Travel Gadgets

When I travel, I take a virtual Radio Shack in my carry-on. I only realized how many gadgets I was carrying when my carry-on was stolen in Cali, Colombia and I had to make a list for my insurance claim. So here are a few of the key carry-on gadgets that make traveling connected easier:

• Travel Router. One of these has to be in your bag. If you have ever been frustrated by the position of the hotel's ethernet connection, or if you've wanted the freedom of wireless in a hotel or friend's home, this is for you. It also lets you share one internet connection between multiple guests at the same hotel (in case you're traveling in a group, or if you - like me - object to the hotel charging everyone for internet and want to share with your neighbors). The top two are the D-Link Pocket Router and the Linksys Travel Router. I use the Linksys, but from what I read, the D-Link is also good. (Most others include a bulky external power supply and are hard to pack. While the D-Link has an external power supply, it also comes with a handy carrying case and is small enough that the total package is still quite small.)
• Headset. These are key to making internet phone calls, which make calling home cheap and easy, especially overseas where calling rates are sky high and your US cellphone charges you an arm and a leg. The headset I currently use is the Sony DR-G250DP, which is not perfect, but at least it folds down to a nice packing size. It does not come with a carrying case, so you'll need to pack it in a ziploc bag. Another option is to take your handy Bluetooth headset from your cellphone, and make sure your laptop has Bluetooth built in (or get yourself a Bluetooth adapter).
  
• Unlocked GSM quadband cellphone (for international travel). This will allow you to buy cheap local prepaid GSM chips and make calls for a fraction of what it would cost to use your US-based cellphone. The best brand is Motorola because most models are quad-band (which means that they support 850, 900, 1800, and 1900 MHz). Most non-Motorola cellphones only support some frequencies, so they don't work in some countries. If you already have a GSM cellphone in the US (Cingular, T-Mobile, Verizon) then you may be able to unlock your cellphone. Unlock services are sold on eBay, as are new and refurbished unlocked GSM cellphones. Just make sure they are quad-band, or at least that they support the frequencies used in the countries where you travel. The Motorola cellphones come with Phone Tools software that will enable you to back up each SIM card's phone book to your computer in a different folder.
  
• iGo Power Adapter. This will allow you to use one power cord for all of your gadgets.
  
• External hard drive. When you travel, you'll want to be able to copy your photos to your external hard drive, and at times connect it to an internet cafe computer to email them to your friends and family. It is also useful to take music and movies with you.
• Digital Camera. While everyone has his or her own preferences, my own are Canon cameras, since they have always performed as advertised for me. They also have waterproof cases available if you want to take them underwater on your beach vacations.

Round-the-World Travel

You don't need to want to travel around the world to look into Round-the-World (RTW) tickets. They're not just for people who have months to burn. If you are well-informed and buy them in the right way (I'll explain later), they can be the most cost-effective way to travel internationally, especially in business class (and first class, but less advantageously).

RTW tickets come in two main varieties: mileage-based and segment-based. Almost all are mileage-based and have some common rules. the oneWorld Alliance has two RTW programs, one of which is mileage-based and the other of which is segment-based. I'll discuss the mileage-based ones because they are the most common.

The most common RTW tickets are:

• the Star Alliance RTW
  
• oneWorld Explorer (segment-based)
  
• oneWorld Global Explorer (mileage-based)
  
• The Great Escapade (Singapore Air, Silk Air, Air NZ, Virgin Atlantic)
  

The key thing to know is that they are priced by country. If you buy them in the UK, the price is different than if you buy them in the US. But you have to start your travel in the country in which you buy the ticket. Some require you to live in the country of origin, but if you purchase the ticket through a local travel agency in the country of origin, you usually won't have a problem.

The key advantage to RTW tickets is that they are flexible and offer the ability to travel extremely inexpensively to a variety of destinations, using first-rate airlines. Let's say that you are going to London for some other reason. While in London you can buy a Great Escapade RTW trip (my personal favorite) for around $1,500 and return to the US on the first segment. Later, when you want to travel to Asia, you can use your RTW trip to fly to Singapore and anywhere else that Singapore Air or Silk Air flies (up to a limit of # of destinations and mileage). If you want, you can continue your trip through India to London and return home on a new RTW trip (or the original return segment of your US-London flight if it has not expired). You can change travel dates as often as you'd like without penalty (though you'll pay a fee of $75-100 to change the routing).

Buying a RTW ticket is an ordeal. You cannot buy them online, and many of the airline representatives are not well informed about them. In my experience the airline with the most informed phone sales representatives is Singapore Air. They are much much better than most US-based airline representatives when it comes to RTW tickets, and they sell the Great Escapade as well as the Star Alliance and even a Singapore Air-only RTW trip.

LastMinute.com - the BEST of the online travel secrets!

While most people have heard of Priceline and Hotwire, most people I know have not heard of LastMinute.com. It is a "package travel" site, which means that it bundles air, hotel, and car (or any two of the three) in order to give you a total price. It also specializes in last-minute travel (either the next or the following weekend, for domestic travel). It offers travel within the US, and to some common foreign destinations.

The results will surprise you. You will frequently be able to find a last-minute package of air and car rental that is cheaper than the best airfare alone. I have found instances of the best price on air from Seattle to San Francisco being around $450, and LastMinute.com giving me a package price of $250 for air and rental car together. If you don't use the rental car, in my experience, you don't lose the air (though I cannot guarantee that it could never happen!).

In my view, no one should look into a weekend trip on the next two weekends within the US without looking at LastMinute.com.

Site59 tips:

• The default setting will show you air and hotel, but you will see a tab at the top of your results for airfare+car if that's what you want. You will also see a tab for hotel+car only. (You cannot just buy one of the components.)
• The best prices I have seen are on West Coast routes, using Alaska Airlines as the air portion.
  
• In my experience you DO receive frequent flier credit on the airlines. To get special seating, you'll have to call the airline on the phone.
• There is an uncomfortable period after you submit your order and before you receive your confirmation email in which your reservation is not guaranteed but you have committed. In my experience the emails may delay up to an hour, but I have never had the email fail to confirm the deal the web site has offered.
  

Hotwire for Hotels - quickest way to a great price on a room

For those who don't want to take the time to bid and re-bid on Priceline, but still want to save money vs. the generally available prices on hotels, try Hotwire. It will frequently give you a pretty good price relative to Expedia and Travelocity, and with very little hassle. You just have to be ready to take the brand they give you. Normally I find that I save about 20-40% on Hotwire (vs. up to 60% on Priceline).

Caveats:

• Look carefully at the maps of the neighborhoods...even if the neighborhood says "DFW", it may be nowhere near the airport and may not have an airport shuttle.
  
• Check out the amenities if you want to know if there is a free shuttle, internet service available, etc. (This is a key advantage vs. Priceline.)
• If you really want to know which hotel you're going to get, you might try searching Hotwire's package product for the same city. If you find a hotel in the same neighborhood at the same star level with the exact same list of amenities, it is likely the same hotel. And the package product shows hotel names.
• Go to the page where it shows the final price including taxes and fees before comparing to the alternatives. Sometimes the hidden fees in Hotwire make it more expensive than you thought it would be.

Priceline for Hotels - the best and worst kept secret of online travel

For a while, Priceline was a prolific advertiser, with William Shatner bombarding all of us with his message about naming your own price for anything: air, hotel, rental car, and even groceries. Priceline has since developed a more conventional travel site attached to its old name-your-own-price (NYOP) model, and has been advertising the new feature of seeing a price before you buy. Of course, this is what every other site has always done, and Priceline is no better at it. What Priceline does better than all other web sites is help you find hotels at prices far better than any alternative that I have seen. It also occasionally gives you the best deal on rental cars (though Hotwire is frequently just as good a deal, and with less hassle).

The bottom line: Priceline is the best place to get a hotel room in the US, in most major cities, if you're not overly concerned about brand.

The hard part is that you never know how much to bid. Priceline gives you suggestions, but how do you know they're valid, and not just encouragement to bid a number that makes them a lot of money? The fact is that Priceline buys the hotel room and resells it to you at the price you offer (if it sells), and they make the difference, so it's in their interest to convince you to bid more than you have to. So you cannot trust their suggestions.

There are two sites that provide you with historical data on Priceline bids and results:

BiddingForTravel.com
BetterBidding.com

Using these sites, and the tips below, you can usually save 50-60% over the best alternative prices on hotel rooms in US cities (and some outside the US).

1. Go to Priceline and enter the relevant data for your hotel stay (city, dates, people, rooms). You'll see which neighborhoods are available (if any). You can now go to the above referenced sites (BiddingForTravel.com and BetterBidding.com) to find out what the recent results are showing, see the lists of hotels that are coming up in the neighborhoods that interest you, etc. Also look at Expedia or Hotels.com to see what the general availability and price range of your target hotels are, on the dates you will be traveling. Then check Hotwire to see whether there is much availability of wholesale rooms. (Normally, if Hotwire has rooms then Priceline does, and vice versa.)
   
2. When you know the neighborhood and star level you want, you need to plan your bidding strategy. Priceline allows multiple bids if you change your neighborhood or star level, so you can plan out your bidding to optimize your results.
   
3. The most useful tactic is to use phantom neighborhoods. For example, if you're bidding on a 4-star hotel in neighborhood X, then you can add neighborhood Y to your second bid, if neighborhood Y has no 4-star hotels in the Priceline system, and effectively have a free re-bid. So before you bid, make a list of the phantom neighborhoods you can add to your bid to get free re-bids. Once you see how many free re-bids you have at your disposal, you know how aggressive you can be with your bidding.
4. If you have no free re-bids available, then you might want to look at the high end of the successful bids accepted in your neighborhood. You also want to look at the high end of the range if Hotwire doesn't show much of a price advantage. On the other hand if you have a lot of free re-bids, and Hotwire shows good availability, then start low and re-bid until your price is accepted. Don't be afraid to be aggressive!

Bon Voyage

This is the first post of the Travel Informer blog. I have been researching travel for my own travel purposes for a long time, and people have been asking me for years if I could help them locate travel deals and steals, and help them with strategies for getting the best deals. This blog is my attempt to share my experiences and insights with friends. It's my first blog, so be patient with me.

Andy