When planning trips I love to do all the research and book everything myself. There’s a sense of accomplishment and something very satisfying about discovering great deals. I delight in finding obscure interesting tidbits about the places I’m visiting and usually find such information on blog posts written by the locals.

One valuable piece of information I have learned is this: When booking plane tickets online, or anywhere for that matter, always use the airline’s official website and not a third party such as Expedia or a travel agency. The reason for this is, should there be problems you can go to the airline counter at the airport and receive immediate help; whereas if you booked through a travel agency or third party the airport airline agents will politely tell you they are sorry, but you need to contact your travel agency, or whomever you booked through, to sort it out. And given the time zones etc. sometimes reaching the travel agency isn’t so easy or convenient. Just something to think about.

Another useful tip I learned while reading travel blogs is to book train tickets and bus tickets in the language of the country you are travelling in/to using a local site. It sometimes works for accommodation as well! You can frequently find awesome deals and save tons of money, not to mention travelling in style and comfort! When travelling in France with my daughter in 2011, I booked our train tickets on the local site from Paris to Avignon and got a smokin’ deal. First Class seats (with extra leg room, close to the food car) were the cost of econony seats on the English site. We saved $90 each – which allowed me to buy a heck of a lot of extra croissants!  Should your foreign language skills be lacking, like mine were, the trick is to have two browser windows open – the English site and the French site – so you know what the French site is requesting – it worked like a dream!

Amazing deals are always extremely limited in number. They are usually available 5 to 3 months in advance of your travel date and sell out very quickly!  It is wise to mark your calendar or set a reminder for yourself to book the very first day they become available or the likelihood of scoring tickets is pretty slim. The tricky bit here, is to keep in mind the time/date differences. For example, I need train tickets from Florence to Salerno on May 26th this year so I will be looking on Iltreno, the Italian website, on January 25th at one in the morning because we are one day behind Italy.  Fingers crossed that I get lucky and end up travelling first class for the 4 hour trip in a super-comfy extra wide seat at a super reduced rate. That would make my day – well that and maybe, just maybe, finding a bottle of chianti stashed in my handbag along with, you know, a piece of salami, some cheese, and oh look, there’s olives as well!

Now all of this sounds like a bit of work and it is, but I love the challenge of finding travel deals better than those advertised. I’m a little geeky that way – some might say a lot geeky – but hey, my wallet loves me and yours will too.