How to score cheap hotel rooms!

Everyone loves a good bargain. Here are some tips and websites that I use to stretch my travel dollar. The picture is of the Grand Hotel in Florence, Italy. Carmen and I stayed in this room in 2003. We felt like royalty!

A better way to use Priceline. Before I found biddingfortravel.com, I always wondered if I had overbid for the rooms I booked on Priceline. Biddingfortravel is a message board on which people post their winning Priceline bids for hotels in cities around the world. This helps you get closer to the lowest price that Priceline will accept. The site also has great advice for how to get multiple re-bids in the same cities & hotel class without having to wait 72 hours. Pretty tricky. Check it out.

If you must stay at a Marriott. Use their "look no further guarantee". If you find a Marriott room cheaper somewhere else, they will beat that price by 25%. Here's what you do to get the best deal:

a) book your room by calling Marriott telephone reservations (888 236 2427);
b) place your reservation on a 24hr hold (no need to give a credit card number);
c) meanwhile look for the same hotel room on a hotel aggregator site like Mobissimo or Kayak...you will probally find a better deal than what Marriott offered;
d) finally fill out the claim form and within 24 hours Marriott will beat the rate by 25%.

I just did this an scored a room in Vancouver BC for $70 rather than the $170 that Marriott initially offered. Now I can spend that $100 I saved on gelato and dim-sum.

Bonus section - Airfare. Farecast.com is a great site that uses an advanced algorithm to accurately tell consumers when they should book in order to get the best deal. Just put in the date and the route you want to fly, and it will tell you to either buy now or wait for a better deal. If you hate seeing a better deal come along after you've already booked as much as I do...then you'll love this site! Happy travels!

Funny sidenote: I stole the happy travels phrase from the travel guru Rick Steves, who I saw in-the-flesh in Bath, England ordering a Whopper at Burger King. Pretty ironic based on the "get to know the locals" approach he espouses. I have pictures to prove it!