Saving on Holiday Travel

The holidays are quickly approaching and this year will probably be one of the toughest to get through. Most of us are strapped for extra cash at this point, which makes it especially hard to travel over the holidays. However, if you do travel over the holidays, here are some tips to make things easier on your wallet.

If you are traveling by air, book your flight well in advance. Typically, flights are cheaper if they are booked 21 days or earlier before the departure date. Also, when you are booking your flight, don't just check the prices on the travel discounters. Checkout the airline's website too. Sometimes their prices are cheaper than the discounters. Another thing to keep in mind when booking a flight is compare the prices for each day of the week. Typically, weekend flights are cheaper than weekday flights because of the higher demand for business travel. Also, Sunday morning flights are typically cheaper than Saturday evening flights.

Once you've reached your destination, if you need to rent a car, check the rental agencies first to see who has the best deal. As a side note, weekend rentals are much cheaper than weekday rentals. I know Enterprise offers a 50% discount on their weekend rentals. Also, if you are booking online, print out the entire price list. Then choose an economy car as your rental. Once you are at the rental counter, ask about an upgrade. Most of the time the rental agent will give you a better deal than your printout on an upgrade.

If you are driving this year and are handy with your automobile, do the maintenance yourself. For maintenance tools and equipment, check out JC Whitney. Not only do they have good prices, but we almost always have a coupon for them. If you need new tires, check out The Tire Rack. There are great deals for standard (not winter) tires this time of year, especially if you buy them as a set of 4.

Finally, if you need a place to stay and no-one will put you up (joking) check out the deals with each of the major hotel chains such as the InterContinental Hotels Group or the Choice Hotels Group. Many of these major hotel chains offer early booking discounts of 20% or more. Early booking means as little as 3 days or as many as 21 days in advance, so it's not too late to book!