Forget “Insider Deals” and Go for Travel Savings Strategies

He’s got some insider deals for you.     (c) New Line Cinema

Every month or two we’ll get an invitation to participate in some affiliate program for a travel club, vacation club, or hotel club that supposedly gives vacationers access to insider deals. It’s tempting to join up with them since they offer fat commissions our website would make every time one of our readers signs up.

But just as the brokerage commissions in the movie The Boiler Room were fat because of the dubious stocks they were pumping and dumping, I don’t have much confidence that these discounts coming from “membership fees” are grounded in reality.

Sure, there are plenty of ways to get a legit travel discount, but they’re not hidden in the shadows or held for a select few that get access through a paywall. They just require a little digging or awareness. Here are a few travel savings strategies I’ve used over and over again to save a small fortune.

Look for the “Second Right Answer” on Flights

If you pull up your favorite booking service and don’t see a flight deal that you’re comfortable with, don’t stop there and give up. One of creativity author Roger Van Oech’s sayings is, “Look for the second right answer.” Maybe you’ll go down a few dead ends in the maze before you get to where you need to be.

The more flexibility you have—more on that in a minute—the easier it is to find a flight deal. Beyond that, you probably need to search other airlines and other booking sites. Maybe the second right answer is Volaris for the best deal from San Francisco to Mexico, Easyjet to get to the country of Georgia, or an Indigo flight to Dubai. You won’t really know until you spend some time poking around.

Let the Deals Come to You

One of the easiest travel savings strategies is a lazy one that only requires a few minutes of reading time.

You know that little box on the booking form where they ask you to opt in to their e-mail list? You might want to say yes to that. Yes I know it’s a pain to get all those newsletters when you’re not traveling, but you can always use a different address, make use of G-mail’s commercial folder, or use a service like Unroll to group them in a weekly batch e-mail instead.

Then when you do start planning a trip, there’s a good chance you’ll get lucky with a coupon or discount you can really use. In the past I’ve let these updates lead me to free rental car upgrades, anniversary sale deals on flights, or sudden price drops to counter low demand on a route.

The cheapo airlines like Allegiant, Spirit, and RyanAir are kicking out new deals every week for those on their e-mail list. A few extra messages to clear out each week can save you a bundle if you’re getting ready to go somewhere.

Heck, there are whole Twitter feeds devoted to unusual deals like this too that you can follow. Don’t forget about loyalty program bonuses too as those can add up to a free trip further down the line.

Be Old, Young, or Affiliated

There are special deals out there for certain tribes of people holding the right card in their wallet. It tends to be a very common card though, rather than some secret one people pay extra for. If you belong to AAA or AARP, for example, you can frequently get 10% off at hotel or car rental booking sites, all coded into the booking process. The same goes for active military. If you’re holding a university student ID or an ISIC card, that will get you a discount too in a lot of situations like museums, attractions, and train rides. Sometimes the age on your driver’s license is enough to get a senior discount or a teacher’s ID might be the ticket to a museum discount.

There is one kind of commercial membership that can actually result in travel deals: a Costco one. If you’ve got a Costco card number, you can definitely find some attractive rental car deals, for a start.

At the high end of the scale, if you have the right Amex card or book a hotel through a travel specialist that’s part of the Virtuoso group, you’ll either get a discount or a pile of extra goodies when you book at a luxury hotel or resort.

Be Loyal (or at least have a loyalty credit card)

If you belong to the loyalty program of an airline or hotel chain, that company will push discounts out to you on a regular basis. These can be last-minute fare/rate drops, member-only sales, or point redemption discounts.

For example I flew to Peru and back on United Airlines one time for just 25,000 miles because I had the right airline-branded credit card. That’s normally what a domestic frequent flier round trip will cost. I got a bonus so large from staying at an IHG-branded hotel last year during a promotion that I earned enough to cash in for another hotel night later.

By the way, being “loyal” doesn’t mean you can’t play the field. Join any program of a company you’ll use more than once. Otherwise you’re leaving virtual dollars on the table. Take it a step further and get their branded credit card to really get showered with points. The dirty secret of travel hacking with loyalty programs is it’s not really the travel itself that gives you a lot of points anymore. It’s the sign-up bonus from the credit card(s). You can frequently earn enough just from that for a free international flight or several nights in a hotel..

Be Flexible With Travel Plans

In the end, the steepest travel savings go to those who use the laws of supply and demand to their advantage. If you have a lot of variables in your plans, you are the one most likely to find the best deals. Period. This matters more than everything else above added together.

If you can fly on any day, go when it’s not high season, are flexible about your destination, and aren’t set on a specific hotel/resort, it’s highly unlikely you’ll pay top dollar. Don’t forget too that the cheapest places to live or visit are going to save you a bundle after arrival, so give the destination extra weighting over the airfare price if you’re going to stay for more than a week—or move there.

Here’s an example of what digital nomads do all the time: I had a friend who was leaving Moscow with her husband and just wanted to get to Europe. Eventually they would make their way back to North America. It didn’t matter where they landed as long as the flight was going to Western Europe and it was cheap. She found one to Sheffield, England (of all places) for a shade over $300 on SAS. Sold!

I’m all ears though if anyone reading this has paid to be in some kind of vacation club and has saved far more than the membership fee in discounts. Leave a comment below. Otherwise, insider deals in travel now seem about as rare as a Bigfoot sighting in Wyoming. It’s better to use travel savings strategies that actually work.