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If you are planning a vacation, you owe it to yourself to make this your first stop. However great you think your special travel deal is, you can do better on the internet! Airline tickets, hotel reservations, bus schedules, cruise info, vacation hot spots, or your favorite resort are all at your fingertips. I found $820.00 discounted fare tickets (regularly $1170.00) for $122.00 last February! Luxury packages with last minute openings that they practically give away. You'll find links to airlines, cruises, vacation package sites, and travel planning information sites. Whether you're going for a month or a weekender, you'll save big bucks.

Online Travel Agencies are undergoing unprecedented consolidation. Travelocity snatched up Lastminute.com, IgoUgo, Holiday Autos, The Window Seat, Vacations.com, and an Asian Pacific market leader Zuji. In March 2013, Expedia added German hotel search site Trivago to its lineup of Hotels.com, Hotwire, Egencia Business Travel, Classic Vacations, CarRentals.com and bed and breakfast site Venere.Com. Travel auction megasite Priceline is adding KAYAK - the travel metasearch engine - to its huge inventory of online travel acquisitions - including Asian travel site Agoda, European accommodations giant Booking.com, MYTravelGuide, Travelweb, Lowestfare, Rentalcar, HotelsbyCity, FlyCheap, Airfares, the Breezenet Rental Car Guide, AirportRentalCars, HotelRoom.com and HBCWeb, which designs travel websites. Not to be outdone, Orbitz gobbled up Cheap Tickets, EBookers.com, Rates To Go, Lodging.com, The Away Network, Gorp, Trip, Mr. Jet and Adventure Finder. Internet properties collected by TripAdvisor - the Big Daddy of travel sites are AirFareWatchdog, Tingo, travel blogs at TravelPod, FlipKey, Holiday Lettings, travel tips at Virtual Tourist, Smarter Travel, Booking Buddy, Seat Guru, Every Trail and others. The fact that these online travel assets are being replaced by promising new startups as fast as they are absorbed by their larger peers is good news for consumers.


Your Online Travel Agency!

Find ridiculously inexpensive unadvertised special deals. Locate last-minute luxury fill-ins. Try the airline ticket auctions that you've only heard about. You indicate where you want to go and how much you want to spend...they make it happen!


Priceline.Com

The Grandaddy of name-your-own-price travel sites. Build your own Air and Hotel combination deal to over 30 destinations! Indicate where you want to go, select the exact hotel, then Name Your Own Price. Their Best Price Guarantee applies to every Air, Hotel, Rental Car, Cruise and Vacation Package sold on priceline.com. If you find a lower price for the same itinerary, they'll refund 100% of the difference. Book an Express Deal and they'll refund 200% of the difference - Double the difference! The lower price, including taxes and fees, must be available to the general public for booking on a website in the same currency, using the same form of payment and from the same point of sale as your original reservation when you call. The lower price must also be an exact match to the itinerary booked on priceline.com. You need not worry about being serenaded by William Shatner en route. Their service is markedly better than their advertisements.

Travelocity

Incredibly comprehensive travel site wholly owned by Sabre Holdings. You will see some domestic flights for $5.00 or less (excluding fees and taxes). Discount airfare, lodging, car rental, and cruise sections. The special Vacation Packages and Travel Deals sections make it difficult to leave this site without making some travel plans. You can also plan your trip around Activities and Attractions that pique your interest.


Expedia

Expedia is another discount travel mega-site. They combine great deals with attraction and Rewards, Groupon Getaways and Vacation Packages. In 1996, a small division within Microsoft launched online travel booking site Expedia.com�, giving consumers a revolutionary new way to research and book travel. Since that time, Expedia, Inc. has evolved into the world�s leading online travel company, with a portfolio that includes approximately a dozen of the world�s most notable travel brands. In 2011, Expedia, Inc. completed spin-off of TripAdvisor. In 2013, they completed acquisition of majority interest in trivago, a leading hotel metasearch company. In 2015, Sabre and Expedia Announce Expedia announce acquisition of Travelocity. In the same year, Expedia also acquired Orbitz Worldwide and HomeAway. Expedia supports a symphony of Things To Do. Check it out.


Orbitz

Orbitz is a joint effort of some of the world's leading airlines. American, Continental, Delta, Northwest and United combined resources to produce a web site that assists clients before, during, and after the services are purchased. Orbitz.com � the flagship brand of Orbitz Worldwide � has been in operation since 2001. Other Orbitz Worldwide online travel companies include CheapTickets in the Americas; ebookers in Europe; and HotelClub and RatestoGo, based in Sydney. In February 2015, Expedia announced that it would acquire Orbitz for $1.2 billion in cash, in order to better compete with Priceline.com. The deal comes only a few days after Expedia agreed to purchase Travelocity. Spas, Ski Trips, Business travel, weekend getaways, cruises, and trips that feature Broadway Shows are available ON THE CHEAP. These corporate Machiavellis finally realized that it is preferable to sell a $600.00 seat for $50.00 than to allow it to remain vacant. Hmmm.

KAYAK

The cofounders of Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz started KAYAK in 2004 to take a different approach. Ironically, it was bought by Priceline in 2013. Their website and mobile apps enable you to easily compare hundreds of travel sites at once, in one comprehensive, fast and intuitive display. If you want, you can spend hours searching every airline, hotel and other travel site yourself, that�s one option. If you prefer an easier way to find a good deal, use KAYAK. Once you find what you want, choose where to book, including airline, hotel, car rental and online travel agency sites. They send you right to the booking page to finish your purchase there. You can also book your hotel right on KAYAK with our fast, easy and secure booking process. They also offer travel management tools including an itinerary management tool, flight status updates and price alerts.

Hotwire

An Expedia operating company, Hotwire's mission is to offer unbeatable low prices on airline tickets, hotel reservations, car rentals, vacation packages and cruises. Through partnerships with leading travel companies, they get low prices that can't be found anywhere else. How does it work? Their partners permit access to their unsold inventory - empty seats on flights, empty hotel rooms, and unrented cars - at big savings. By showing the name of their travel partner after you book, Hotwire can get travel deals that are significantly below published prices. They also offer a host of deals & destinations as they become available along with popular attractions and activities.

Yapta

Yapta.com will track a flight�s price for you after you buy your ticket. If the costs drop below what you paid, most airlines and online travel agencies will refund the difference, usually in the form of travel credits or vouchers. Yapta will alert you to falling fares via e-mail or tweet. And if the change in price dips below the cost of any �re-booking fees� some airlines charge in these situations, the site will explain how to collect your refund. Note: Yapta does not currently track Southwest flights.

Cheap Tickets

Cheap Tickets, a leading vendor of discounted leisure travel products, was acquired by The Trip Network, an Orbitz affiliate. The company offers consumers affordable one-stop shopping for all of their travel needs. It has one of the largest collections of discounted airfares (more than one million unpublished fares offered on more than 60 major airlines), car rentals, hotel accommodations and cruises in the industry. Cheap Tickets sells one ticket every 10.5 seconds through its 24/7 multi-channel service model, including its Internet site located at Cheaptickets.Com; and toll-free number, 1-800 OKCHEAP.

Sky Auction

SkyAuction.com (www.skyauction.com) is a travel auction marketplace where you can buy airline tickets, room nights, tours, cruises and all-inclusive vacations. They negotiate special deals with leading airlines, hotels, resorts and cruises and offer them in auction format. All auctions on this web site have a starting bid of $1.00 (that's right: one dollar) with no minimum reserve price, and anyone can bid with only a few mouse clicks.

Student Universe

If you are or know a student, you are in luck. Their Back To School bargains, unlimited Rail Travel, sleep-on-the-cheap Hotels, and Student Deals are unparalleled. By negotiating with the major airlines on the their behalf, StudentUniverse provides students with exclusive, significantly discounted airfares. From travel Guides to a proprietary booking engine, StudentUniverse is a leading online resource that allows students to research and purchase reduced-cost travel products online.

Hotels.Com

An Expedia affiliate, Hotels.Com is the internet's largest specialized provider of discount accommodations worldwide. they offer savings of up to 70% off regular hotel rates in some of the world's most popular and expensive cities. They provide discount accommodations in more than 7,000 premiere properties and 145,000 self-catered properties at over 300 major destinations in North America, the Caribbean, Europe and Asia. Hotels.Com contracts with lodging properties in advance for volume purchases and guaranteed availability of hotel rooms and vacation rentals at great prices and offer these rooms to consumers.

Booking.Com

A Priceline acquisition, Booking.Com guarantees the best prices for any type of property, from small, family-run bed and breakfasts to executive apartments and five-star luxury suites. Established in 1996, Booking.com is available in more than 40 languages, and offers over 310,264 properties in 183 countries. Over 5500 employees working out of 100+ offices in more than 50 countries book 475,000 room nights every day.

Last Minute Travel

LastMinuteTravel.com is the premier online website for providing last minute prices on a variety of travel products . . . all in advance. The biggest bargain available on the site is its portfolio of 16,000 plus Undercover hotels in 2,500 major cities worldwide. It covers every aspect of travel, including flights, hotels, car rentals, vacation packages, cruises and even activities. The higher airfares and hotel rates that afflict last minute travelers are offset by an endless stream of discount coupons for 3, 4 and 5-star hotels.

AirBNB

Founded in August of 2008 and based in San Francisco, California, AirBnB is a trusted community marketplace for people to list, discover, and book unique accommodations around the world � online or from a mobile phone. Whether an apartment for a night, a castle for a week (more than 600 are currently available), or a villa for a month, Airbnb connects people to unique travel experiences, at any price point, in more than 34,000 cities and 190 countries. And with world-class customer service and a growing community of users, Airbnb is the easiest way for people to monetize their extra space and showcase it to an audience of millions.

HomeAway

In the mid-2000's, HomeAway began acquiring vacation rental websites, including some of the most popular ones on the market such as VRBO and VacationRentals.com. Now it owns 40 Websites operating in 22 languages. More than 65 million travelers visit their family of sites each month to discover more than 1 million homes in over 190 countries. Listings with a �request to book� button or credit card logos invite a booking request, which owners / managers have 24 hours to accept. A �birdhouse shield� icon on the listing page indicates that an approved payment option through HomeAway, in which case, you can ask the property owner or manager to send you a payment request and instructions through HomeAway. While HomeAway offers the option to process payments - in contrast with Airbnb - HomeAway acts more like a rentals listing service - not an overseer of the vacation-rental experience.

Spa Finder

Spas have become the millenium's new vacation nom de guerre. Spa Finder provides the most comprehensive database of spas worldwide. Interactive internet site, toll-free order lines, free vacation spa consultations, and reservation service make booking a breeze. They have an extensive network of day spas and a gift certificate program. If you're tired of needing a vacation to recover from your vacation, this is right up your alley.

Hostelz.Com

A hostel (also called a youth hostel) is like a hotel except at a hostel you can get a bed in a dormitory room which you share with other travelers. Hostelz.com has the largest and most comprehensive worldwide hostels database on the web (55,440 listings in 9,812 cities). Photos and reviews are submitted by users and paid reviewers, not hostel owners. The site provides direct phone and website contact information for hostels in their listings (when available). To make a booking, their system searches and displays results from all of the major hostel booking sites, enabling you to choose the lowest price and the best options.

Jetsetter

An invitation-only community of travelers that provides luxury-hotels and the world�s finest rental properties - including city apartments, ski lodges, chateaus and villas. They only recommend places that members of their army of over 200 journalists from the world�s top travel publications has been to, loved and would gladly go again. Jetsetter can have 15 to 30 of these "flash sales" available at once � more than the usual handful offered offered by similar sites at any given time -- and can save you up to 50% off published rates. Since invited members get exclusive access to deep discounts for a limited time, it works best if you're flexible about where you want to travel. Since each location is a paradise - who cares?

Airfare Watchdog

While it provides lots of cheap deals - and insider tips on how to find more - what distinguishes Airfare Watchdog is its access to last-minute travel flight deals, pulling them from carrier sites, fast. It's like having a personal assistant do all your grunt work. The site�s fare listings and alerts -- including airline promo codes and unadvertised fares -- are found and verified by humans (in this case, former airline and travel agency employees), not technology alone. Included in its search options is the unusual ability to search by departure city, enabling fast getaways. Fares are sent right to your inbox (or by real-time tweets). The site even lists Southwest Airlines and smaller airlines like Allegiant, which ordinarily never show up on search engines.


Cheap Airfares by Airfarewatchdog.com


Travel and Vacation Information Resources

What are you going to do with the three golden weeks that you've managed to compile for your vacation? Cogitating your as yet unexperienced travel plans can be an unforgiving source of anxiety. This section will help. Peruse the municipal or regional travel guides for any location that titillates your imagination. Eurorail passes, bus schedules, car rental information, guides and advice about every travel target on the face of the earth, and a generally overlooked resource, the State Department, are all a click away. Attention to detail is often the difference between an incredible experience and a disaster.

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Europe for Visitors

Travel Europe with more than 7,000 pages of articles, photos, and links from Durant Imboden, author of "Buying Travel Services on the Internet". Find everything you need to know about traveling through Western Europe. Check out the City Guides, Currency, ATMs, and Credit Cards, Hotels, Apartments, and Hostels, Packing, Luggage, and Clothing, Travel Insurance and other travel topics.

Visit London

Visit London is the official visitor organisation for the capital. The voice for London's tourism industry, Visit London promotes London as the world's most exciting city by marketing to domestic and overseas leisure and business visitors, as well as Londoners. Marketing tools have been developed that are practical and easy to use include How To Guides, Local Tourism Toolkit and Cultural Factsheets.

Rail Europe

Rail Europe allows you to book all types of European rail passes and tickets online. Eurail Global Passes, Eurail Select Passes, Single Country Rail Passes, a travel tool to help you decide which Tickets and Passes best suit your needs and an opportunity to help pass-holders Book Point-to-Point Reservations. Options include Night trains, Special trains, Express Trains, Scenic Trains, Airport Transfers and High Speed trains operated by TGV, Eurostar, Thalys, Le Frecce, Elipsos, and more are all bookable online here. We also feature online train schedules.

IgoUgo

A Travelocity company, 540,000 travelers think IgoUgo is the best place to store and share their trip stories and pictures, building a library of honest opinions, tips, and experiences that you won�t find in any guidebook. To date, our travel community has contributed hundreds of thousands of reviews and photos of everything from cheap eats to luxury hotels in 9,000 destinations worldwide. Launched in June 2000, IgoUgo isn�t only the go-to site for savvy travelers; industry leaders have taken notice, too. Acknowledgements include a 2004 Webby Award win for �Best Travel Site in the U.S.� and a 2006 �Best Travel Site� nod from Forbes.com.

City Search

This megasite is indispensible to any and all travelers. It contains city guides for virtually any metropolitan area worldwide. In addition to the travel and lodging necessities demanded by vacationers, Citysearch provides the cultural products and services that a municipality offers at the exact time of your visit. Wherever you go, however you get there, check out what's happening in your ultimate destination and all points along the way. Clubs, shows, Spa & Beauty, movies, restaurants, night life, and unique events are all a few clicks away.

Lonely Planet

This might be the best travel and vacation information site on the internet. Lonely Planet allows you to kickstart your vacation plans from a different perspective. Choose one of the Theme Guides to focus on a trip based upon your favorite activities. Review the more conventional World Guide to investigate virtually destination you might aspire to. Jump to Scoop, the huge archive of current travel news relative to anyplace on earth! Stop here before you make any final decisions.

Fodors

The internationally renown vacation specialists, Fodors is the world's largest English language travel guidebook publisher. They clarify every important travel issue intelligently and succinctly. 60 years of experience has devined their right to pontificate about Destinations, Hotels, Restaurants, and Resources with time-tested authority. Get valuable information about family travel, national parks, adventures, educational vacations, and dozens of other categories. This is a simple concept to absorb. You don't endure for 60 years without doing something very right!

Trip Advisor

Spun off by Expedia in 2011, Trip Advisor - the world's largest travel site - is visited each month by 27 million monthly first time users who read its 100 million reviews. Do you need some information on the hotels in Maui, Barcelona, or Key West? Having trouble deciding whether to choose a Swiss Alps vacation package, a stay in Cancun, or a dream tour of the French Riviera? Trip Advisor is what you need. They've archived the best travel articles, guidebooks, reviews and vacation packages available on the web. Their reviews are independent, unbiased, and comprehensive. This award-winning site is partners with most of the major travel players on the internet, including Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, Radisson, Six Continents, and Delta Airlines. Don't rely on Aunt Alice's opinion about touring London or the lunatic ravings of your daughter's boyfriend about big fun in The Big Easy - New Orleans, VISIT THIS SITE!


Tripbase

Instead of asking users to search through mountains of data to find their preferred travel information, Tripbase asks users for their travel preferences. Then, in a matter of seconds, it provides them with unique, unbiased information for the best destinations, hotels, flights, activities and much more. Tripbase has aggregated over 26 million points of data from sources that include: traveler reviews, expert blogs and websites. By analyzing, matching and reassembling that data quickly and precisely, Tripbase can give visitors only the information that's valuable for them. This technology uses the preferences a visitor selects to give unbiased recommendations for a personalized vacation. It also provides great travel tools; such as a Caribbean Vacation Finder and a Cost per Day calculator! They've already done the research - YOU DON'T HAVE TO! [Contributed by Walt Edwards!]

Travelzoo

Travelzoo is a global Internet media company and trusted publisher of travel, entertainment and local deals. They research, evaluate and test thousands of deals to find those with true value. They recommend only deals whose accuracy and availability that they can confirm at a Test Booking Center. With over 26 million subscribers, the site is the largest publisher of deals on the Internet. More than 2,000 companies from around the world list their very best offers, which are reviewed by deal experts located in 25 offices across North America, Europe and Asia who sharpen their offers and provide you with the smartest information. It's Top 20 Travel Deals (See Below) are an industry staple.

Virtual Tourist

One of the big guns in Trip Advisor's acquisition arsenal, Virtual Tourist has 1.2 million registered members from more than 220 countries and territories who tap into the site's personally vouched 1.8 million travel tips about more than 72,977 locations worldwide. Real travel tips, reviews and photos from real people who have actually "been there and done that" are organized by destination - from Sydney to New York and everywhere in between - and then into 13 separate categories, like Hotels, Things to Do, Local Customs, Shopping, Tourist Traps and more.

TravelPod

The first online travel blogs that revolutionized the way people travel and share their adventures with the world, TravelPod remains a free service to fellow wanderers. As a member you can easily post your travel stories and photos in your very own online travel blog. By enabling members to upload unlimited photos, videos and personal travel maps that show their trip routes; create unlimited travel blogs that never expire, notify friends and family about updates through via email, Facebook or Twitter; allow guests to comment on blog entries - the site provides an easy and feature-rich way to share your travel experiences. As a result - the site provides raw reviews for thousands of travel experiences.

BreezeNet Rental Car Guide

Sponsored by BreezeNet.Com (a Priceline company), this site maintains current pricing and availability information for rental cars in every market worldwide. Links to every metropolitan area airport car rental make comparing prices and reserving your preferred vehicle easy. Whether you are interested in a Van or SUV, exotic luxury or sports car, Domestic Airport Rentals, International Airport Rentals, or a vehicle for a College Age driver, this site will fill the bill. Sample prices for every car rental company at Fort Lauderdale Airport, or other South Florida Airports.

The Bureau of Consular Affairs, U.S. State Department

Seasoned traveler keeps this site on their bookmark list. The Travel Warnings & Alerts, Getting a Passport and Travelers Checklist before you go can prevent your vacation from becoming a disaster. Its very comforting to know how you can secure the help you may need from your government at Embassies and Consulates around the world. Look into the Services and Information for American Citizens Abroad to cope with lost or stolen passports, medical issuess, emergency financial assistance abroad, overseas road safety, and a plethora of emergency services available to U.S.Citizens abroad. Don't be foolish...check in here. After all, you already paid for these services with your tax dollars!





GETAWAY TIME!

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Common Carrier Links

Her are some quick links to your favorite airlines, cruise lines, lodging quarters, car rentals, and assorted useful travel support organizations and companies.

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Domestic Airlines

Alaska Airlines
Allegiant Air
American Airlines
Delta Air Lines
Endeavor Air
Envoy Air
ExpressJet Airlines

Frontier Airlines
Great Lakes Airlines
Hawaiian Airlines
Island Air
Jet Blue Airways
Pacific Wings
Republic Airways
SkyWest Airlines
Southwest Airlines
Spirit Airline
Sun Country Airlines
United Air Lines
U.S. Airways
Virgin America Air
Vision Airlines

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Overseas Airlines

Adria Airways
British Airways
Virgin Atlantic
EasyJet
Ryanair
Aer Lingus
Air France
Scandinavian Airlines
Norwegian Air
Lufthansa
Austrian Airlines
El Al Israel Airlines
Egyptair
Aeroflot
Alitalia
Olympic Airlines
Aeromexico
Volaris

Aeromar
Air Jamaica
Air Canada
WestJet
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
Finnair
Iberia
TAP Air Portugal
Air Baltic
LOT Polish Airlines
GOL Airlines
TAM Airlines
Avianca
Aerolineas Argentinas
Lan Airlines
Turkish Airlines
Royal Jordanian Airlines
Emirates Airlines
Saudia Arabian Airlines
Royal Air Maroc
South African Airways
Air Asia
Japan Airlines
All Nippon Airways
Qantas Airways
Air New Zealand
Singapore Airlines
Philippine Airlines
Garuda Indonesia
Air China
China Airlines
China Southern Airlines
China Eastern Airlines
Korean Air
Air India
Pakistan International Airline

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Cruise Lines

Carnival Cruise Lines
Princess
Norwegian Cruise Line

Orient Lines, Inc.
Disney Cruise Line
Holland America Line
Costa Cruises
Windstar Cruises
Seabourne Cruise Line

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Automobile Rental

Hertz
Avis
National Car Rental
Budget Rent a Car

Enterprise Rent-A-Car
Alamo Rent A Car
ACE Rent a Car
Rent-a-Wreck
Thrifty Car Rental
Advantage Rent A Car
Payless Car Rental
Auto Europe

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