Money
How To Get Free Flight Cancellation for Flights Outside the U.S.
Verified: June 4, 2019This hack has been verified by our editors. Please note things may change.
Most travelers know it is possible to cancel a flight for free within 24 hours inside the U.S., but most don’t know it is also possible to do for flights departing outside the U.S.
Tell Us How Much Your Trip Really Cost.
No shame here, but we were fully inspired by Refinery29’s money diaries to want to ask you how much you actually spend on a trip.1
Besides, we are secure enough to admit when we don’t have an original idea.
Real talk, how much did you spend on hotels and hostels, the Michelin prixe fix lunch, the booze, and flying over the Nazca lines? How much was incurred in foreign transaction fees? (I mean, if you’re that fastidious about the money tracking, by all means.)
There are a couple of things that we want to do differently, though. We want this to include travelers of all genders and walks of life, so even if there’s a little one in tow, we want to hear about this. Plus, the truth is, that in this day and age, many people are using points to pay for a substantial amount of things.
Travel editors also don’t travel like normal people.2 In our gilded life, tourism representatives wine and dine us, and we stand at the freakin’ center of Mexico, in the crypt that houses all the archbishops (seriously).
So we’re relying on you to tell us! Aside from blogging about our occasional, once-a-year vacation where we’re forced to pay for things. 😅3
Pro Tip Our budgeting spreadsheet is not only helpful for tracking expenses, but also for submitting this diary. 😉
Few People Know Google Trips Offers Discounts Inside the App.
It seems for a while now that Google Trips has offered travel discounts for, well, virtually doing nothing.1 This feature has been around since 2017, but it appears to be one of those things that no one knows about.
Part of Google Trips’ appeal is being able to condense everything from reservations to sightseeing in one cohesive place. Talk about one-stop shopping.
The discount feature isn’t one that we were even aware about before but plan on utilizing a lot more. (It would even incline us to use Google Trips more often, as opposed to TripCase, TripIt or other like-minded app.)
The discounts are mostly centered around local activities. Current partners include Expedia, Peek, Urban Adventures, GetYourGuide and several other tour operators.
On a recent trip, though the GetYourGuide price was higher for things like museum activities, the Google Trips discount often made it cheaper than the museum. For instance, in Porto, Portugal, the official FC Porto museum and stadium tour cost €15 ($17.09). The final GetYourGuide cost was $13.83 (€12.14).
It would be great to see this extended to lodging and other travel operators, but hey, so far it seems like a good deal to us. Money is money.
Finding Discounts in the app
Google Trips pulls in its travel data based on a user’s emails. Discounts are only offered for future trips, not past trips for the obvious reasons.
One quick workaround to get this feature to show up in the app is to quickly create a trip in the future to book an offer (in case a trip is not showing up). It will generally show up as a block under the large umbrella of a particular trip.
For a sample Boston trip, deals ranged from $20 off Expedia activities to 30% off Boston airport transfers with Holiday Taxis.
To see how this quickly worked, we selected 20% off a pretty reputable European-based tour booking platform GetYourGuide. To see if we actually received a discount, we selected a Boston 90-Minute Historic Sightseeing Cruise for $30.40 on the both the app and through the website.
Though it took a bit of finagling to get the dates right, the GetYourGuide deal in the app finally yielded a 20% off discount that was reflected on the checkout page.
The Google Trips discount yielded $6.08 off the normal price of $30.40, bringing the price down to $24.32.
The website offered us $30.40.
Seems kind of like a no-brainer to us.
Lyft Unveils a National Monthly Subscription Pass
Urban city dwellers! Lyft recently unveiled a national monthly subscription pass that allows riders to take up 30 rides in a single month for $299.
Here’s How To Filter Out Basic Economy Fares in Google Flights
Here’s how to beat the jerks at their own game. Basic economy, take that!
Starting Sunday, T-Mobile Makes (Mostly Good) Changes to Its International Plans
Starting July 22, T-Mobile will be adding 57 countries and destinations to its international data roaming plan. Color me magenta.
The VPN Money Saving Trick Also Works for Rental Cars and Hotels
It’s not just for airfare: thebestvpn recently took an in-depth look about how much more travelers can expect to save on car rentals and hotels by using a VPN.
Is United’s Baggage Subscription Worth It Now That Basic Economy Exists?
Five years ago, United’s baggage subscription seemed silly. These days, it might seem more like economical sense depending on how much you fly.
AirHelp Automatically Checks for Delayed Flight Compensation
This sponsored post is brought to you by AirHelp.
Imagine a service that automatically tells you all the delayed compensation you’re entitled to, without lifting a finger.*
Does Basic Economy Ever Make Sense?
Actually it can. Not in every situation, but for some circumstances, if the trip is short enough and you’re a great packer, basic economy can be a chance to save some money.
Renting a Car by the Week Can Be Cheaper Than for the Days You Need It
Sometimes business class plane tickets are cheaper than economy class tickets, and sometimes weekly car rentals are cheaper than renting it for less the week.
How To Pay for Things When You’ve Lost Your Wallet
I believe in defensive traveling. This means things like scanning passports and visas into Dropbox and stashing hidden 50-dollar bills into inconspicuous keychains.