..Lui-in-Penh blogs about life and exploring Cambodian culture…

Posts Tagged "budget travel"

Travel Saving Tips to Reduce Your Hotel Bills

Posted by on Feb 17, 2010 | 2 comments

TravelWe love to travel around Asia ( :P for now!) and having a tight budget won’t really keep us from doing some traveling. I found ways and means to go around a small travel budget. That’s why I love budget airlines for short hops and I am always on the lookout for their latest promotions.

When traveling two of the biggest expense would be for:

  • Air fare – but these can taken care by booking budget airlines like AirAsia,  Bangkok Air, Tiger Airways, Jetstar, Cebu Pacific and others. Book well in advance and get really great discounts. Check out my regular updates on Asian budget air promotions.
  • Hotels – this can be really pricey, moreso if you stay longer.

I discovered some great ways to save on your hotel bills. Let me just share our practical saving tips:

  • If you have your schedule down pat, then book ahead. Oftentimes, hotels give discounts to early bird bookings.
  • Check for hotels with free night stays. Example, there are lots of hotels who gives 1 night free stay if you book 3 nights and up.
  • Book online. I find Agoda and AsiaRooms to have really cheaper rates than most hotel booking engines for Asia hotels.
  • If you want to go really budget, book hostels! This is what we usually do whenever were staying in a place for several days. Most of these places turn out really well and besides we only use it really to sleep.
  • Where to book hostels? Hostelworld or check AirAsia’s GoHostel travel service.

One of the best things I love about booking hostels via Hostelworld.com or through AirAsia is that you can pay your hotel booking using your credit card, debit card and get this – some accept PAYPAL! I’ve started listing out hostels who accept Paypal and will be posting the listing soon.

I’m all set to book a hostel for a holiday in Ho Chi Minh this April and I’ll be  using a debit card or Paypal just to give it a try if the service works well. We’ll be out for about a week so this will be a big saving and more moolah for shopping :) and I also heard salons in Vietnam are top notch so I wanna try some hair pampering or some hair loss treatments.

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