How to Score an Amazing Travel Deal

Curious about how I scored a roundtrip airline ticket to the NYC area  {from Charlotte, NC} for $41?  Read on, my friends, read on....

The world's smallest plane ever. Only two seats on each side of the aisle. 

In general, here are my tips for finding a great travel deal:

1. When looking for deals, you have to compromise a little. Visit somewhere in the off season, take a connecting flight, etc. You get the picture. 

2. Make an initial list of places you want to visit and constantly add to it and update it. Start broad, you don't have to get into specifics. Then cross reference this with the deals you find. No matter how cheap it is to go somewhere, don't go just because it's cheap.  Make sure that you actually want to go there. 

3. Decide on your annual travel budget. Then, this is an important one - divide that amount by 12 and BAM! - sock that much away into your travel savings each month. It's actually pretty simple, but requires discipline. You don't want to go into debt funding your travels. 

4. Many deals require you to pay on the spot {and good deals sell out very quickly}, which is why #3 is so important. One of the keys is finding out about a deal as soon as possible and then acting on it. 

5. Sign up for emails from TravelZoo and Airfare Watchdog. I love TravelZoo's Wednesday "Top Twenty" email which highlights the Top 20 deals of the week. That is how I found out about our Iceland deal. If you want more details on that deal, see here and here.   The Iceland deal currently on Travelzoo {which is slightly different from ours} ends tomorrow. 

Thanks for sticking with me through all of that. Now, about that NYC deal.....A couple weeks ago, I got two emails about a 1-Day airfare sale on Frontier Airlines.  One was from Travelzoo alerting me that Frontier Airlines was starting a new route from Charlotte to Trenton, NJ {an hour from NYC} and the other one was Airfare Watchdog that lists airfares for many destinations from your local city and highlights the lowest fares of the day.  I searched the fare calendar and confirmed with Jake and later than night, we had our flight booked {it expired at midnight, so we had to be quick.... and days were selling out super duper fast}. 

P.S. I am insanely excited for our NYC trip! I have never been and it's always always always been my dream to go since I was a little girl. Haha.. growing up in Hawaii, all I wanted to do was experience the exact opposite I guess.  So, please share any NYC tips. We will be staying at The Standard at the Highline and I am counting the days. But first - we go to Iceland... the day after tomorrow. Is this real life?????????

Would you be so kind as to share any of your travel tips in the comments section below?! I always love to hear from my loyal fans ;)

xoxo, Kim