I am constantly amused by marketers who promote the cost saving advantage of having a full kitchen in a vacation venue. Excuse me, but who do you think is going to be cooking up all those cost savings? Uh, huh. Usually it’s us. The wives. The women. Well, here’s a clue for you guys (usually NOT the family cook): Cooking Is Not My (and dare I say, Our) Idea of A Vacation!

There are exceptions, I know. One of my closest friends claims that cooking relaxes her. Well, guess where her women friends go for great home cooked meals? We’re more than happy to help her relax. Yum.

Then there are you gentlemen who enjoy cooking. And if that’s you, and you’re taking the family on vacation and just can’t wait to get your hands on the fully stocked kitchens in your dream venue, then power to you!

But even my super-hostess friend appreciates a break from baking. So we’re back to the puzzling rationale behind marketers promoting fully-stocked kitchens in vacation venues. Even more puzzling, I have found myself — a die-hard non-cooking female — curiously attracted to these vacation venue kitchen amenities. Why?

Turns out, there are lots of ways a vacation kitchen comes in handy — without cooking! Here are five great uses:

1. Leftovers. Probably obvious, but without a refrigerator and microwave and/or oven, these cost savers usually wind up feeding the gulls. With a fully stocked kitchen, on the other hand, you can go out for dinner, order the large size, and bring back the rest. You’ve just saved calories, money, and the effort of cooking!
2. Relaxing at “home.” Vacations were meant to help you relax. But after an exciting day on the beach, skiing the slopes, shopping, SCUBA diving, or whatever your idea of a good time happens to be, it’s not unusual to find vacationers dragging themselves back to their hotel rooms or resort condos. So relax already! Try heating up some butter (30 seconds) and drizzling it over freshly popped microwavable popcorn, then plopping down on the sofa and watching a movie. The venues that provide full kitchens probably also provide living rooms and dining rooms too. Add a glass of red wine to the mix (a little pino noir perhaps, chilled in the frig), and you just can’t get any better than that for winding down your hard day of play.
3. Munchies. I am certainly not advocating you add a major grocery shopping tour to your agenda. Egad! That is certainly not my idea of a vacation! But a quick stop here and there along the way is a totally organic way of collecting a few munchies. You know how useful munchies are: car trips, hiking and biking, or visits to amusement parks. Parents can actually regain a bit of control over what goes into their kids’ mouths while saving a lot of money on impulse snack purchases. So where does the kitchen part come in? Well, ever trip over a bag of goodies or find said goodie bag in a hot car or suitcase? Cabinets and frigs to the rescue!
4. BYOB. The last B stands for Beverage. As in purified, oxygenated water. Or juice. Or your own sweet tea. Whatever. You know how much sodas and other drinks cost on the road. How nice to be able to store your favorites in your vacation kitchen and bring some along for your outing.
5. Morning Coffee. I’ve stayed in many places that offer complimentary coffee in the lounge or lobby. Trouble is, I need my first cup before I tackle the shower. Once I got desperate enough to actually walk down to the office in my bunny slippers. Some venues have little coffee makers in the room to prevent those very public displays of desperation. But even then, we’re usually talking about instant coffee. Love your Starbuck’s Via if you like, I’m bred for brewed. And don’t even look at me with that powdered creamer stuff (read the label, you’ll see why). Doesn’t a nice coffee maker in your own room, your favorite freshly ground coffee, and your choice of additives sound like a relaxing way to greet a vacation day?

OK, so all these ideas involve some minor preparation. But I still love the comforts of home away from home. Even if I choose not to use them.

To find venues with these comfy amenities, visit intele.theme-travel.com or rovia.theme-travel.com (don’t feel shy about registering on the rovia site; you will NOT get spammed!)

The world, the travel industry, and the life of yours truly has undergone a rapid fire change over the past several months. That included a change of homes. Oddly enough, that change of homes led me to discover a way to legally not pay taxes for our “between houses” hotel stay.

I sold my old house. About a month before closing we had an estate sale, as I was downsizing to less than half my space and possessions. Because neither the cat nor I had any interest in sleeping on and eating under furniture that were constantly being shuffled around, I decided the better part of valor was to take a temporary leave of absence.

Being the penny pincher that I am, we wound up at the Budget Suites in Addison, Texas (they refer to this venue as Suites of America). And that’s where the discovery began.

I knew we would be there at least one month. After all, the estate sale was still two weeks off, and although I had not made a final decision on the purchase of my new home, the one I had my eye on was going to take some restoration before we could move in. My contractor told me it would take two weeks to restore. Having enjoyed watching The Money Pit more than twice, I immediately translated his estimate into six weeks. We were both wrong: It took a little over two months.

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The 30-Day Rule

During that time I learned a travel secret or two for folks wanting to take a month-long vacation, a between-houses/remodeling/restoration stay, or an extended business visit in the U.S. After 30 consecutive days, hotel guests get their stay TAX FREE! (I referenced the rule from Texas, but other states have similar rules.) Two extended stay hotels I checked had a policy of charging the tax up front and reimbursing you on day 31. Budget Suites allows you to pay the full month’s bill and not bother with the tax at all.

This amounted to more than $104 in savings, as the tax rate I would have paid in that location was over 13%.

If you visit their website, you’ll see an advertisement “rates starting at $179.” I called to find out which location(s) had those rates (these are standard rates, not specials). Given that I didn’t want either the cat or me to wind up as characters in a future CSI or SVU episode, I kept looking for a more suitable area. Addison happened to be in both a desirable area and relatively close to “home” but normally at a rate of $229 per week. Happily, they were running a special. So at the $199 rate per week for a first floor room, less the tax, but with the prorated pet deposit ($40/mo up to $150), our first 30 days ran us $836, or an average of $28 per day.

After the initial 30 days, we were able to use the locked in special rate to pay weekly — as they have a nasty little policy that states if you pay them more than you actually stay in advance, you’re pretty much SOL. No Refunds! And we weren’t really sure just how long we needed to stay in residence. The catch here is that when you do that, you get charged an $11.95 installment fee — per week, or day.

Photo credit: Destination360 Addison Texas

You see, after 30 days, hotel guests are considered “permanent residents.” And although it is not required for said “residents” to pay their “rent” in full, they are charged an “installment fee” for their partial payments. After all, who wants to pony up four weeks worth of rent and discover your stay was cut short by half, leaving you with an involuntary contribution of $398 you could not recover? Yet, had I known we would be there a full two months, I could have saved approximately $48 in “installment fees.”

Knowing Your Options for Savings

Residents at Budget Suites usually provide their own linens, kitchen supplies, and anything else one would normally use in an apartment. TVs are standard; HD-TVs are extra, as are microwave ovens and maid service. Other venues include these items as part of the deal, but their rates are higher. We chose Budget Suites strictly for the price and pet-friendly policy.

The point here is to know your fee structures and options. If you’re planning on staying in one location for a month or two, ask for their residency policy. Knowing their policy helps you manage your cash flow in saving hundreds — or even thousands, depending on the venue (there are some plush extended stay options as well) — of your vacation or business dollars. Then ask about their refund policy, if they charge installment fees, and what is and is not included in the quoted rates. Also ask for specials they may be running, even in peak season (naturally the specials will be better off-peak, but don’t assume they don’t exist during peak, especially in today’s economy). These policies, depending on your venue of choice, can make a real difference in cost savings.

Happy Traveling!

Relational gifting (with or without travel) has gained popularity over the past several years, and in today’s shaky economy, it’s even more popular. Instead of throwing dollars at items you hope might

appease a gifting obligation, relational gifting puts “you” into a gift that is uniquely suited to your recipients. Am I talking “homemade” here? Not entirely.

A few days ago I was at my local copy shop to pick up some business cards. The fellow in front of me was picking up his order, which he proudly showed off. And well he should! What he had done was to pick out 12 of his favorite places he had vacationed in and used his photos for customized calendars. This guy didn’t just give a pre-packaged calendar to his loved ones for Christmas; he gave his most treasured travel experiences. Well, 12 of them anyway. He added captions to each of his photos, letting people know a little something about each image or trip.

Now here’s the cool cost savings part. Because he got his calendars done during a half-price special, he was able to spend just under $8 to have each calendar professionally printed! I checked the plain jane boring pre-printed calendars in the office supply store next door. It actually cost this fellow $1 LESS than the pre-printed ones! And believe me, his were a whole lot more interesting.

For an even greater savings, he ordered the calendars through a shop that works directly with a discount online print service. By picking up his order through the store, shipping was free.

This is just one relational travel gift that’s unique, personalized, and cheap. I suspect it’s also a whole lot more appreciated than a stock calendar, and it might even be a conversation starter. Which could lead to even more possibilities!

Taking It One Step Further

Let’s say you gave a loved one such a calendar. They landed on one particular photo and told you they’d love to visit that place especially. Now as a member of a travel club such as Mega Resort Vacations, you could take it one step further by gifting your loved one with a trip to that location when you go there again yourself. What a great way to be together as a family, as friends, as spouses.

How much would it set you back to do that? Well, if they stayed in the same resort or vacation home with you, it would cost you absolutely zip extra. Talk about an affordable relational gift with travel!

If you wanted to gift them with a stay on their own, you could do that two ways:

• Gift them with access to your membership; they pay the weekly cost. This is a great gift, as it saves your loved one thousands of dollars for the week. OR
• Gift them with the cost of the week yourself. It could cost you as little as $199 for the week. If you have the money, why not?

The point here is to share yourself with your loved one and do so for less than you would normally spend on an impersonal gift. This works quite well for gifts beyond Christmas, by the way.

Are you into relational gifting? Have you used travel as part of any of your gifts this year or in years past? Share your ideas in a comment below.

Merry Christmas,

As illustrated in a previous post, you have options for accessing discounted travel venues, but each carries a cost for access, even the “free” hotel search engines. I mention hotels for two reasons:

1. Most travelers think of hotel accommodations, and
2. Online Booking Engines (OBEs) such as Hotels dot com, Orbitz, Expedia, Travelocity, Hotwire,  Priceline, and others specialize in discounted hotel stays as well as discounted transportation, not resort rental savings.

Hotels are great for certain kinds and groups of travel:

• Business or other travel alone
• People who have no problem sharing a small hotel bathroom and vanity
• Travel to areas with no resorts available, and
• Overnight layovers

When it comes to best travel value for couples, teams, groups of women or families, however, hotels are not a good first choice. Why? Because they are:

• Crowded — usually one closet or rack nook, which is simply not enough room for two or more people’s luggage and other “stuff,” and one small bathroom and vanity area
• Expensive per person pricing
• Noisy neighbors, next to, above and below you — or your family/group is the noisy neighbor!
• Not as private as you might think! I don’t know about you, but I really don’t want to know my hotel neighbor’s personal grooming or amorous habits. And yes, you can hear that!

Don’t get me wrong! I’d much rather stay in a noisy, crowded, expensive hotel room than camp out in my car (and I have done that — once!). But when you have the option, resort stays are much roomier, easier on your nerves, offer great activities, and are way more private!

But if you’re not careful in selecting the right source for your resort stay, you could wind up paying more than you have to! Let’s take a look at some examples. Because my purpose here is to neither promote nor bash any of the OBEs, I have selected only four, identified by numbers 1-4. You are encouraged to do your own comparisons.

The point here is to demonstrate the advantage behind paid vacation memberships versus your “free” online booking engines. Each venue is selected in September 2009 for either a Thanksgiving or Christmas holiday visit. The trick to getting the best discounted resort rates is to wait as long as you can before booking your stay.

Rule of thumb: the closer to the date you want to visit, the better the rate offered.

However, for these holiday visits, your best airline deals are booked early, not late. So unless you’re planning on driving to your destination, and because of the last minute scheduling that can disrupt family gatherings, I don’t recommend you wait for potential hot weeks. Besides, during my research, I discovered the rooms for these specific holiday weeks were already disappearing fast!

Here’s what you’re getting instead of a hotel.

Research your price comparisons on the OBEs:

1. Refer to the resort venue as a hotel. Pretend you’re looking for a room that accommodates only two adults. It’s OK. All room options will come up, and listed resort options are generally the same price for four people as for one. That’s one of the cost saving advantages of resort vacations!
2. Next, type in as little of the name of the “hotel” (resort) as you can. For the Samoset venue, I typed in Samoset. For the following Christmas comparison, I simply typed in Welk.
3. You may discover that resort bookings are not always available on the OBEs, even when you find them there. That makes it hard to shop price, so change your week around a little, as I did.

Now let’s take a look at a Christmas week booking example. Keep in mind that this is a particularly high demand week, so you’ll need to be a little flexible, and you’ll need to start booking as soon as possible!

Again, here’s what you get instead of a hotel.

Get Creative With Flexible Planning:

With flexible planning, the Christmas vacation week shown above can open some creative possibilities. For example, you can stay in one of the U.S.’s most popular family resorts, invite your extended local friends or family to join in any of the numerous available and memorable activities, experience Christmas Eve and/or Christmas morning with your loved ones, and then head back home Christmas Day to celebrate your own traditions with your kids. You get a great visit without wearing out your welcome, and for seven days you have peace on earth, good will toward everyone.

And these are just two examples showing you the value of selecting the right travel source.

The Resort Cost Factor

There are three ways you can gain access to resort vacations. Two of them are expensive. One of them is cost saving:

1. Hotel Bookings — We’ve covered that above.
2. Vacation Club or Timeshare Ownership — These memberships cost 10s of thousands of dollars with annual maintenance fees.
3. Vacation Program Membership — You pay a fee up front to gain rental access to condo resort units. We’ve covered samples of the pricing above, and that was for peak, high demand weeks. This membership fee is usually several thousand dollars less than the cost of ownership. If not, keep shopping! I’ll focus on this option in a separate post.

Here’s a sneak peek into the vacation program membership option: depending on the program, you could save the entire cost of membership after only one or two vacations!

Happy Traveling!

Years ago, whenever I visited foreign countries, I was very naive. I was armed with travelers checks and felt totally safe. I trusted the vendors to exchange my U.S. travelers checks for the correct change in their native currency. After all, they accepted U.S. dollars (USD), right? And they were in the business of knowing exchange rates, right?

Did I mention I was naive?

But wait, there’s more. To compound my naivete, I was also American. And a Texan to boot! A very dangerous, and monetarily vulnerable combination!

I can’t speak for all non-U.S. countries. But in Grand Cayman, Aruba, Mexico, Honduras, Jamaica, and all points in between, I learned the hard way that skimming Americans was considered legitimate merchant practice. In fact, it was vendor sport to see who could skim the most from the least suspecting. It was not considered unethical or bad trade relations; it was simply the way of tourism. It was what it was. Alas for the merchant who took pity on my sweet, innocent nature and spilled the beans. Or perhaps he had an axe to grind with some of his competitors. For whatever reason, I learned the hard way, but straight from the proverbial horse’s mouth.

This message was confirmed on a later mission trip to Mexico. Our group leader insisted we get our U.S. dollars exchanged for pesos in Laredo — the Texas side — before entering Mexico. Again, there was no ill will associated with our host country. It was simply exercising good sense. But even with pesos in hand, we needed to be on our guard. The clever vendors had learned to expect “educated” tourists by pricing their wares in pesos and USD!

Well, guess what? (Another vendor, whose prices seemed a bit high but who had the most beautiful pottery, put me wise.) Unless you were savvy to the exchange rate on that particular day (or according to that particular vendor), the great prices posted in USD were up-charged in pesos.

The vendor who passed on this wisdom happened to deal strictly in USD. I purchased a $13.00 coffee mug from him to add to my collection. His competitors only charged $7.00 USD. I don’t remember the peso exchange, but, according to the vendor from whom I purchased the mug, the final payment in pesos would have amounted to about the same price he was charging in USD. He showed me a chart to prove his point.

That was a few years ago. And I have no idea who was taking me for the bigger fool. But I do know this:

I was uninformed, ignorant, and vulnerable.

Lesson learned. Technology is now available to help us out with several foreign exchange currency rate converters available online. But how do you know which one(s) to use?

Here are some things to consider:

1. Never pay a commission for using a converter. Small service fee, OK. Commission, no.
2. Look for a high exchange rate, updated daily.
3. Use traveler’s checks instead of cash. But when you do, look for travler’s check exchange rates. The good news is that some of the better exchange rates are for travelers checks only.
4. Use legitimate banking facilities for your exchanges. You don’t want to wind up with counterfeit currency! In some countries, using counterfeit currency could be dangerous to your health!
5. Plan ahead. Before you get to the airport. Airport currency exchange services do not usually offer good rates but do come with a commission attached.
6. Compare the actual currency conversion service to the online rates and get as close to the online rates as you can. The difference in cost is the service fee. A 1% service fee is a very good rate.

That said, here are some good online converters:

Google (For this you’ll need to know your currency names or codes. For example, to find out how much $100 US is in Mexican Pesos, you’ll type in 100 USD in MXN or 100 USD in Pesos)

Universal Currency Converter

http://www.xe.com/ucc/

Yahoo Finance – Currency Converter

http://finance.yahoo.com/currency

FXConverter

http://www.oanda.com/convert/classic

or simply use this widget:

And now you know too. Happy traveling!

These days a lot of folks are trimming the fat to help make ends meet. But by digging a little deeper, you might just find a travel budget!

Here’s what I did:

1. Service Audit: I took a very close look at services I already had and determined some things I was paying for as part of those services but wasn’t using. I found over $30 per month!
2. Electricity Peak Time: By learning when electric rates were the most expensive during the day, I was able to adjust the timing of doing things like cooking, running the dishwasher, and doing laundry. Between July and August in Texas, I was able to save over $80!
3. The Scheduled Flush: I work at home. Combine that with a frequent use of the facilities, and you can imagine a growing water bill. By scheduling flushes to no more than five times per 24-hour period, I was able to save just over $10 between July and August.
4. More Potty Talk: Another way to save on your water bill is to spend a few dollars on getting your toilets fixed if they start flushing themselves. This is usually a case of a simple flapper replacement. You’d be amazed at how much water is saved with a little investment in maintenance.
5. Sink Soak: In this business, I am literally the chief cook and bottle washer. I not only head up HotWeeks-CoolPrices.com, I also do most of the cooking and most of the washing. And I have learned the power of the sink soak. By rinsing off dirty dishes on one side of a double sink and letting them soak in the other side, filled about 1/3 to 1/2 full of soapy hot water, it’s a quick whoosh of a dish wand to fill the empty side with scrubbed dishes. The water is off during this process. When several soapy dishes are ready to rinse, I rinse and turn off the water again in between. Placing a towel on the counter gives me a temporary place to set the dishes until I load them into the dishwasher. Not to rewash — just to rack dry! You save water, electricity, and, in my case, gas with this method.
6. Ease Up On Watering the Lawn: This idea came by way of enforced water rationing during a very dry summer a couple years ago. By simply continuing the water rationing voluntarily, our water bill never exceeded $70 this summer. That’s about a $30 to $50 savings per month from summers past. Thankfully we had a much rainier summer this year.
7. Audit Your Bank Statement: I actually found recurring charges I didn’t even remember authorizing in the first place. The best I could figure is that I had tried something for a trial period and forgot afterward. Add on another $10 per month from that audit.
8. Modify Your Bill Payment Dates: I love my Sam’s Club membership, but one thing I learned the hard way is that even if you make regular payments, if those payments don’t fall within the creditor’s exact due date window, they still count as late payments. I was making regular payments, but at a time that was best for me. By putting in a phone call to Sam’s, I was able to modify the payment due date. Now I can send in the payments at a time that is best for me without incurring late charges. Late charges increase your interest rate. By getting your interest rate down (and ultimately by paying off what you owe in full at the end of each month), you can save up to $80 per month in finance fees alone!

So let’s tally the savings up:

Service Audit:      $ 30
Electricity:               80
Water:                       10
Bank Acct Audit:     10
Finance Charges:    80

TOTAL:                 $210

That’s an incredible difference! In fact, that’s a hot week’s vacation stay with one vacation deals program. But if I wanted to plan about a month or two in advance, all I’d need to do is pocket the $210 for a two or three months.

By taking resort vacations, the whole family can stay in a resort condo for one low price. The best vacation deals I’ve found are here.

Keep in mind, this was money I was spending anyway but wasn’t really using. I just adapted a few usage habits and identified and eliminated some wasteful spending. I gave up nothing. And there it was. A travel budget.