without giving someone you’ve never met your credit card, Viator (which is owned by TripAdvisor) is a fantastic search engine for tours and excursions “off the beaten path” where you are billed by Viator and able to modify your booking accordingly. With cancelation policies that are usually generous, rewards points, dedicated online customer service and the fact you’re not giving someone you’ve never met your credit card number to hold a spot, I’m a big supporter of this service. You also don’t need to worry about translation issues if you have questions about a specific tour.

Use Expedia To Browse, Not To Book: While Expedia is a great way to search for cheap flights to your destination (in addition to hotel deals), consider it a solid way to browse - not to book. When you book through Expedia, your booking for an airline or hotel is treated as one made “through a travel agent.” That means if you have to adjust or cancel, you are dealing with Expedia’s overseas call-centres that from my experience are not well-trained with all types of modifications. In the event of a missed flight connection or re-booking, what an airline call centre can quickly solve if you’ve booked directly, sometimes takes double the amount of time by using a third party aggregator like Expedia.

Know When To Book: Hopper is a free app and website with a special feature that predicts the best time to book airfare. Using AI, it aims to answer the simple question: Should you book now or should you wait? In several tests over the past year, I have found this predictive feature reliable and accurate on many (but not all) occasions. My only word of advice is if a big travel holiday is approaching - such asThanksgiving - book as far in advance as you can regardless of what the app suggests.

For Finding Cheap(er) Tickets: Skyscanner is an app some of you may have used in the past but this free search engine is still one of the most successful at finding cheap airfare and pairing segments from different airlines to cut costs. Unlike Expedia, SkyScanner offers you the option to book through an airline directly (usually at the bottom of the list of places they present for you to book), you can set price alerts to quickly learn when tickets drop in price, and they have a simple color-coated calendar so you can easily see the most expensive days to fly before your fully narrow down your travel dates.

(THIS IS NOT SPONSORED)

Imagine being able to instantly avoid those dreaded limited recline seats, the often unmarked least desirable areas of an airplane where your leg room is even more limited or better yet a fantastic seat not accompanied with an extra cost. Website’s like SeatGuru and AeroLopa are free ways to reveal the seating plan for almost every airplane flown by almost every airline anywhere in the world.

They’re quick, easy to navigate and it’s my go-to before I consider a seat selection from an airline. In some cases I’ve found seats that offer as much leg room as an emergency exit row or “preferred seat selection” without forking out additional cash to an airline for that precious space.

Did you know there is a website that can provide advanced information on the type of turbulence you could expect on an upcoming flight? Turbli.com is a free useful resource that provide curious flyers an approximate turbulence and wind speed forecast.

The tool is unfortunately only limited to either same-day or next-day forecasts, however it is something I use often to ensure my family is well prepared in the event of a bumpy journey ahead.

**The availability and pricing of these deals are subject to change at any time. If you buy something through these links, I may get a small share of the sale. Click here to learn more

I am releasing a brand new Costco video next month that is a sequel to one of your prior favorites - and actually one of my most viewed videos of all time! My last Costco Secrets video received over 5.8 Million views and was packed full of tips and tricks to beat the warehouse at its own game.

As a special treat for my newsletter audience, here is a sneak peek at a couple of the new money-saving tips that will be included in that video!

That’s right! Similar to websites like GoodRX, Costco has a web page dedicated to prescription prices and how they stack up against its competitors? This is extremely helpful when deciding if it is cheaper to fill your medication at Costco vs the other alternatives.

Something I didn’t learn until recently is that similar to stores like Apple, Verizon and AT&T, Costco has its own electronics trade-in program where you can send in your old devices in exchange for a Costco Shop Card.

It is important to note that Costco does outsource this program through an external company named Phobio, however this program could be highly beneficial for anyone (especially teens starting college in the fall) looking to exchange unused tech in return for newer models sold at Costco.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this newsletter. If there are any topics you want to see or a sale that I did not cover this week, I’m all ears.

I wish you all a meaningful Memorial Day. Thank you to the heroes and family members of those heroes who fought so hard for our freedom.

The Deal Guy (Matt Granite)