costly travel

sometimes i'm really amazed that hotels and rental car agencies can stay in business. i'm baffled that people actually pay full rate for these things. i guess they're the same people that pay full price for name-brand kid clothes and throw their 40% off craft store coupons away without looking through the weekly ads.

we've decided to take a trip to san diego to just look around. we kept thinking we wouldn't go down until sometime in june when it was close enough to the move to actually put a deposit on something. with rentals, you can't really find something ahead of time. they don't really advertise them until they're available. at least this is what we've seen from the ads online. vegas does things differently, but i guess this is how they do it in SD. so it's just been really nerve-racking to not know at all where we'll be living or even how big our place will be. and i know that a reconnaissance trip like this won't answer those things. but we're hoping to get a feel of the geography and the neighborhoods, so that at least we can envision location and surroundings when we look at ads online. doc macguyver has a week off in march and since flight prices have dropped, we thought we'd take advantage of the time to go out and scout around.

i got the flights and the babysitting all taken care of and then it was on to the rental car and accommodations. and every time i get a deal when we travel, i just don't understand WHY people DO NOT use priceline!!! we are going to be staying at the woodfin in san diego. the rate on their website (make sure you check out the pics on their site) for the time we will be there is $157/night. i used priceline and we're paying a whopping $44/night. pool, hot tub, free breakfast, free internet, free parking. WHY ON EARTH would you book the hotel through their site???? i just don't understand how they stay in business that way. now on to the car. a piddly economy car is running about $46/day on hertz's website. that's more than i am paying for the hotel. was i going to pay that for my car? i think you know the answer to that one. then i checked costco. oddly enough, they were the same price. that's a rarity. hotwire wanted $20/day. i still thought that was a bit high. i mean we paid $10/day in chicago. why should it be twice that in san diego? so i booked it through priceline and got $15/day. yes, $10/day would've been better, but i think i'll take what i got and be happy with it.

priceline is tricky if you've never used it before. i use bidding for travel for instructions and to know what prices i can expect to get in any given city. the BFT website is even more complicated that priceline if you don't know what to look for, but it has definitely been an invaluable resource to me on more than one occasion. if you have questions or need help deciphering the info, don't hestitate to ask. i'm more than willing to show you how to get started. because WHY should you be paying $100 more per night than you have to for your hotel room?!

one of these days when i'm not restricted to traveling on certain dates because of a work schedule, i'll be using priceline for my flights. because even though $240 RT from coast to coast is a better deal than before, i still believe it should cost less.