ISTOCKP
HOTO.COMcuts. Or you can save on
leisurely train travel with-
out letting your budget go
off the rails. We also reveal
tricks from the pros that
will help you turn up rooms
in sold-out hotels or drive
down the cost of a rental
car. Finally, we highlight
destinations where your
travel dollar will go further,
both here and abroad.
Know when to pounce. If you
reserve your plane tickets
more than six months in ad-
vance, you probably won’t
get the best fare, because
airlines set their initial
prices conservatively, says
Hayley Berg, economist at
price-prediction app Hop-
per. In general, you want to
book domestic trips about
45 days in advance and in-
ternational trips closer to
75 days in advance, says
Berg. But the windows vary,
so start monitoring your
airfares further out.
Let the deals come to you.
Are you happy to go with
the f low? Sign up for Scott’s
Cheap Flights e-newsletter
(www.scottscheapflights
.com; free for a standard
subscription or $49 per year
to get peak-season and rare
deals). Or get instant alerts
from Secret Flying’s smart-
phone app (www.secret
f lying.com). Both services
dig up rock-bottom airfares
and may inspire you to pick
a vacation spot you would
otherwise never consider.
Recent steals (all prices are
for round-trip fares): Salt
Lake City to Shanghai for
$472, New York City to Peru
for $286, and Boston to Bar-
celona for a minuscule $177.
66 KIPLINGER’S PERSONAL FINANCE^ 03/2020
Denver. Frontier, Southwest and United all added routes to and
from Denver in 2019, increasing competition to the Mile High City.
Hopper forecasts an average domestic round-trip fare of $131 to
Denver this year, and Kayak has named Denver as one of its top 10
“wallet friendly” cities—meaning the cost of a flight and hotel is
considerably less than most other places.French Polynesia. French Bee, a low-cost airline based in Paris,
will whisk you from San Francisco to the dazzling lagoons of French
Polynesia in eight hours. One-way basic fares (meaning no checked
bag, seat choice or meals) start at $249, and a recent search turned
up a round-trip itinerary for $659 in April. We also found flights on
full-service airlines in the high $600s round-trip from Los Angeles
and San Francisco stretching well into the spring.Japan. Airfares from all over the U.S. to Japan have reached record
lows, says Scott Keyes, of Scott’s Cheap Flights e-newsletter, with
deals in the $500s and $600s, and sometimes even lower. A grow-
ing number of routes from the U.S. now fly into Haneda Airport,
which is closer to Tokyo than Narita Airport.DEALS: Hop On a Plane
REWARDS
Search the vacation portal.
American Airlines, Delta,
JetBlue and other airlines
hide discounts of up to 40%
by bundling f lights and ho-
tels on their vacation-pack-
age websites—including for
premium cabins and fancy
hotels. Sometimes the air-
line will throw in bonus
miles or additional discounts
when you snag a package.
Don’t need the hotel, or pre-
fer to choose different lodg-
ing? This trick works even
better. “You can book the
package with the cheapest
hotel, then book your hotel
separately and get a ton of
savings,” says Clint Hender-
son, senior news editor at
ThePointsGuy.com. The
airlines don’t consider this
strategy an abuse of the
system, he says, but you
should cancel your hotel
reservation as a courtesy.
We found a five-night pack-
age on Delta Vacations for
two travelers heading from
Detroit to Vienna, Austria,
in April for $914 apiece—
with only one stop—if they
chose the least expensive
(and very inconvenient)
hotel. For the same dates,
f lights start at $1,357, with
two stops.Catch a deal without commit-
ting. The Department of
Transportation requires
that airlines f lying to, from
or within the U.S. allow
passengers to cancel within
24 hours of buying the
ticket for a full refund (or
place a 24-hour hold on
charging for their airfares),
as long as you made your
reservation at least seven
days in advance (American
Airlines and Delta have
even shorter windows).■ YOU CAN SNAG A
ROUND-TRIP TICKET
TO TOKYO FOR LESS
THAN $600.