How to Save on Transportation Cost: Go for Less
When you budget, you realize how much you spend and where. It can make you gasp. Maybe you did not realize how much you spend on your commute. Maybe you thought your per diem covered more than it does when you travel for work. Maybe you just want a vacation badly, but the cost seems ridiculous.
You can cut your transportation costs whether it involves your work commute, your vacation plans or business travel. It does not matter what kind of transportation you need to reduce costs using, you can do it. It just requires knowing where to look for information and how to use it to your advantage. Let’s go through the things that anyone can use in any of the transportation scenarios first. This lets you get started and you can apply these methods to any travel situation.
Save On Transportation In Every Situation
You can save on transportation every day regardless of what transportation mode you use. These methods work no matter where you go or how you get there.
Travel Credit Cards
Obtain cash back or points credit cards that let you earn money back on each purchase or on specific, travel-related purchases. These include airline credit cards, hotel credit cards and bank credit cards that provide points and travel deals when you use them.
You can use the tools that Goalry mall offers to find credit cards that fit your needs and provide you cash back on travel. While the cards you find there vary, look for the following cards to help you get started: Bank of America Travel Rewards, Barclaycard Arrival Plus World Elite Mastercard, Capital One Venture Rewards, Chase Sapphire Preferred, Starwood Preferred Guest American Express. Most of these cards work the same way – they let you accumulate points for each dollar you spend using it. The rates may vary by purchase type or remain the same regardless of purchase type.
You can also negotiate with your existing credit card to get a better interest rate or switch your card to a points card they began offering since you obtained your original card.
Join a Special Interest or Travel Group
When you join your college or university’s alumni association, a roadside assistance organization like AAA, or a group like AARP for retirees, you gain access to special travel deals. The same occurs when you join a group like Travelation or Women Traveling Together. You earn access to discounted hotel stays and the little extras like free breakfast or spa gift certificates. You could also benefit from joining professional organizations for your career choice because many offer discounted group travel deals.
Use Groupon
You might think of this site in terms of discounts on spray tans, but it offers some of the deepest discounts on travel packages, too. Some discounts range up to 90 percent. Past deals include a 10-day tour of China with airfare and hotel for $649 or an 11-day European vacation for $1,000. You can also nab deeply discounted hotels and rental cars using the site.
Register for Travel Deals
Register with sites like AirfareWatchDog and Priceline to learn about deep discounts and last minute reductions in cost. These let you set alerts for discounted air travel to your favorite destinations or send you coupons codes and notices of flash sales.
Study the Best-Rate Guarantees
Hotels and car rental companies use these the most often, but some airlines offer them, too. Book using the best-rate guarantee, then check for other rates on third-party sites. Many companies offer to beat a lower rate by 20 percent or to award you 100 percent of the difference in reward points, like the Orbucks that Orbitz uses.
Book Directly
You can get amazing deals by booking directly rather than through Hotwire, Kayak or Priceline. Some hotels offer rather amazing deals to their existing customers. Deal directly with them to get the best results.
Book the Surprise Hotel Online
Priceline does this on its Express Deals. You will not see the name or address of the hotel until you book it. This may seem scary, but it is not – if you know the city you will visit. You can get up to 60 percent off of your hotel stay.
Save On Transportation Costs: Driving
You might not think you can save on driving without buying a new car that provides a better gas mileage, but you’re wrong. There are a number of ways you can save on transportation costs while traveling by car. Even if you own a car, rent one instead when you road trip.
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You benefit by driving a brand new vehicle with no problems that gets great gas mileage. Use sites like Priceline to get a car for $5 to $20 per day. This saves your vehicle from racking up wear and tear.
Fully – interior and exterior. No, I am not kidding. Clean that puppy out. When you remove the excess weight from your vehicle you lighten the vehicle’s load. That gets you better gas mileage. An excess 100 pounds in the vehicle reduces fuel economy by one to two percent. You can determine how much you can save by reducing the weight load on your vehicle by visiting. Tuning up your vehicle creates another savings. You’ll improve gas mileage by up to four percent just by doing basic things like inflating your tires using the right PSI and using the right grade of motor oil.
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Another item that’s all up to you is your driving habits. Driving the speed limit, learning to stop smoothly and limiting your acceleration saves you money on gas. Setting your cruise control to 65 mph and not changing lanes can improve your fuel economy by about 35 percent. When weather permits, roll down your windows to increase fuel economy by 9.5 percent.
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Avoid driving on toll roads. While the route may save you a few miles, it does not create an economically feasible cost. Set your GPS to map free routes only. Non-toll roads cost less to drive and typically add only a few miles or minutes to the trip. When it comes down to a matter of $5 or 15 minutes, keep the cash.
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Two of the biggies in this categories are discounted pre-paid gas cards and car insurance discounts. You can purchase discounted gas cards at sites like Gift Card Granny and Cardpool. Also, look for them at gas stations and automotive shops. Car insurance discounts can help you lower your driving costs over a six month to twelve month time period. You can land a discount if you have a short commute, safe driving record, you’re a student earning good grades, a retiree. Call your insurance agent to find out about potential discounts.
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Many apps can help you save money on transportation. Gas-saving apps like FuelFrog help you log vehicle mileage and apps like GasBuddy.com help you find the cheapest gas in the area. Your city might offer incentives to carpool or purchase clean-air vehicles.
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Forget the jokes about being a ride-share hostage. The truth about carpooling is it reduces transportation costs and your carbon footprint. Find folks headed your way using websites like CarpoolWorld and eRideShare.
Fly There To Save On Transportation Costs
Does it shock you to find out that many times you can fly for less than the cost of driving there? As fuel costs have increased, airlines raised their prices. When air travel fell off, airlines freaked out. They could not lower all prices, so they began charging for items like luggage. Suitcases add weight to the plane and, just like they do with your car, cause the plane to use more gas. By charging luggage fees for heavy bags, airlines could still offer reasonable fares.
Cheap Flights
You can find truly cheap air fares if you can plan ahead. That is true even if you want to travel to a vacation spot like the beach or a big city like New York City. Expect to save the most by purchasing your flight at least two months in advance. Three months in advance gets you an even better deal. How much will you save? We’re talking hundreds of dollars here. It’s pretty massive what you can save yourself by planning ahead.
The best way to see the difference is to search on an airline website that lets you compare its rates side-by-side like. For this article, I did a search for a flight to my birthplace of Charleston, SC – typically a costly flight since I was born in a vacation spot surrounded by beaches and golf courses. By searching for a January flight in late October, I could land a ticket home for a tiny $139, then nab a return flight for $129. The flight typically costs nearly $500.
If you must fly on short notice, use websites like Priceline or CheapFlights.com to find good deals. You can usually find something that knocks about $100 off of the flight costs.
Plan to Fly on Monday or Tuesday
These flights cost less because most people want to travel on the weekend or just before. They want to get away for the weekend, but need to return in time to get to work Monday morning. That means Sunday flights cost a huge amount. If you can fly on Monday or Tuesday though, you can knock about $50 to $100 off of your flight cost.
Time of Day Matters
If you will willingly travel on a red-eye flight – a middle of the night flight that is in the air while normal people sleep – you can save about $100. These typically take off between midnight and three am. You will land very early in the morning, if you travel within the US. If you fly overseas, you will probably land at a very reasonable time locally. Savvy business travelers often fly red-eye so that they will arrive in Europe during a useful time of day.
For example, US Central time of midnight is six am in the United Kingdom, so if you fly to London on a US red-eye, you will end up in the UK during the mid-day. The flight typically lasts nine hours from the central US to London, so you’d arrive between three and five pm – just in time for tea or an early dinner.
Pack light
I mean really light. Buy travel sizes of every toiletry you must have. Pack lightweight clothes that will keep you cool or warm. Silk and cotton both make great choices. Avoid bulky items or those that weigh a lot. If you must take a leather jacket with you, wear it onto the plane. What you wear on your body, you do not get charged for, but what you have folded up in your suitcase, you do. Save yourself the $20 to $25 per bag fee for luggage over a certain weight, usually about 20 pounds. You can easily do this by choosing a lightweight carry-on bag and packing clothes that travel well and take up little space.
Take the Train To Save On Transportation Costs
You might have heard that traveling by train costs more than any other method. This is true in the US only if you let Amtrak automatically set the route. It sounds funny, but it is true. The Amtrak website is not set up to automatically assign the shortest route. It defaults to the train company’s pre-designed routes. If you simply go to the website and enter a starting point of Oklahoma City, for example, and an end point of Charleston, SC, you will end up with a silly route that takes you through Chicago, IL. Bizarre, eh?
Choose Your Own Route
You can open their route map though and see that there is a much more direct route that goes from Oklahoma City through Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia to South Carolina. The automated route would take you days and cost nearly $1,000. If you plan it yourself, trip leg by trip leg, the Amtrak trip can cost less than $300 and take less than two days. You can work using the Amtrak WiFi all the way there when you aren’t sleeping in the comfy reclining sleeper seats or eating in the dining car or watching a movie in the entertainment car.
Get a Train Pass
You can also purchase train passes that let you ride as much as you like for an extended period of time like 30 to 90 days. An Amtrak rail pass lets you travel on any of its US trains during the period of its issue.
Take Advantage of Local Incentives for Train Travel
The California city of Santa Barbara encourages train travel to reduce its air pollution. The Santa Barbara Car Free project and Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District offer 20 percent discounts Amtrak Pacific Surfliner tickets. You can also get great rates for short distance travel like Washington, D.C. to New York or Boston. As far as Amtrak is concerned, these are basically commuter trains. Many business people take these lines on a daily basis for meetings, so the rates stay pretty reasonable.
Students and senior citizens also get great Amtrak rates. Check the company’s website for more information.
In Europe, Always Choose the Trains
Purchase the rail pass. In Europe, you can purchase a rail pass that applies to a specific geographic area. Like the Amtrak version it will remain valid for a specific time period. You can nab a three-day Eurail Italy pass or a two-month pass. This lets you leave portions of your travel open ended rather than need to complete a full itinerary in advance.
Locals use these rail passes themselves which should tell you a lot. They know how tough parking is in European cities and how congested its roads are. Rather than renting a car, use the train system to travel quickly and comfortably through its countries. In some cases, the car rental companies in Europe won’t let you cross borders with rental cars. That’s a big surprise for Americans who are accustomed to renting a vehicle in one US state, then visiting numerous other states, plus Canada and Mexico with no problem.
Hop On the Bus Gus To Save On Transportation Costs
Many cities in Europe and USA provide a good organized bus service. You can really save your money, considering bus ticket price.
Popular European Tourist Destination Buses
In Europe and the US, taking the bus can get you there in style. In Europe, many cities and smaller cities provide bus service to tourist destinations. These carriages typically require only a few hours to shuttle the travelers from the city to the tourist destination. Most of these services are locally operated since Europe has no continental bus service.
You can use them to travel to island and peninsula locations. They also cost very little. You can travel for about $50 for longer trips and under $20 for short trips. Unlike renting a car, you won’t need to put down a deposit and you also need not purchase extra insurance.
Long and Short Bus Routes in the US
The US bus services also offer both short and long trips. The company Greyhound that traverses the country often gets a bad rap. It recently updated its entire bus fleet to luxury buses. These include recliner seats with foot rests, lighting and electrical outlets for each seat set and WiFi. You can use it for short trips, such as zipping between Los Angeles and San Diego or for long hauls like moving from Los Angeles to New York City. The new buses let you relax, sleep or work while in route.
Many local bus services in large cities offer commuter routes to other nearby cities. For example, you can travel from New York to Washington DC for about $40 roundtrip on Vamoose or for between $10 to $60 on BoltBus or Megabus. You’ll also find major discounts on the west coast. The same Santa Barbara project that gets travelers extra Amtrak discounts also gets them transportation savings on the San Joaquin buses and its associated thruway buses routing within Santa Barbara County. You don't have to have a huge commuter bill - not with bill savings like these bus lines offer.
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Somewhere Nice To Sleep: How to Save On Transportation Costs
Okay, getting there is great, but you can only sleep on the plane, train or bus for so many nights. You need a hotel or a bed and breakfast. It’s nice if it is in the area you need it and it costs a reasonable amount.
If you love staying in hotels, you should check out Priceline or Kayak. Upstart Trivago has been making noise, too, and could help you uncover better rates. The deal you land depends on the day, especially with Priceline.
Last Minute Hotel Bookings
You can do well by planning early and using a discount site. This can get you a reasonable rate on a very nice hotel.
You can also land radically impressive deals by booking at the very last minute on Priceline. Here’s why. The rooms listed there are the last empties in those hotels. Sometimes, the hotel lists a last minute room that somebody cancelled. Suddenly, you can end up with a three- or four-star hotel for $30 to $40 a night. It has happened for me personally, so I know it is true. I tend to book at the last minute since my schedule runs pretty tight.
Airbnb
Another of my favorite ways to find great places to stay is Airbnb. It started out as a place to rent vacation spots, but now you can rent a room or an entire apartment or house. If you want one, you can rent a castle in Europe for a week. Why not? Airbnb lets you live your wildest fantasies in real life. You can book the most ridiculously cute spots and it might not cost you much.
You can find awesome prices in more than 65,000 cities throughout 191 countries and Airbnb grows daily. You can typically save about 21 percent compared to a local hotel, says Priceonomics. You can do much better than that if you plan ahead to save on bills on travel radically. I’ve never paid more than $45 per night for a bed and breakfast through this site and I regularly review them for my personal blog. My current favorite is about a mile from my office and looks like a Tuscan villa. Airbnb makes it convenient to have a crash pad in walking distance of my office – and one with a cute patio and en suite kitchenette.
Other Ways To Save On Transportation Costs
There are a few more ways to save on transportation costs. Some of them request a good physical condition.
Cruise Ship Vacations
Planning a vacation that includes everything in a single cost can help you. Of course, I’m talking about my older sister’s favorite way to travel - cruise ships. She’s one smart cookie because this way she has a cushy place to sleep, her travel covered, a terrific view, food everyday, plus excursions, parties, free drinks. A cruise ship includes every major cost in a single fee. The $500 to $1,000 you pay gets you every cost covered.
Some ships include Internet, some do not. On her most recent vacation, she had Internet included so she e-mailed me when they were trying to outrun a hurricane. She’s cool like that. If you book early, you can get great rates on Carnival or Seaborn. If you want to save big, travel to an area out of season. That means go to the Caribbean during the US summer or Europe during the US fall.
Follow the posts of websites like Cruise Sheet or Cruise Deals. You can pick up some really great deals. Also, register for the e-mails from the cruise lines you’d most like to travel. You can get advance sales that save you hundreds of dollars or free upgrades for early booking.
Get a Bicycle
Locally, buy a bicycle. Yes, really. You can bike to errands and work. You will get great exercise that saves you from needing to join a gym. You can even buy an ELF bike that helps you pedal with solar assistance.
To Sum up
You can save on transportation costs. It really is easier than you think. Some options just take a little planning ahead. Others a little effort – like biking. You can have it all though – a fun commute, a nice vacation and a relaxing drive now and then. Pay less for bills for travel.