Travel

Vacation Budgeting

Air Travel

If you have frequent flier miles, figure out whether it is worth it to cash them in for a ticket. A frequent flier mile said to be worth about 1-2 cents, so do the math. Most programs require you use 25,000 miles for a basic restricted ticket.

That means if you can purchase a fare for less than $250 -- $500, you may be better off buying a ticket and saving the miles for a more expensive route. However, restrictions and fewer seats for reward miles are making it more and more difficult to use your miles on some airlines, so in some cases it’s better just to cash them in when you can.

Travelzoo.com can be useful for compare fares using several of the major booking engines, like Travelocity.com, Expedia.com and Hotwire.com. Other websites, called “aggregators” feature discounted fares and may not charge a booking fee.

Visit http://airtravel.about.com for a current list of aggregators.

Keep in mind that some airlines, like Southwest, only allow you to search fares and book tickets directly on their websites. One way to find cheaper airlines is to go to the website of the airport you plan to depart from and look at their list of airlines to see if there are other discount airlines that may offer a better deal.

Try an off-the-beaten path airport if your schedule is flexible. For example, Midwest travelers may find it cheaper to fly into Chicago’s Midway airport than O’Hare, or may even want to look at flying into Milwaukee or South Bend. For a list of alternate airports by city, go to BestFares.com and type “alternate airports” into the search field.

Consolidators can save you money on flexible travel. These companies offer very cheap seats, generally to Hawaii and international destinations, although they offer some domestic options as well. They sell last-minute seats that would have otherwise gone unsold. You must be flexible with your dates and times, but if you are, there are real bargains to be had. Airtech.com and Air-hitch.com are a couple of consolidators worth checking out.