Arthur Frommer's Top Ten Bargain Travel Tips

Learn from Arthur Frommer what huge travel site he believes you should not use and what how to avoid being overcharged by major hotel chains. You also find out which travel search engine could be superior to hotwire, orbitz, kayak and all the rest.

Luz: Today a special edition on Trip On A Deal, Arthur Frommer’s Top 10 Travel Tips, you probably never heard of. Welcome to Trip On A Deal I’m Luz. John: And I am John. We are here at the marvelous Café Ronda in Manhattan, and we are joined by the legendary Arthur Frommer. Thank you for joining us. Arthur: Thank you for having me. Thank you. John: We’re glad that we have you. You’re new book, Ask & travel better, cheaper and smarter, is packed with ways to actually make that dollar go further on your trip. Arthur: That’s the purpose of the book. John: One of the things that Luz and I really struck by is in the Foreword. You say that mainstream travel media are not helpful to regular travelers. Why not? Arthur: One is worse than the next. The people who ran these media, they do not provide service oriented materials. They don’t deal with the needs of the vast bulk of the American population. Luz: With that in mind, we called to your book and we picked the Top 10 Great travel Bargains that people probably have never heard of. So we’re going to go through the 10. John: Number 10, the best travel search engines are not the ones you might think about. You list per flight a Danish site as the best travel considered. Arthur: That’s right Momondo.com. It comes up with cheaper prices for flights within the United States than you can get from the big airfare search engines. John: Now for Hotels, you list another international site, an Australian site, HotelsCombined.com. Arthur: Everybody knows about it in the United States, they search everybody else and tell you what’s out there and you yourself call the hotel directly. They’re doing very well now. John: Alright and then finally for the best travel search engines for cars. So say there’s one site, that if you don’t use this site you will not be getting the best deal. Arthur: BreezeNet. They fair it out which car rental companies are the hungriest or in a particular way, during a week in Orlando there may be one of them that has a lot of unrented cars that’s willing to come down to $15.00 a day rather than 40. Luz: Number 9, the best cheap stay in America. Arthur tell us about the new deal going at Motel 6 of all places Arthur: Most people would never consider staying at the Motel 6. Their image of Motel 6 by shabby sworded facility with the doors hanging off the windows. Motel 6 was recently taken over by a big French Hotel firm, Accor, one of the biggest in the world that has put a lot of money into Motel 6. Go into the Motel 6 website or into their catalogue, you look into the words Interior Corridors, that’s the tip off. John: Number 8, A lesson for Students and Teachers. You list two websites that help students and teachers. Number 1, EducatorsTravel.com Arthur: Yes that’s a bed-and-breakfast organization of teachers who have an extra cut, an extra spare room, who have an extra bed in their room and would like to earn some additional money by taking in other teachers. John: And for students, they can travel for little 69 to 89 dollars anywhere in the U.S. if they go to AirTranU.com? Arthur: AirTranU, the airline known as AirTran, has setup a facility to make flights, are rather available for students. They do it on a standby basis, but if you have an Identity Card, you go on AirTran and you pay so little for your flight. Luz: Number 7; Avoid the New, Sneaky Hotel Fees. Arthur: Oh that’s a, that’s a rough area. The hotel industry has a lot to answer for; when you get your bill, they suddenly give you a fee of three dollars a day for use or for the existence of the safe; in the closet, in the room where you’re in safe, even though you haven’t used it. These extra fees are destroying the reputation of the hotel industry. They are outright fraud and the respectable heads of better hotel chains should be ashamed of themselves. Luz: And stop that right now. You know who you are. Arthur: You know who you are. John: We’re taking names. Number 6, Repositioning Yourself; what is a repositioning cruise? Arthur: Repositioning Cruise is the movement of cruise ship from an area where it is no longer needed to an area where the season is just beginning. Now mainly what they are doing is simply crossing the Atlantic Ocean. They spend 6 to 7 days simply at sea. I think that’s as heaven, to be on the ship, to be lying on the chairs, lounges, to be reading a novel, to have a couple of bullion put into your hand. This is called repositioning forces they often cost us little as 40 and 50 dollars a night per person. John: So they’re good if you have a lot of time but not a lot of money essentially. Arthur: That’s right Luz: Now, I will bring up number 5 which is one of—this made you mad, as in almost anything else on the books. Speaking of cruises, never book you cruise excursions through the cruise line. Arthur: The smart tourist doesn’t do that Luz: What do we do instead? Arthur: You may feel like simple getting off this ship and wondering around on your own two feet or you make use now of certain independent companies that I talk about and ask Arthur Frommer that create their own shore excursions Luz: ShoreTrips.com Arthur: ShoreTrips.com, PortPromotions.com, they have some shore excursions. John: Number 4, Volunteer Vacations, they’re not necessarily free or even cheap. Alright so I think there’s a lot of misconception about volunteer vacations which is a very trendy thing right now. Arthur: And yet the average American believes that when you go on a volunteer vacation, and you lend your services to a worthy cause, you should be living free. An actual fact on a great, many programs you’re paying more than if you were to book on normal tour because the arrangements are very complex to create. There are wonderful organizations that permit you to enjoy a less expensive vacation that is a volunteer vacation. The Sierra Club where you perform usual services restoring hiking trails and the like, habitat free humanity put you all free of charge. John: You can do good and feel good about what you’re spending Arthur: That’s true Luz: Tip Number 3, Never but never go to a commercial money changer; when you’re looking for foreign currency Arthur: Of course, there is the one place that you go to universally, throughout the world today to change your money and that is a plain old familiar ATM Machine. And they give you a decent deal. You get a decent exchange rate. John: We’re coming down to the final Arthur: Now are these the more important tips? John: All important, don’t you think every page of this book is important? Number 2, are you ready? User generated websites are and I quote, “virtually useless”. Arthur: They are virtually useless because people have estimated that perhaps 50% of their recommendations are fakes. John: And you can name names. They’re very popular TripAdvisor.com Arthur: Logic would tell you if you were running a hotel today, you would encourage every cousin, every aunt, every friend and their acquaintance of yours to write in. there is no way in the world that these user generated sites are able to distinguish between the genuine and the fake. Luz: And the number 1, number 1 great tip from Arthur Frommer’s book. We enjoyed this very much when the back of the book, labelled true, then you say, the less you spend the more you enjoy. Arthur: The less you spend the more authentic is the travel experience. The more informal it is, the greater the chances that you will meet other residents of the location. And this has been the theme of all of our books from the very beginning and it’s a reason why the Frommer Travel Guide are now the largest selling series of travel guides in North America today. John: Well we’ve been talking about, Ask Arthur Frommer, with Arthur Frommer, it’s an amazing resource. If you want to get any of the links that Arthur Frommer talked about today, go to TripOnADeal.com or the Frommers.com. They’re the only guide book series that puts their materials online, it’s an incredible resource. Luz: Thank you Arthur Frommer for joining us today. And thank you 08:13 here in New York City for allowing us to shoot, and don’t you forget to join us next week so you can John: Trip On A Deal