I am often asked how I find deals or offers and how I plan my holidays. It’s as if I have some super power that lets me travel in ways normal mortals can’t! It is not that difficult to take advantage of great deals to make your money go further when travelling

I’ve put together this list of 5 handy tips for you based upon the most frequently asked questions I get:

Flight tickets ALWAYS get more expensive

While it is true that prices will increase the closer to your travel date you get, don’t be fooled by this simple fact. Airlines and travel sites regularly use cookies and other tracking facilities to remember that you’ve already looked for that flight to New York last Tuesday morning. Knowing this, once you re-run the search, they immediately identify an interested customer and the price will reflect this nugget of information. The end result is that you may pay more than if you had just bought it the first time round.

Solution: You can get around this by looking for flights using private browsing mode. In your internet browser, on the File menu, look for the option called Private browsing or Incognito Window. This will open a new window were you cannot be tracked so easily. Run your search again and be free of this little trap.

I’ve also written tips to have a magical trip.

I didn’t think about that airline/route/option – I could have saved money!

Arm yourself with information! If you run a search on an airline’s web site, it will show you all possible connections that are profitable for that airline. Sure, some of the airlines partners will be shown but that doesn’t mean you have access to all the possible flights from A to B. Maybe a different airline may have a better timed route or a direct flight perhaps; you might be missing out! But who has the time to search all the airlines?

Solution: Use an aggregate site that will search all airlines at once and present you with the various options. I prefer using SkyScanner because it provides me with routing options I would not have thought of. As an example, the first time I used it, I was trying to avoid paying EUR 250.00 for a return ticket Brussels to Malta. SkyScanner found a route via Milan which meant that I would spend 1.5 hours on the ground but I would only pay EUR 120.00. At that price, it was obvious which ticket I would go for.

I have air miles with so many airlines – what a waste!

Centralise your mileage points! Many airlines form part of a larger group of airlines and you only need one membership for each group. As an example, I used to be a member of SAS’ Eurobonus programme until I realised that SAS and Lufthansa are in the same group. Instead of having too few points on either programme, I now have one single program where I can collect all miles I travel within that group.

Conclusion: Pay attention to which airlines belong to different programmes and stick to one membership per airline grouping.

I want a cheap hotel but I don’t want a hostel – what should I do?

Loyalty can give you better hotel options! I have used booking.com many times before and I knew that multiple bookings through them will eventually lead to better prices. Usually I book one hotel per trip so it can take some time to see price advantages. During my New Year trip, I stayed in a new hotel every night. By the end of my trip, booking.com was offering near 50% discounts on hotels which made my trip so much smoother!

Solution: Use the same hotel provider/booking system to reserve hotels when travelling. Loyalty will help.

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How can I get better car rental options?

Assuming you don’t have offers that will unlock special prices for you, this can be tough sometimes. One trick that is useful to bear in mind is that you can easily get an upgrade if you pick up the car from a small city-centre garage instead of from the airport. This makes sense when you think about it: at the airport, they’re more likely to have a large storage area and therefore will probably have the kind of car you ordered. In the centre, they have a limited pool and if your choice is not there, it may be simpler for them to upgrade you than have one transferred from the airport.

Conclusion: Check to see if your rental company has a city-centre pick up point and arrange to use that one instead.

I hope that these tips can help you with your next trip – What is your favourite secret way of getting a better deal when booking your trips?