Archive for the 'Deals' Category
Ireland: Flights, car and 6-night castle stay for $948
November 3, 2009 5:57am
For a special short getaway to Ireland this winter, recruit your favorite three friends or family members. Based on four people sharing a three-bedroom villa, a fly-stay-drive package offered by Sceptre Tours can be had for as little as $948 per person, including taxes, from Los Angeles. Your castle awaiting on the Emerald Isle is Adare Manor Villas, ranked the third-best resort in Europe in Condé Nast Traveler’s 2009 Readers’ Choice Awards.
Deal: The package for you and your three companions includes round-trip airfare to Shannon, Ireland; six nights of accommodations in the village of Adare in County Limerick; a car rental; entrance to the Belleek Pottery Visitor Centre, along with a tour and museum admission; and a coupon booklet for the region.
Your group will share a three-bedroom unit at the Adare Manor Villas. If you can get yourself past the golf course, shopping and other activities on the 864-acre grounds, you might consider day trips to Limerick, Killarney, Bunratty, the Cliffs of Moher and the Ring of Kerry scenic route, among other destinations. Read the rest of this entry »
40% off Marriott and Renaissance leisure rates in Caribbean, Mexico & Costa Rica Resorts
November 2, 2009 10:55am
If you are a hotel chain snob, you’re going to want to put aside your inclinations and have a second look at this amazing deal. Marriott and Renaissance are offering 12 of their properties in the Caribbean, Mexico and Costa Rica at 40% off during high season this winter. So what? This hotel offer includes the JW Marriott Cancun Resort & Spa (pictured) a winner of the AAA Five Diamond Hotel Award for 2009. If you go to the Paradise by Marriott website, you can’t miss the sale. It has a great name that I wish other hotel and resort providers would adopt—”Life begins at 40%.”
Deal: Use promo code LLF to get 40% off leisure rates starting at:
JW Marriott Cancun Resort and Spa - $209 (usually starts at $349 without the deal)
CasaMagna Marriott Puerto Vallarta Resort & Spa - $149 (usually starts at $249 without the deal)
CasaMagna Marriott Cancun Resort - $131 (usually starts at $219 without the deal)
Participating properties: St. Kitts Marriott, Frenchman’s Reef Marriott, Grand Cayman Marriott, Aruba Renaissance, Aruba Marriott, Curacao Marriott, Curacao Renaissance, San Juan Marriott, JW Marriott Cancun, Casa Magna Cancun Marriott, Puerto Vallarta Casa Magna Marriott and Los Suenos Marriott.
Grand Canyon deal: Travel to the rim by rail this winter
November 2, 2009 5:58am
Complement your trip to Grand Canyon National Park with a ride on the rails through Arizona’s wintry landscape. Every morning from Williams, Ariz., a Grand Canyon Railway locomotive departs for the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, a journey of 65 miles one way. Among various ride-stay packages available is the following deal that gives you a little bit of everything.
Deal: The three-night “Canyon Limited Plus” package costs $364 per person, pre-tax, based on double occupancy, for stays Nov. 1, 2009 through Jan. 2, 2010, and $304 per person Jan. 3 through March 14, 2010.
For that, you get two nights of accommodations at the Grand Canyon Railway Hotel and one night at Maswik Lodge, near the South Rim. Plus, you’ll get round-trip, coach-class train travel, a narrated motor-coach tour of the South Rim (lunch provided), and two breakfasts and two dinners per person at the Grand Depot Café. Read the rest of this entry »
Thanksgiving travel: Cheapest dates and destinations
November 1, 2009 1:44pm
Those who have ever stepped foot in an airport the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving know that flights departing during that very popular time don’t usually come cheap. In fact, by being a little flexible with your dates for Thanksgiving-week travel, you can save as much as $180 in airfare, according to Travelocity folk who researched flight bookings from Nov. 22 to Dec. 1.
It’s no surprise that the most expensive flight itineraries include departures on Sunday, Nov. 22, or on Wednesday, Nov. 25. The priciest return dates, because of holiday surcharges enacted by airlines, are Sunday, Nov. 29, and Monday, Nov. 30, according to Travelocity’s report.
The cheapest days to depart are Nov. 23 and 26. The least expensive day to return, if you can swing it, is Tuesday, Dec. 1. See the Travelocity chart for a comparison of average fares.
What about hotels? The same report cites a decrease in accommodations costs this year, with hotel rates 16% lower than they were last year. Read the rest of this entry »
For a sane holiday, consider Hotels.com’s Thanksgiving sale
October 31, 2009 6:51pm
If bunking up with Cousin Lenny sounds like the worst way to spend your Thanksgiving holiday away, why not treat yourself to your own peaceful quarters this year? Booking a room close to (but not with) the family doesn’t have to break the bank, thanks in part to promotions like Hotels.com’s Thanksgiving sale. Through it, you can find a range of properties for up to 30% off in 100 cities.
One of those is Denver, where 30%-off rooms at the Burnsley All-Suite Hotel are attainable. In Orlando, Fla. — where, it must be said, accommodations bargains are never rare — you can get a room for $41 per night, pretax, at the Seralago Hotel, a few miles from Disney World. Up in New York, stay for 20% off at the Time Hotel, close to Broadway shows; rates here around Thanksgiving start at $183 per night (the usual average is $229).
But there are lots of options closer to home too, for instance:
Palm Springs
I stopped into Riviera Resort & Spa’s reservation system for a stay Wednesday through Friday of that week, and got a total of about $600, after taxes and fees, for the two nights. The total price I found via Hotels.com was $478. Read the rest of this entry »
New Zealand vacations: Qantas airfare sale starts at $349 each way
October 30, 2009 9:22am
If you can plan ahead to next summer, you might consider this early-bird New Zealand sale from Qantas Vacations. For five days only, travelers can get flights between Los Angeles or San Francisco and Auckland starting at $349 each way, pretax. That’s low season for New Zealand, but the sale still offers decent fares. Comparatively, fares were priced at more than $1,200 on both Air New Zealand and Qantas when I checked dates on Kayak for travel in mid-June. With this Qantas Vacations deal, the total price came to $897.
Deal or no deal? It was frustrating that when I went to the promo page I couldn’t test dates and fares on their website. I had the option of calling or using their live chat. I tried the live chat feature and got connected to a Qantas Vacations representative immediately. They gave me a price of $1,297, including taxes, for June 16-24. That didn’t seem significantly cheaper than what I could find on Kayak. When I asked whether there were any cheaper dates to travel in May or June she said early June, but I stepped away from the computer and the live chat timed out, leading me to start over. But I was glad I did - the next chatter returned round-trip LAX-AUK fares of $897, including tax, for June 3-10.
San Francisco: Savings for the unfussy with Inn at the Opera’s ‘Think Green’ deal
October 30, 2009 5:54am
The Inn at the Opera doesn’t sit on the most glamorous strip of San Francisco, but when I stayed here last year, I appreciated its proximity to Hayes Valley restaurants and its central location amid a mecca of transportation options. It’s a stone’s throw from the Civic Center and a few short blocks to Market Street, one of city’s main arteries.
The hotel usually has reasonable rates, and now, aided by a truly unusual promotion, you can save even more on a stay.
Deal: If you don’t need a spic-and-span room and don’t mind picking up after yourself, the “Think Green” promotion, valid for stays of two or more nights, may work for you. With this offer, during your stay, your room will get “limited housekeeping,” which includes only trash removal and an optional towel service. In exchange, you get $20 off per night.
So you’ll save a little cash, but what’s the eco-incentive alluded to in the promo’s title? Read the rest of this entry »
Lowest airfares in 11 years? OK, but what about fees?
October 29, 2009 6:31pm
On the heels of an airfare war comes this report from the U.S. Department of Transportation: We’re paying the cheapest fares in 11 years. Of course, that accounting doesn’t include all the extra charges for checked luggage, seat selection and even blankets and pillows that carriers have piled on in recent years.
Even the airlines concede that these fees, which they dub “a la carte” pricing, add up.
“When you throw in a la carte, there are some cases where you could be paying more to fly” today than back in 1998, said David Castelveter, spokesman for the Air Transport Assn. of America, an industry group based in Washington, D.C. that represents most U.S. carriers.
But really, haven’t we had enough bad news lately? So as you squeeze yourself into a middle seat, sandwich your carry-on bag between your feet and shiver in the arctic blast from the air vents, count your blessings:
From April through June (latest figures), passengers paid an average of 13% less to fly between U.S. cities than they did during the same period a year ago. This was the biggest fare drop since the government began keeping records in 1995.
Big Bear and Mountain High ski resorts opening Friday in Southern California
October 29, 2009 4:26pm
Two of Southern California’s most popular and convenient ski resorts are opening Friday after a surprise cold snap allowed snow-making for several days. Early-season rates apply, in one of the earliest debuts in decades.
Mountain High in Wrightwood, which opened a top-to-bottom run (Chair 4) today to season-ticket holders, will be offering early-season rates of $35 for four-hour passes and $40 for eight-hour passes. The resort has been making snow almost full time since Tuesday and boasts an 8- to 12-inch base. Six to 10 terrain features were open today, and up to 20 were expected to be open on Friday. Dress warm. Though sunny, the mountain this afternoon was breezy, with temperatures hovering in the high 30s.
$25 airfare sale on Southwest, American and United ends tonight
October 29, 2009 3:10pm
A reader responded to our post about American Airlines matching Southwest’s $25 4th Quarter sale commenting that United has also done the same. When I checked flights on United Airlines between Los Angeles (LAX) and San Francisco (SFO), sure enough, there they were for $50 round trip, pre-tax. Now, you have to also consider what other readers have already pointed out: the other airlines charge for checked baggage. So, lets do a side-by-side comparison of what traveling on each airline will cost for one couple trying to take a weekend in San Francisco with one checked bag per person. We’ll leave carry-on space to purses and computers. But hurry, the sale ends tonight.
Dates tested: Friday Dec. 11 - Monday Dec. 14
Travel: Los Angeles (LAX) - San Francisco (SFO)
Southwest: I found plenty of fares for $25 each way, per person. On Southwest, each ticket allows for two free checked bags. The total cost of flights for two passengers (including taxes and fees) plus one checked bag per person came to $142. Purchase by Oct. 29, 2009 for travel Dec. 2 - Dec. 16, 2009 and Jan. 5 - Feb. 10, 2010. Travel valid every day except Sundays.
United: $25 each way flights were available bringing the total price for round-trip tickets for two adults to $142. However, the cost of the first checked bag is $15 per person if you do it online, and $20 per person each way if you pay at the airport. So, the total cost of flights and bags for this trip on United came to $222 for two passengers, for travel Dec. 2, 2009 and Dec. 16, 2009 or between Jan. 5, 2010 and Feb. 10, 2010. Caveat: When I called United to find out if the deadline for this sale was tonight like Southwest’s deadline, they didn’t even know the sale existed. I called two different people. The most info I got was that it was based on availability and required a 21-day advance purchase.
