Confessions of a YYC Travel Junkie

[cmyden]

Originally Posted by Sidney Crosby's Hat

What made you choose Thailand? Never been. Are hotels ridiculously cheap there?

When I think of cheap accommodations in this world, SE Asia definitely springs to mind first. Mind you, the gambling subsidized hotels of Las Vegas are probably not much more!

[Tron_fdc]

It doesn't seem to work right now.....is the code cancelled?

Where in the advanced search section do you choose hotels in Thailand? I only see chain names to choose from

Edit: I found it. However, when I search round trip Cal-Kelowna with Thailand as my hotel, it still only brings up the travelodge in Calgary as an option. Seems they must have fixed the bug.

[cmyden]

Originally Posted by Tron_fdc

It doesn't seem to work right now.....is the code cancelled?

Where in the advanced search section do you choose hotels in Thailand? I only see chain names to choose from

Hmmm, just tried it on a random Vegas package and it still worked. Are you sure...

- you're using the .com version of Travelocity? (not .ca)
- the package length is 3 nights or more ?

Under advanced search, you can just choose Thailand and then enter a city name like Bangkok and search. Don't need to actually choose a hotel to perform the search.

[Sidney Crosby's Hat]

Originally Posted by cmyden

Hmmm, just tried it on a random Vegas package and it still worked. Are you sure...

- you're using the .com version of Travelocity? (not .ca)
- the package length is 3 nights or more ?

Under advanced search, you can just choose Thailand and then enter a city name like Bangkok and search. Don't need to actually choose a hotel to perform the search.

I made this same mistake at first. It definitely needs to be Travelocity.com.

[cmyden]

Just to note, the cheapest hotel in the Travelocity system in Bangkok, Thailand looks to be going for about $13/night.

Tried a couple of other random destinations off the top of my head, but haven't seen anything cheaper.

[Tron_fdc]

Yep, I'm for sure on .com

It still won't let me pick a thai hotel. Still comes up as travelodge only.

[Sidney Crosby's Hat]

Originally Posted by Tron_fdc

Yep, I'm for sure on .com

It still won't let me pick a thai hotel. Still comes up as travelodge only.

Try a different web browser. I found if I first searched without changing the city, it was difficult to change it later.

[cmyden]

Originally Posted by Tron_fdc

Edit: I found it. However, when I search round trip Cal-Kelowna with Thailand as my hotel, it still only brings up the travelodge in Calgary as an option. Seems they must have fixed the bug.

I think this is actually a completely separate problem that Travelocity seems to have.

I've noticed Travelocity seems to have some weird issues sometimes with loading hotels from destinations that I searched previously. It seems to get 'stuck' loading the same hotels over and over even after changing my destination.

Try first searching for a normal flight + hotel package to Bangkok, then the advanced search to Kelowna.

Just tried it, and it worked. Another issue they seem to have is that it will claim your results are sorted by price, even when they're not. Need to sort by a different parameter and re-sort all over.

screenshots of the search I just tried...






Pretty good price for a flight to Kelowna

Basically it can be used to bring down the bottom price of any flight by about another $150/person, assuming the hotel in Thailand is going for $13/night on your dates. $200 - ($13*3)

[Tron_fdc]

hah! Had to clear out my cookies. Worked like charm!!

[rubecube]

Damn, I wish I had known about this when it came out. I booked a friend's flight through Westjet and it came out to $415. Would've been about $170 by using this and cancelling only gets me a Westjet credit, which I probably would never use.

[Dodsdomd]

Originally Posted by cmyden

I think this is actually a completely separate problem that Travelocity seems to have.

I've noticed Travelocity seems to have some weird issues sometimes with loading hotels from destinations that I searched previously. It seems to get 'stuck' loading the same hotels over and over even after changing my destination.

Try first searching for a normal flight + hotel package to Bangkok, then the advanced search to Kelowna.

Just tried it, and it worked. Another issue they seem to have is that it will claim your results are sorted by price, even when they're not. Need to sort by a different parameter and re-sort all over.

screenshots of the search I just tried...






Pretty good price for a flight to Kelowna

Basically it can be used to bring down the bottom price of any flight by about another $150/person, assuming the hotel in Thailand is going for $13/night on your dates. $200 - ($13*3)

Maybe I'm missing something here. How are you getting the discount on the flight only? I'm trying to see if I can do YXE-SFO and apply the discount. Is the above some kind of back door into discount?

[cmyden]

Originally Posted by Dodsdomd

Maybe I'm missing something here. How are you getting the discount on the flight only? I'm trying to see if I can do YXE-SFO and apply the discount. Is the above some kind of back door into discount?

Another interesting thing I've noticed is that if you use the 'advanced search' options you can book a package with a flight to wherever (let's say San Francisco), but combine it with a super cheap hotel in, let's say, Bangkok, Thailand.

Put a checkmark beside ' I prefer to stay in a city other than my destination airport.'

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by cmyden

I think this is actually a completely separate problem that Travelocity seems to have.

I've noticed Travelocity seems to have some weird issues sometimes with loading hotels from destinations that I searched previously. It seems to get 'stuck' loading the same hotels over and over even after changing my destination.

Try first searching for a normal flight + hotel package to Bangkok, then the advanced search to Kelowna.

Just tried it, and it worked. Another issue they seem to have is that it will claim your results are sorted by price, even when they're not. Need to sort by a different parameter and re-sort all over.

screenshots of the search I just tried...






Pretty good price for a flight to Kelowna

Basically it can be used to bring down the bottom price of any flight by about another $150/person, assuming the hotel in Thailand is going for $13/night on your dates. $200 - ($13*3)

I'm looking to fly to Kelowna that weekend (thanksgiving) but I can't seem to find the hotel you use. Could you walk me through how you do that?

[Dodsdomd]

Originally Posted by cmyden

Put a checkmark beside ' I prefer to stay in a city other than my destination airport.'

I feel stupid but I don't see the 'I prefer to stay in a city other than my destination airport.' box.

Found it.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Ok so I think I got it.


K so you're sure that nothing will come of this phantom booking in Thailand?

[Dodsdomd]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

Ok so I think I got it.


K so you're sure that nothing will come of this phantom booking in Thailand?

What hotel did you use?

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by Dodsdomd

What hotel did you use?

Well I realized that even when you sort hotels it always shows the cheapest package price (including your flight). So I chose my flight to Kelowna (fri to tues over thanksgiving). Then I just picked the cheapest package which was $357. Hotel name was Sawasdee Welcome Inn in Bangkok Thailand. Damn bold. As long as they don't charge me extra for never showing up I should be good to go. I'm not sure if that was the $13/night hotel but $160US for a flight to Kelowna on a long weekend is an insane deal.

After all was said and done I entered the promo code and it was $157 US.

Really wish I would have known as my old man used his airmiles to book me to Kelowna Aug 10-14th and I booked my own flights to Regina for Aug Long.

Could have save a bunch of airmiles and money if I'd done all three flights this way.

[cmyden]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

Ok so I think I got it.
K so you're sure that nothing will come of this phantom booking in Thailand?

There's really nothing the hotel can do, nor would they really care if you don't show up, as from their point of view you've paid for the room.

The biggest concern is probably Travelocity getting mad about the code being used in a way they may or may have not expected to get a $150 discount on flights.

I kept a little more quiet about this 'hotel in Bangkok loophole' and only mentioned it on CP and in the middle of the comments section of the blog post (not the blog post itself), so hopefully it won't attract too much attention at Travelocity.

[Dodsdomd]

Thanks guys. It looks like the amount of hotel nights required will negate the $200 savings. Awesome idea though.

[rubecube]

For those in Vancouver, flying out of Bellingham to JFK and using phuket as your for 3-4 nights gets you to NYC for about $320.