Quote:
Originally Posted by MacGruber
aah i see. yeah, i for sure book that ahead of time. its the only way i think id ever travel... but even if i waited to book when i got there... i cant imagine finding a place cheaper than 45 bucks a night right?
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Yes, but if you book accomodation ahead of time, you lose some flexibility in your travel. We are willing to sacrifice some cost at times for more flexibility. We also do not enjoy large resorts, large hotels, or buffet lines.
...and then, at this point in our lives, and depending on where we are going, it is easier for us to avoid some travelling during peak times. Of course, if we take our children and their family on a group family holiday, we can't avoid that. When travelling outside of peak times, it is easier to find last minute accomodation at good prices. For instance, we are going to the Maritimes for a couple of weeks this coming October. Outside of the day we arrive and the day we return, I am not booking any other accomodation ahead of time. I know we will be able to find places to stay in small towns, and quite often we look for bed and breakfasts when we do that kind of travel.
And, if we are going to be staying for at least one week in a place, I usually try to book a home or condo privately using a site something like
www.vrbo.com. I have used that site for Mexico, USA, Europe...
Sometimes when you book privately, you get a car included as well, that was the case when we were recently in Kauai. If a car is not included, I always ask the owner for a recommendation regarding car rental, shuttles etc and have saved money using their recommendations. A couple of times, I saved big money doing that when we vacationed in Mexico. Private owners give you all kinds of hints for what to do and where to go that you might not have found otherwise.
We use our Avion points for long haul or overseas flights. I have found it too hard to redeem Aeroplan points for those type of flights. We have ailing parents in Saskatchewan, and you never get good prices, let alone great prices to fly there..so as we accumulate Aeroplan points, we just use them up on short haul flights to Saskatchewan. We basically just use them up that way because Aeroplan keeps changing the rules as to how you can redeem their points anyhow.