frugal underground

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A very short post to tell you that I’m going to a Trendwest sales presentation on Wednesday, and if you’d like to go to one, email me at bookchiq@gmail.com with “TrendWest” in the subject and your address and phone number in the message.

What is Trendwest? A timeshare-esque company that wants you to buy into their program.

Why would you want to go? They give you free stuff. The standard offer is a trip, but we didn’t want the trip (based on the unlikeliness of our actually taking it) so we asked about gift certificates—turns out they negotiate: we will be receiving a $50 gift certificate to the Home Depot and $20 at Olive Garden.

I’m going to try out a couple of strategies for dealing with the high-pressure sales tactics (we’ve been three times already, and flat out told the scheduler that we’re not interested in buying in, but they still want us, so what the heck, we’ll take their incentives…). I’ll report back and tell you which strategies were most effective later this week. In the meantime, email me if you want me to “refer” you.

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I’m writing this from an affordable vacation rental, which happily came with wi-fi—hence the reason I feel free to dole out advice on this subject. Here’s what worked for me:

• Be as flexible as possible. Originally we were thinking about going to Yellowstone. I’ve never been, and we were going to be in the general area for an obligatory trip, so we thought, why not extend it into an actual vacation?

  Good idea, but trying to find someplace we wanted to stay in the general Yellowstone area was downright depressing. First, it’s high season in Yellowstone. Mid-summer is when all the cool kids want to go there. Even the dive motels were relatively expensive and mostly booked solid.

  So what did we do? We considered other options. We consulted a map of to see what was in a reasonable distance of our route back home, and came across several good options. There were two areas that are well-known for their winter activities, and as a result, end up having abundant (and low-season-priced) accommodations in the summer. They’re still very nice areas in the summer, with lots of biking and nature attractions.

  Bottom line: being flexible means can help you find a nice location at low-season rates.

• Carefully consider your needs. Travelling with kids is a lot different than a “just the two of us” getaway. Attraction-centric trips are also very different than trips where the goal is to just lay low.

  Think about your schedule, and what you’ll need out of your accomodations. If you’ll be in or around your lodgings most of the time, it makes sense to find something with a kitchenette—you’ll be able to save on meals. If you’re going to be at Disneyland all day, or meeting friends and family members for meals out, then the extra cost of a kitchenette may be just that: an extra cost.

  Likewise, staying somewhere with a pool may or may not matter to a single guy or someone with a full agenda, but it can be a huge benefit on a family vacation—for the included cost, you have hours of fun and entertainment.

  Bottom line: being specific about your needs will save you time searching and money on your trip when you don’t pay for things you won’t use.

• Look for individuals. Property management companies can be a good resource to find lots of options, but in my experience, working with an individual can save a lot of money. Obviously this isn’t an issue with hotel/motel/lodge kinds of places, but when you’re looking for a house or a condo, you can sometimes find really excellent deals when you move away from the “standardized pricing” of a larger agent.
• Try alternate sources of information. This made the biggest difference for us out of all the tips here. It can be fast and easy to use Travelocity or its competitors to find a place to stay, but you’ll pay for it—especially if you’re looking for something other than a hotel.

  I mentioned our trip idea to my mom, and she told me that her sister has a cabin in the Yellowstone area. The timing didn’t work out (it was already rented for some of the days we were looking for) but it brings up an important point: you don’t know who your contacts know, and this could be a great resource. It’s easy enough to just mention that you’re thinking about taking a trip in such-and-such area, and see if anyone knows someone with an unrented vacation rental.

  The method that was successful for me was craigslist. It eventually occured to me that I use craigslist for all sorts of work-related things (finding freelance gigs, finding contractors to do work for me, that kind of thing) so why not use it for finding a place to stay on vacation? This ties into the “Look for individuals” tip since most listings on craigslist are from individuals.

  Once we’d narrowed our locations down to the two summer-is-low-season spots, I pulled up the respective craigslist sites and looked under vacation rentals. This involves a lot of sorting the wheat from the chaff, because there were all sorts of things listed that were out of our price range, but it wasn’t hard to find several properties in both locations that were within our budget and actually had a lot more features than we expected.

  In the end, we chose a craigslist-located condo that is much nicer than the standard hotel setup, and much cheaper. In fact, when we drove in yesterday, we passed a standard hotel, so I just looked up their rates: a full $60/night more for something comparable. Multiply that over our four-night stay and it really adds up!

I hope these tips help you the next time you plan a vacation… and now I’m off to go enjoy some more of mine!

Related Link: Car rental Malaga Cheap car rental Malaga Spain. All inclusive in Prices.

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