Travel Tip: Daily Deals for Cities You Travel To

Group buying sites such as Groupon and LivingSocial are sweeping through the web offering steep discounts to consumers, while driving in heavy traffic to local businesses. These sites work by offering 1-day only deals - such as 50% off a rafting trip in the Sierra, or highly discounted restaurant and entertainment deals. The high response to these discounts allows businesses to offer such deals. In addition to activity deals, recent hotel and airline deals have been offered. For example, on the Atlanta Groupon page, Delta Airlines was offering a One-Visit Pass to Delta SkyClub Lounge (a $50 value) for just $22. On the Las Vegas Groupon page, the Clarion was selling for just $21 a night for a King-bed Junior Suite - valid any day of the week.

So, if you are planning a trip outside the Bay Area, it's probably worth signing up (free) for the daily emails offered by these sites, which can be customized to the cities you are traveling to.

Groupon sign-up

LivingSocial sign-up (earn $5 toward first purchase)

inFLIGHTout Travel Tip: Discounted Passport Photos

Save a few bucks on your next Passport and/or Visa photo by visiting your neighborhood Costco store. Costco charges members only $4.99 for a pair of photos. Other companies normally charge upwards of $10-$15 for the same service. Click here to find your local Bay Area Costco store.

How to Bid Better With Priceline

Mike Grasso

If we think back just 10 years ago, our options for finding the best travel deals were fairly limited to travel agents and other good folks "in the know." Fortunately now we have a potpourri of resources, particularly online, that enable us to find a customized travel deals that meets our needs in term of value and taste. One website, a particular favorite of mine, called biddingfortravel.com takes finding great values to the next level. 

As their website states, their primary goal is to promote informed bidding when using Priceline travel products. Many of us are familiar with the popular "name your own price" line pioneered by Priceline many years ago.  Under this method, you can bid for travel (cars, airline tickets, hotels) at a price you feel is reasonable without, at least initially, knowing who the supplier of the travel is. If your bid is accepted, then Priceline congratulates you and confirms the details of your itenerary, including which airline, car rental, or hotel accepted your offer. But how do you know if you over bid? What if that good deal could have been a great deal? This is where biddingfortravel.com comes in. 

Based primarily on user successes with Priceline's bidding system, biddingfortravel.com organizes their site by travel product and region, allowing you to scan recent Priceline bids in order to put in an offer that is likely to get accepted and ensures you don't overbid. So while a rate of $200US for the 5-star Intercontinental De La Ville in Rome would be a bargain (rack rates are over $250), a rate of $154 was accepted by Priceline - as reported on biddingfortravel.com.

Of course if you underbid, Priceline requires you to become more flexible (i.e: larger car, expand hotel search to a different region, etc.) then rebid. If you just want to increase you bid amount, you must wait 24 hours. So a review of the biddingfortravel site before you place a bid helps ensure your offer amount is within reasonable levels.