Now is the time to think about your summer vacation. Luckily, there are plenty of tools to help you plan it out.
INDIANAPOLIS — With the snow outside, warmer weather is probably on your mind.
But that is good, because we are told that now is the time to book summer travel.
Flights
If you plan to fly, Scott Keyes with Scott’s Cheap Flights said timing matters.
“Booking (flights) opposite season of when you’re actually hoping to travel is the best strategy for getting cheap flights,” Keyes said.
But is the price you are seeing good?
Two tools that might help include Hopper and Google Flights.
Hopper is an app that sends you push alerts when prices drop and it tells you if they think the cost will drop. Google Flights also sends alerts and gauges deals, but could be more useful in a different way.
“You can put in your specific travel dates, but then you can actually leave the destination open-ended. Or you can put it as United States, you could put it as the Caribbean, you can put it as Europe, and it’ll show you a map of all the different fares from your home airport to airports throughout that region,” Keyes said.
Should I drive my car or get a rental?
If you are someone who prefers to drive, but don’t know if you should get a rental car or drive the family car, there’s a calculator for that.
The calculator on the web site FrugalFringe is very detailed, factoring in oil changes, the cost of tires and more.
Rental car prices are still high according to experts.
Like Hopper and Google Flights track airline prices, the web site AutoSlash tracks car rental prices.
But unlike flight reservations, you can track prices and cancel your reservation if you find something cheaper. To track prices, the website asks for your rental car carrier and rental confirmation.
AutoSlash said customers who track their car rental reservations with their service save an additional 30% on average.