Travel Tips

Despite Scary Economy, Travel Deals Abound

Locations in this article:  Buenos Aires, Argentina Los Angeles, CA New Orleans, LA New York City, NY

Coins, pocket changeWe did a piece on the Today show last week on some of the great last-minute travel deals.

That will give you an indication of how things are changing.

Normally you see fare sales or hotel sales at limited availability, which means you have to buy it tomorrow and it’s only good until December 22. But these days, most of these travel deals are good until March 31. What does that tell you?

I’ll give you some examples. Colonial Williamsburg has packages starting at $81 per person.

Atlantis in the Bahamas is running at about 30 percent occupancy and just laid off 800 people.

It’s crazy at this time of the year to see something like that happen. But if you’ve got the money, and by the way the deals are there, you gotta go!

Here’s a scary, but interesting story: three quarters of skiers are that they’re going to stay home this winter. By the way, I’m not buying it for a second. But they’re saying three out of four skiers and snowboarders are going to stay home this winter as the credit crunch bites. Well, maybe, maybe not.

Because what are the ski resorts doing? They’re putting themselves on sale and, in some cases, for free. In Steamboat Springs, Colorado, if you stay three nights, all your lift tickets are free and your kids ski free. Talk about a buyer’s market. So think for a minute before you say, “I’m staying home.”

Cruise Ships at Grand TurkWe talked about this last week and it bears repeating: the cruise industry. Think about this one.

There’s so much excess capacity now that there are some cruise cabins that are going out on seven day trips to the Caribbean for $249. I’m not making up this figure; I saw it myself on Norwegian Cruise Lines.

Do the math … that’s $35 a night! And that includes meals.

You’d actually be better off leasing out your apartment, selling your house and moving permanently to the cruise ship. Just never leave your cabin. Just eat and go back to bed and you’d be making money.

Drinking champagneNow, of course, cruise lines don’t make their money that way. They make their money with “on-board revenue,” when you leave your cabin and spend your dollars on drinks, spa treatments and shore excursions. But you’re not necessarily forced to do it.

You know where cruisers are going now before getting on the ship? Walmart.

They stock up on liquor and soft drinks, stick it in their bags and try to sneak it on the ship. And then they confine themselves to their cabin and get tanked. But they’re saving money.

Everywhere you look at a hotel, they may not be officially discounting, but they are offering deals: If you stay three nights, you get the fourth night free.

Guess what? That’s a 25 percent discount. And a lot of all-inclusive are suddenly getting exciting because there are now “truly” all-inclusive.

There’s one that I saw the other day: $488 a night per room, not per person. And that includes all your meals, all your alcohol and activities, and I couldn’t find an asterisk.

New Orleans streetIn New Orleans, you can get hotel rooms for as low as $45 a night. That’s unbelievable.

So why wouldn’t you at least consider that as a present to yourself this Christmas?

This is the biggest drop on the board in the luxury hotel segment. They’ve had a 13 percent decrease in occupancy across the board. And that’s been helped in no fair way then by the slump in the foreign markets because the foreign market was supporting cities like New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Room rates were so high because the dollar was weak, but now the dollar’s getting stronger.

Speaking of which, there’s an opportunity for you now to use that dollar. I know you weren’t thinking about going to Iceland but let me help you out. They just devalued their currency. It’s a two-for-one deal now. Iceland is not cheaper; it’s just half as expensive as it was before.

Argentina? Still a great bargain. The Argentinean peso is $3.15 to the U.S. dollar, which is an unbelievable value. The cab ride from the airport—a longer cab ride than from JFK to Manhattan—is about $5. And that’s considered expensive!

I once took five people out for dinner at the most expensive steakhouse in Buenos Aires and they were hungry, trust me! My friends ate, they drank, every side dish, every after dinner drink. You name it, they were doing it.

Barbecue spare ribsWhat do you think my tab was for five people at the most expensive restaurant in town? Okay, time’s up: $104. At the MOST expensive restaurant in town.

So that should give you some idea of what we’re dealing with here. Now, having said that, it’s also a great time to redeem your frequent-flier miles because there are seats available on the planes that otherwise wouldn’t be available. You know how much the airlines love to give away frequent flier seats … they hate it. But now they’re starting to release those seats because they’re empty anyway.

Remember what I always say about the frequent-flier miles: I don’t trust the airlines as airlines; why would I trust them as banks?

Do not hoard your miles. This is the time to get out there, even if you’re not planning to go anywhere for 330 days, and redeem them now.

What the airlines are doing is—one by one and almost hour by hour—devaluing the worth of your mileage. You joined the program because you thought when you got the 25,000 miles you’d be on a beach with a strawberry margarita stuck up your nose and guess what? You’re not.

When you get the 25,000, they tell you they don’t have seats at 25,000 miles; they have them at 50,000 miles, if they have them at all. Well here’s the little news bulletin: right now, they have them! Why wouldn’t you do that now?

Very funny joke I want to share with you I saw in the New Yorker: A guy is being held up by a mugger who’s taking his wallet, and you know what the guy says to him? “Please, use the Platinum card; I need the miles.”

Does that put things in perspective for you?

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