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We all need to save a little money when we travel, right? This week we chat with Bethaney Davies from Flashpacker Family to get her best tips on using Priceline.com to save money on family travel.
ON THE PODCAST
:37 Kim takes a special flight with Southwest Airlines
9:55 Bethaney Davies from Flashpacker Family
13:02 Favorite money saving tips
16:47 Ways to determine what the “mystery” hotel is
19:55 Name your own price tips
22:57 Areas where Priceline is more successful
31:15 Using Priceline for flights and car rentals
33:05 Best Priceline deals
38:10 Favorite travel outfit
42:24 App of the week
44:21 Looking for feedback on topics/destinations
ABOUT BETHANEY DAVIES
Bethaney is from Flashpacker Family, a globetrotting family from New Zealand. Flashpacker Family are a globetrotting family from New Zealand. Bethaney, Lee, six-year old Reuben and two-year old Hazel are passionate family travellers who love adventure! Flashpacker Family shares great tales from the road, musings on travelling as a family and awesome travel tips. You can follow Bethaney on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
PRICELINE TIPS
- To figure out what hotels are offered in the Express Deals as “mystery” hotels, find an express deal that looks good and look at the price, percent you are saving and the amenities of the hotel. Then do a normal search on Priceline and sort by the star rating, amenities and location offered by the Express Deal. Then look at the percentage off and try to figure out which hotel it is.
- Stick to properties that are rated 8+ by previous guests.
- With Name your own price, you typically get the same hotels that are on the Express Deals so work out which Express Deals are interesting first and figure out what hotels they are, and then offer $10-15 less than the Express Deal.
- If it is not accepted, you can add another location to bid again to keep trying to see what their acceptable price point is.
- When you rebid, raise your bid by $5.00, up until you get to the Express Deal price.
- Priceline works very well in big cities like New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, etc., but there are not too many Express Deals in smaller towns and cities.
- Primarily use Priceline for shorter stays vs. stays greater than three nights.
- Use the app for last minute deals.
- Sign up for the cash back rewards site where you get 5% cash back reward on Priceline bookings.
FAVORITE TRAVEL GEAR
Bethaney loves her Skechers Go Walk shoes. She also loves dresses because they are easy. Bethaney also recommends keeping the family in similar colors, which looks great for family photos.
APP OF THE WEEK
Touchnote is a mobile app that allows you to turn your smartphone photos into a physical postcard so you can easily take a photo, design your postcard, add an address and text and they print and mail it for you.
MENTIONED ON THE PODCAST
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Instead of trying to guessing the express deal hotel yourself.
There is an easy website helping you do just that:
http://www.hotelrevealer.com
Such a great tip! I’ve used a similar site before and couldn’t remember the name of it when we were recording the show. this is a great short cut.
The best site for predicting the express deals is ExpDeals.com and I have used for more than a dozen times.