Travel Tips From Tamona!

T is back with another great tip! Today she’s traveling! 🙂

I am not a big travel person. I hate traveling to be truthfully honest. Traveling takes forever and involves a lot of uncomfortable situations for me. Although I do not like to travel, I do enjoy things that make traveling easier. Here are a few little known sites to that help make traveling even more interesting.

Tingo offers cash back after you have booked your hotel if the rates drop.

Hipmunk offers flight information based on Agony and Ecstasy. Pick and choose your preferred airlines and find out which airline offers your flight non-stop.

You can also choose your hotel based on detailed hotel specifics that include walking ratings.

TripIt allows you to create a master itinerary. You can not only list all of your flights, you can also purchase theater tickets and make reservations. TripIt include maps and weather information as well. Make sure to check out their many phone apps

Room 77 is amazing because it offers you detailed floor plans of hotels you plan on booking. You can also enjoy beautiful virtual tours of the rooms you intend to book. You can even enjoy the view from specific rooms.

Now it is time for a few more travel tips. When you go to hotels, make sure you make a few negotiations prior to booking your room. Do you need non-smoking rooms? How far do you really want to walk to get to the elevator? Do you prefer handicap accessible rooms? Would you like a room on the bottom floor? These are all key factors to having a better stay and they all need to be negotiated BEFORE you book your room. You need to have leverage for those negotiations.

Many of us do not want to deal with the bell boy but put those feelings of cheapness away. You want to make friends with the guys who bring your bags to your room. They know all of the ins and outs as well as the best kept secrets at the hotel. The bell boy should be your best friend. You also want to get friendly with cleaning staff because everyone knows you need fresh sheets when you go to a hotel.

Speaking from personal experience, I use to work for a large hotel chain as a Auditor. The staff at our hotel only washed sheets when necessary or when it was requested. They wiped down toilets, cleaned tubs, emptied the trash, and made the beds. There were some extremely nefarious deeds going on in those rooms and no clean sheets were put on the beds. They would change sheets every two weeks according to the schedule they kept on each room. Knowing this, think about the times you have slept in those rooms and never asked for fresh sheets. Wherever you decide to stay, make sure you ask for fresh sheets and just make the bed yourself. This will give you piece of mind.

Never order room service! Not all hotels are disgustingly nasty but there are some hotels that have the nastiest kitchens I have ever seen. Ask your Bell Boy about the state of the hotel kitchen or go and peek in and see for yourself. You should not have to pay tons of money to get contaminated food.

Do you ever forget your phone charger on trips? The most left behind item in a hotel (next to my honey’s wedding ring) is the cell phone charger. When you forget your charger, ask the Concierge if you can borrow a charger from the lost and found. Some hotels will even give them to you.

Before you leave the hotel, think back to some of your incidentals. Did you know you could negotiate your internet fees? If there are any incidentals you want removed, this is the time to do it. The Concierge will appreciate you for negotiating at checkout because this is the easiest time to remove charges.

Tamona is a work at home mom with a husband known only as The Honey and four children, lovingly referred to as, The Tax Deductions. Get to know my more by reading, “Hey, Tamona”