June 17, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
Fund raisers at the Johns Hopkins Institutions will travel to meet with more than 850 donors this year — at no small expense — and in these budget-tightening times, the organization has put together some travel tips to save money, writes Jeffrey A. Schoenherr, a Johns Hopkins fund raiser, in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Among the cost-trimming ideas:
Travel in the middle of the week. The “old Saturday-night-stay-over rule,” providing a cheaper price for air travel involving a weekend stay is becoming a thing of the past, Mr. Schoenherr writes. “Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and even Saturdays are the cheapest days to fly.”
Book flights with the airline directly. Third-party Web sites such as Orbitz, Expedia, and other discount travel sites are a good way to find the cheapest fares, Mr. Schoenherr observes. “However, after you’ve done that research, go to the airline’s Web site and buy your ticket directly from it. That saves you the service fee charged by those third-party sites.”
Use Southwest Airlines for domestic travel. The airline allows passengers to cancel flights without penalty, and they get a full refund or credit toward another flight, notes Mr. Schoenherr. And, he writes, “you can even still check a bag with no extra fee.”
Have you found other ways to save on travel? Use the comment below to share your own tips.
