1. On booking a flight
Most of the people around me often ask how do I manage to purchase a low-cost flight. My secret is simple:
A. Sign up in an airline’s website. One of the perks of this is that you’ll be given advance notification via e-mail with regard to their seat sale and, in some airline, they even give a 24-hour priority booking prior to the actual seat sale release date.
B. If you’re not always checking your e-mail for “seat sale alert”, at least always check the website’s promo page. Most of the time, seat sale is released at 12 midnight or 12 noon, which runs for 3 or more days.
C. Book only one-way ticket per seat sale. For example, last April 16, 2017 Cebu Pacific released a seat sale going to Taiwan, which costs Php899 per way. I opted to travel on the month of November. My departure date from Manila to Taiwan is November 6. Luckily, the fare for this date is Php899. Unfortunately, the return flight fare costs Php2500+ on my return date of choice. Php2500+ fare from Taiwan to Manila is relatively cheap compared to its regular price but I wanted cheaper flights. So, I decided not to book any return flight and wait for another seat sale. Come May 1, Cebu Pacific released another seat sale. I searched for Nov 13 flight from Taiwan to Manila and guess what, the fare is only TWD888! When you convert it to peso it would cost you approximately Php1500. My roundtrip ticket to Taiwan costs only Php2399 and it’s a double yay!
2. On booking accommodation
There’s one question for this: Are you looking for a place to stay in luxury or a place just to put your luggage in, sleep in and eat at? If your choice is luxury, then go ahead and book at a hotel. If your choice is the other one, Airbnb is the answer or any other hostels.
I’ve booked at Airbnb twice. The first one is for a stay in Boracay and the other one is for a stay in Bangkok.
Pros
a. The space is all yours at a low-cost fee. Just imagine a presidential suite-sized hotel room or a 1-bedroom condo unit all for yourself.
b. You may cook and do laundry. Yes! You read it right! I did cook when in Boracay and Bangkok and even do laundry, too.
c. You’ll get that feeling of home away from home because you’re really staying at a house of a native from that place. In addition, you’ll get some travel tips from the house owner.
Cons
a. Some of the cheap places to stay at in Airbnb is far from where do you intended to go to. This depends on how much you research the place before booking. Therefore I suggest to check the place if it is near the beach or near the city center before booking.
b. If you book it, don’t you ever change your mind because you’ll not be able to get a full refund. There’s a certain fee that will be charged upon cancellation of booking.
c. If you booked for tours in a foreign country and it do include hotel pickup and drop off, you might add some fee for this depending on your location.