I’ve always loved traveling and seeing new places. As a frequent business traveler I was able to fund our trips using points from my business travel. Then my family grew to 5 and business travel slowed so I need to get more resourceful to keep the adventures going and within budget. I’m sharing my methodology and favorite travel tools and tips below.
Google Flights
Google Flights is an excellent tool for casting a wide net and finding the best price on airline tickets. What sets this apart from other online fare search engines are:
Flexible Destination Search – Sometimes the dates for a vacation are fixed so I want to search for multiple destinations for the best deal. A great example is Spring Break, we are tied to the school calendar but the crew is flexible on where we go as long as it is warm. Google Flights let you enter Hawaii, Florida, Mexico as the destination and it very quickly shows you a map with fares.
Track Prices – Once you determine a travel date and routing you can setup alerts that notify you of price changes. You can use the rich filters (e.g. Nonstop Only, Airlines, Times, etc.) to make sure only flights you would consider taking come up. Once you have booked your flights I would recommend turning off alerts so you don’t suffer from buyers remorse if fares drop further!
Award Wallet
Award Wallet is an excellent subscription service which keeps tabs on your airline, hotel, car and credit card point programs for your family. You can see changes to your point balances, when they will expire as well as reservations for these programs. The Trip Planner feature is helpful because you can see a timeline with your reservations on it.