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To help kick things off, I offer my LBYM travel hints.

I've got 1.6 million miles on Delta Airlines, as well as countless miles on other carriers. Many of those miles were racked up when I traveled for work, but for the past decade or so it's been on my own dime. So I've learned some hacks for traveling LBYM.

1. Use Google Flights to find cheap flights. With a few clicks, you can see charts and graphs of fares, narrow them to particular airlines, nonstops, travel dates, etc. Even though 90% of my flights are on Delta, I start here and then book the flight on the Delta website.

2. Use Rome2Rio to explore overland travel. It lays out all the alternative modes and their costs. I love it.

3. Never check bags. My wife and I have traveled comfortably for as long as a month using one (international sized) rolly apiece, plus a small daypack. This not only saves time and baggage fees but also allows you to use public transport instead of a taxi from the airport, which saves even more time and money. It also enables you to change flights easily should you miss a connection due to delays or canceled flights. It's easy to wash a few things out if you need to, especially if you ...

4. Stay in a rental apartment or cottage (or villa!) rather than a hotel if you plan to stay for more than a few days. You can save thousands of dollars this way, on lodging costs and on meals. (We use VRBO, mostly.) Many of these places also have washing machines.

5. Walk, if you can. There's no better way to get to know a place, and it costs nothing. We also use public transportation a lot.

6. Consider getting an airline loyalty credit card. If you frequent a particular airline, its co-branded card can help you rack up points for free trips, score an upgraded seat, and even use the airport lounge, depending upon the card you get. Some of the cards charge an annual fee (which we've found to be well worth it), but some of them have no fee. Many also offer bonus miles if you charge a minimum amount within a specified number of days after receiving the card. We always--and I mean always--pay the total amount charged each month.

DW and I can afford to travel far more expensively than we do. We travel LBYM not because we need to but because it's more enjoyable for us.

What are your LBYM travel hacks?

What are your LBYM travel hacks?
No comparison to your great general list, just a few specific ones:

1. If regularly flying Lufthansa but not often enough to collect enough air points for an award flight before those points expire it might make sense to get their credit card as then their air points do not expire any more.

2. Rental apartment instead of hotel for longer stays: An alternative to private apartments are chains offering 'Serviced Apartments' worldwide.
Example: 'The Ascott Ltd.' (700 properties in 200 cities under different brands: 'Somerset', 'Citadines' etc). High-class and for my taste mostly too expensive but many offer longterm rates and then they become interesting. For example I stayed several times one month each at their cheapest Bangkok property which still consists of highly tasteful and luxurious 60-80sqm apartments (with kitchen, washing machine, gym, pool etc.) for the price of a tiny hotel room.

3. Regarding 'Never check bags': Especially not now, with many Airports worldwide having released their experienced ground staff during the Pandemic. There can be unusually long waits for your luggage now (in August I waited 1h in Frankfurt) plus more cases of lost luggage.

4. Using search engines for flights but then booking directly with the airline --- without using the search engines' link to it, as this sometimes is a little cheaper (not nice to the search engine, I know). And always booking the flight directly with the airline and not one of the million internet agents with very differing reputation if the spread is not too high.

5. 'Onward Ticket': Entering most countries by plane requires that you already have a flight out of that country booked too. You might not be aware of that because with the usual return ticket from X to Y and back to X this automatically is the case. But if your travel plans are not fixed yet and you just buy a one-way-ticket to X you need an Onward Ticket. Instead of buying an expensive ticket to somewhere only to be allowed into a country google 'Onward Ticket' and you'll find companies which supply you for $/'5-10 with a ticket from X to another country. Such ticket is valid for only a few days, so you buy it shortly before your flight. Those tickets are no fake! They are real. The companies simply buy a fully refundable ticket for you, cancel the flight after the 1-3 days they give you, and receive their money back. I used that often and up to now it always worked.

Brilliantly comprehensive, I have nothing to add.

Except perhaps, as a tangent, I tend to not book flights too far in advance in case my plans change, even if paying a little more sometimes. There can be a temptation to chase a better price, but you may lose flexibility. Of course, you can cancel, but those fees are huge or sometimes the wrong tickbox selected means you can't even cancel.

This idea - only paying for what you are certain to use - reminds me of gym memberships. I was told by a manager that they make the majority of there profits not from running the gym for visitors, but from running the gym for the non-visitors who intended to visit. Unless having a track recording of attending in the past, as much as you plan to in the future, then use one-off visit payments until you have proof of your actions!

- Manlobbi

<< What are your LBYM travel hacks? >>

All of your suggestions are great. I've managed to travel at almost
no cost by churning credit cards, i.e. collecting miles/points from
the signup bonuses. For the past 5 years I've traveled basically for
free -- my last trip to Europe (including lodging, but excluding meals)
cost me under $100, including an Uber ride to the airport.

Credit card churning has become more difficult as banks now implement
stricter policies, but I have accumulated enough airline miles spread over
multiple airline partners to last a few more years of free travel.

Useful resource: https://www.reddit.com/r/awardtravel/

-Rubic

<< 4. Using search engines for flights but then booking directly with the airline --- without using the search engines' link to it, as this sometimes is a little cheaper (not nice to the search engine, I know). And always booking the flight directly with the airline and not one of the million internet agents with very differing reputation if the spread is not too high. >>

Additional tip: Do your searching and booking in Incognito mode on your browser. Otherwise companies
will track you and apply dynamic pricing algorithms based on your inputs.

-Rubic

Rubic, that's a great tip!!!

It confirms an impression I had several times when I went forth and back during a day, close to booking a certain flight, leaving booking website X for a while, looking at other sites Y and Z, only to find when coming back to X and doing the same search as before that the price of the flight I nearly booked 2h ago was higher now. Highly frustrating!

I did suspect the higher price was caused by my previous interest on that flight but also always thought 'Maybe others booked that flight in the meantime, so less seats available in that booking class than before, therefore those algorithms increased the price'. Your post not only supports that it might have been myself who the price increase but also offers a simple solution so that it's not necessary to know for sure what the cause is.

Thank you!

I would suggest using a VPN (There are free ones). I'm not sure Incognito will block your info.

Paul

With getting older and all of the other stuff going on, I haven't traveled since 2018. Unfortunately my miles/points are slowly losing value.
In the past I once set up a trip to Europe for about 12 days and I think my total spend, including taxes/fees, on airlines and hotels was under $300 for the 2 of us. The business class airline tickets only had about $10 per ticket in fees. Most hotels were free except for 1 night.

I'm hoping I can do one more nice trip but that depends on health.

I think one biggest thing you need to keep costs down is flexibility in scheduling. People with limited vacation time and rigid schedules have a much tougher time to save money on trips. Summer vacations in most places is costly and crowded. We tend to go in the off season and really enjoy winter trips to Europe, especially if we can catch the Christmas markets. One of our nicest and most memorable days was a December day in Rothenburg Germany during a 10' snowfall. We were walking around and it was so peaceful, quiet and calm. Fortunately it wasn't windy so that it wasn't that cold. When we got cold we'd brush off the snow and sit in a cafe and have a drink and a pastry. I know others prefer lounging on a beach somewhere but that isn't for me.

I also have never rented a car outside of the US. Usually the trains work well enough for us. In some cases I could see having a car being useful but for major cities they just add to headaches.

<< Unfortunately my miles/points are slowly losing value. >>

This is true. Many airlines have figured out they can provide reward
miles that don't expire, because they can just deflate the points value
over time.

<< I'm hoping I can do one more nice trip but that depends on health. >>

Best wishes for your health and future travel.

<< We tend to go in the off season ... >>

This is a major cost savings. I prefer to visit places when the crowds have thinned out.

<< I also have never rented a car outside of the US. >>

My last travel to Europe didn't even require a taxi or Uber (except to the US airport)
for the entire trip. I have friends who often stay in country villas, so I can understand
why they need to rent cars, but I'm glad that I don't need the hassle of driving rentals
in a foreign country!

-Rubic

AutoSlash is a nice little travel hack for rental cars, at least domestically (haven't tried it for international travel).

The way it works is you enter your reservation details, and they'll email you when they find a lower price. Rental cars are easy to rebook as long as you don't pay up front. I have an upcoming rental that started out at $165 and I've rebooked it several times, now down to $115.

It's not going to be as lucrative as CC churning, but kind of enjoyable.

All great ideas.

A few things come to mind:

The US dollar is no longer sought after in most countries and, rather than getting a "black market" bargain when trying to pay with greenbacks, you will receive an exchange haircut.

In some African countries, the exchange rate that locals get for $1 bills is terrible compared to $5 bills, so they will quote prices like 3 for $5. If you only want one of the item, simply offer to pay with a $5 bill and take your change in "worthless" $1 bills.

If taking a cruise through a US tourist route, say an Amazon cruise, at the end port, at the end of the day, offer to spend your remaining foreign currency buying back US dollars from vendors who have been fleecing Americans all day.

Americans are "hard-wired" to tip venders and service workers. Do everyone a favor and stick to local customs. Especially important is, if you negotiate a flat fee with a taxi, guide or other entrepreneur, unless they provide more than what you bargained for, the fee does not require an additional tip. Unnecessary tipping can set up predatory environments affecting future tourists. (An example that comes to mind is, if you walk out of the port entrance in Mumbai and take a taxi, it will cost 10 times what you will pay if you walk a block, flag down a cab and said authoritatively "put it on the meter" or simply call for an Uber).

Not meaning to promote, but simply pointing out that Amazon will let you read the first 100 pages or so for free of "Take the High Road - A Primer for the Independent Traveler" (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00V7C2L9S) by clicking on "Look Inside" which should supply, well, the first 100 pages of ideas :-)

While, admittedly, we sometimes spend a pile on travel (and frequently not), we always try to figure out ways to squeeze the best value out of what we get at the same time as maximizing the experience.

Jeff

Our time has greatly freed up now that we are true empty nesters, needing to cater only to ourselves. It's time to hit the road again. One avenue of travel that we are in the midst of setting up is home exchanges. The IRS, (USA oriented, but that's what I know,) does not consider an equal exchange to be taxable, and this is considered a residential transaction that does not seem to be subject to regulation, since you are essentially having "guests" in your house. Because of an HOA that does not allow short term rentals, I could not do AirBnB even if I wanted to, but this can be done without restrictions.

The website I signed up with allows you to do a direct exchange with another household: you staying in their house while they stay in your house at the same time. Another approach is to allow people to use points to stay in your house. The points are banked and you can use them at another location at another time. This is particularly useful if you are time limited, or if you have no desire to visit their neck of the woods, and you have another place to stay.

For example, our vacation home is two hours away from our primary residence and that is where we will be staying until we go through this a few times. I want to be close on hand should there be a problem that needs our attention, or if we have not yet explained everything enough, like how the TV works, and we can't help them out over the phone. Meanwhile we will be where we want to be anyway, and someone will be paying us points towards a future exchange, with our house not looking vacant and ripe for thieves.

One potential issue we faced was the need to clear some space for them in our closets and dressers, as well as fighting the weirdness associated with complete strangers staying in your house. For us this is again where the vacation home comes in, and we have moved to the VH a considerable amount of our want to keep but don't need on hand...like boxes of past IRS returns and statements. We will have a locked owners closet here to keep the little we need on hand. Frankly it's made for a more spacious and relaxing home, but the first floor unit of our vacation home has become a storage unit.

I also want to find a house cleaner who can act as a go to person should there be an issue, allowing us to go on our travels more stress free. If this works, we may hold on to the house rather than sell it in 2024 as planned. The area is in high demand, low housing supply with constrained new construction. Housing holds up well, even in 2008, which only saw a very minor decline. We have a 2% FRM with 28 years left on it.

This is my kind of travel. I hate hotels, preferring to live in a community and check it out in depth. We are in the process of looking for a new area to live, and could envision doing this for at least a few years, returning from time to time when it's time to see medical professionals. Or we may just get a house sitter for this next year and throw it on the market early 2024. Will let you know.

If you are interested in checking it out, the site we are going with is homeexchange.com. If you use my code as a referral when you sign up, we both get extra points than had you checked it out on your own, about equal to a night's stay. Email me if you want the code. They are pretty liberal with the points up front. I already have close to 1200 just for signing up, setting up a profile and a few other steps needed to set up an account, with another 500 waiting when I finish. I should have enough points to stay about a week or so, even without putting my house on exchange. That's worth the IIRC $175/year fee, which you don't get charged until you arrange your first exchange.

Probably one of the biggest weaknesses of the site is it's hard to browse if you have not signed up. You have to have your profile completed before you can see many pictures. On the one hand, this makes it tough to check out the site, but on the other, it makes it tougher for lookie lous to peek into your home. The address of your house is not stated on-line. I was impressed with the world wide coverage they have. Lots of places we would like to go.

This post was cobbled together over a busy day, so I apologize if it's not the most concise or explicit. Feel free to ask questions.

IP

I just booked our spring trip to France, which has inspired me to add the following note to my OP:

It pays to explore fares for multi-city and/or "open-jaw" flights in your planning. In a good many instances, you'll find you can travel to more than one destination for the same price--or even less!--than the cost of a simple round-trip fare.

In our case, we're planning to spend 4 weeks in Paris, but we also had an urge to tack on a few days in the south of France beforehand. As it turned out, and with a bit of jiggling of dates, we were able to book Detroit-Nice-Paris-Detroit for (slightly) less money than a Detroit-Paris round trip.

Google Flights is definitely your friend when it comes to researching such things. For example, when I went on the Delta website to book my desired multi-city trip, it couldn't do it--even though Delta's partner, Air France, offers numerous flights daily between NCE and CDG. But Google Flights helped me figure out all the options. I ended up booking an open-jaw Detroit-Nice, Paris-Detroit trip with Delta and then booked the Nice-Paris leg on the Air France website.

Flights within Europe are often quite inexpensive, owing to a lot of competition from cut-rate carriers. Thus, the total cost of our jaunt to Nice and then Paris ended up costing about $50 less than a simple DTW-CDG round trip. Moreover, I used a wad of accumulated Skymiles (aka "Delta pesos") to upgrade our seats on the trans-Atlantic legs.

C'est si bon!

To append to that idea, it is sometimes useful to explore the option of splitting an international flight into an international portion and a domestic portion.

In my case, the round-trip India fare, including the domestic portion was quoted @ $1400. But, flying into Mumbai (BOM) roundtrip was only $800. Rather than go with the agent offer, I only agreed to the International portion. I went online and managed to book an India domestic flight via Hotwire (travel aggregator) for around $240. A substantial savings during the holiday season.
I flew on Vistara - 75 min flight, and they still manage to serve a nice meal :)

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