Bargain Travel: Budgeting vs Bargains

Reproduced (and tidied) from my TripAdvisor Post.  In this post I take a quick look at how to snare bargain to let you travel within a budget.

Budget vs Bargain

I budget my travel, that is, I define how much things are expected to cost, then compare that to what the actual costs are. No different to household budgeting or basic accounting. It all starts with research.

Research helps you identify “bargains” and in turn knowing what’s a bargain and what’s the normal prices will help you build a “Budget”!

Say I get promo e-mails from 2-3 flight cost trackers/aggregators and they repeated (week on week etc) tell me that tickets to Asia are available from $500. I know it costs me around $250 more to get to one of the airports these tickets would depart from. So the total of $750 becomes my initial “budget” for flights.

I may do some research on Trivago or HotelsCombined to find what accommodation prices are like in my destination country. Generally I would say that I nominate a budget for this based on guesses and experience. So for Malaysia I know (with appropriate advance booking) I can stay in a comfortable room with ensuite for $50-$100/night right in the heart of KL. If I’m challenging myself I’ll set the budget low, it makes me work harder to find the deal.

Finally I get a quote on proper travel insurance so I know most of my pre-departure costs.

This goes into a spreadsheet (Google Docs is handy for this) and I’ll enter in the actual costs as I book things. If new costs comes up (like side-trips) I add them in.

F1 Trip 2015
Description Estimate Actual
Flights (CBR-KUL) Return $ 750.00 $626.11
Flights (KUL-JHB) Return $100.00 $56.00
Flights (KUL-PNG) Return $100.00 $44.00
F1 Ticket $250.00 $99.00
Accommodation (**-** Mar) KL $ 200.00 $123.98
Accommodation (**-** Mar) JB $200.00 $153.73
Accommodation (**-** Mar) KL $200.00 $275.20
Accommodation (**-** Apr) PN $200.00 $72.36
Travel Insurance $100.00 TBA
Totals $2100 $1450.38

As you can see it’s primitive. But it lets me add up things along the way. That’s how I know I’ve got my 14 days away covered for AUD1500.

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When arriving at the destination there’s other things to pay for too. A transit card (if available), a local SIM card, any destination specific packages. For example I may buy a transit package to/from an event I’m attending. For stuff like the F1 (which I’m attending) there’s usually a deal available locally that is much cheaper than sourcing in advance.

Most of these things can be researched pretty well too. You can find information on Local SIMs through the destination forums on TripAdvisor, or Google.

Don’t expect people on the forums to tell you everything, just ask about providers and experiences with providers. Then check out their website, can you recharge online using an international credit card? What data packs are available? etc etc. Know roughly what to ask for when you arrive at the Kiosk at the airport to buy the thing. Know roughly what it should cost.

So further down my spreadsheet I have a section for these costs.

Then there food and living expenses – I don’t budget these but there’s no reason you can’t. I expect to have around $100/day in costs – some days more some days less, it’s a holiday after all 🙂

Bargain Travel: The “Hopper” App

“Hopper” – A Quick Review

Over the past few days a few of the news aggregator apps I use have been bombarding me with short blogs about how awesome “Hopper” is. I thought I’d download it and have a look at how well it performs against my own “database” of flight price trends to destinations I’m interested in.

What is “Hopper”?

If you haven’t read about it here’s a potted summary.
“Hopper” uses a background database of flight prices to offer you a four-colour scale of flight prices to your choice of destination. It will help you identify “cheap” days to fly and give you a comparison of other days where flights may be lower. It ultimately will let you select flights and then divert you to a booking site so you can buy those tickets. It’s a free app, and that’s how Hopper makes money, referral to flight bookings, so while Hopper may be neutral they’ll only be showing flights being sold by their Affiliate program.

Does it work?

I’m not convinced that the database they have is incredibly well populated outside of the major US routes. For Asian trips it was able to find and link-up flights OK but the “intelligence” on best days to buy and long-term seasonal trends they promote just wasn’t there. I think once more people start using the App it will drive up the quality of the statistical information. In short it works, but it doesn’t work better than having a few basic searches and notifications set up in “Skyscanner” or or any other App/Website as you still need to have an idea on where and when you want to travel. What “Hopper” told me in 5 minutes I could match on Skyscanners website in 5 minutes.

What does this mean for a Bargain Traveller?

The App could help you quickly narrow into a bargain ticket for a “new” destination that you’re not familiar with researching. It also could easily exclude the “best” combination of flights and deals by having a preference for point to point flights booked on a single ticket, not multi-ticket, multi-hop options that to me really match the name “Hopper”. At the end of the day the App is a vehicle to bind into the Travelocity/Expedia and probably other Flight Sales Affiliate programs so your pricing and route options will be based on those players and how they’re willing to book tickets.
The App is also USD based and as such EVERY booking defaults to USD. This makes comparison easy, but you have to remember currency conversion takes place at every level. Once you leave the App to book a flight the providers website or App can change the currency to match your local currency, and in at least one of the samples it also hiked up the offered ticket price considerably more than the USD:AUD conversion.

In Summary?

If you need to take trips at very short notice and don’t get enough time to adequately research flight pricing cycles then this App _may_ help you find cheaper days to fly. It’s still biased by the need the need of the App developers to generate flow-through sales through their Affiliate providers and may not give 100% coverage of route/flight options.
It’s no substitute for doing your own detailed research over a few weeks using other resources and breaking down your route options to explore multi-ticket or multi-hop scenarios.
In almost every case I was able to utilise other search tools to get a better deal for the flights suggested (once currency conversion took place). This is because the Affiliate program the “Hopper” guys use is not consistently the “cheapest” of the many hundreds of options. (I used the DoHop aggregator as my base reference for this test http://my.reservationdestination.com/flights/ – noting that it’s not always the cheapest either).

As I’ve said there’s no substitute for research of your own, and “Hopper” can form part of it.

Bargain Travel: Cash is King

Reproduced (and tidied) from my TripAdvisor Post.  Here I talk about the merits of using local cash-less solutions for public transport.

Cash is King!

Except when it’s not. As I’ve outlined previously I don’t like carrying heaps of cash, I hate coins even more. So those machines that convert coins and notes into train or bus tickets, well I really really dislike those.

Public transport is a conundrum of  you can save heaps by using the local rail and bus services, compared to taxis or Uber.  If, like me, you’re always converting notes into coins which then stay in a pile in the hotel until it gets way to out-of-control and then I’m forced into counting out tiny coins at the Starbucks when I’ve not had enough caffeine to count effectively and well it just gets out-of-hand. I once left all my loose change in a hotel room upon checking out just because it was too much effort to deal with. I was even more surprised when I got a call from the hotel telling me I’d left a considerable amount of cash in the room. The coins had exceeded a decent two handful and counted out exceeded one nights (cheap) accommodation. So yes I hate coins.

The best way to get around if only for the convenience factor of unfamiliar coins, getting off at the wrong stop or not knowing what the wrong stop is ends up being using some kind of Touch’n’Go wavy card type system. In Hong Kong its an Octopus Card, In Malaysia a MyPass card will work throughout Kuala Lumper, in Sweden there’s something else. My point is they exist and there’s always a tourist friendly version available.

The Malaysian “MyPass” comes with a few discount vouchers, and a SIM Card for a local telco. I whacked 100RM on mine when I got it at the airport and touch’n’go’d my way around for 10 days last trip, Monorail from the central railway station, train to another suburb, train to an attraction, no worries. No pesky coins, no “oops wrong token moments”. In Hong Kong I’ve used my Octopus card to buy coffee, train trips, hotdogs and well just about anything, I love Hong Kong if only because coins are optional!

I met up with fellow Aussies last trip, parents of a friend of mine actually, they’re cash travellers, they bring over Aussie $$, exchange for local $$ and don’t use cards. Yeah, in a simple day of sightseeing I spent about no time counting money, queuing for the ticket machine or wandering if I had enough cash to enjoy a beer with lunch. Yeah if you can swing it, get on the cash-free transit option.

Sometimes the bargain isn’t in the price it’s in the time saving, or not breaking notes before you want to buy something more than an 3RM bus-ride. We all know a broken note is as good as gone!

Bargain Travel: The Money Problem

Reproduced (and tidied) from my TripAdvisor Post

Here I’ll try to explain my approach to Bargain travel at the destination. It’s not my strong point and I’d say I’m still finding my mojo with it.

The Money Problem:

Reality is once I step off the plane in Malaysia (or any other destination) my Australian dollars are worthless except at currency exchanges, and airports have some of the worst exchange rates because you’re stuck needing a local currency and a bathroom and a coffee and usual a good nights sleep.

My money Tips:

Know and understand your exchange rate for your destination country. Use an app on your smartphone, understand the cycles of exchange rates, know what your should get, roughly, on any currency exchange. If you don’t arm yourself with this knowledge you will lose money.

If you are going to exchange your normal currency into the local currency of your destination don’t do it at the airport. Utilise the experience of hundreds of Tripadvisor members and ask about currency exchange in the appropriate destination forum. At the Airport only exchange enough more for some food, a taxi or transport ticket to your hotel and not much else. It’s pretty much a certainty the exchange rate will be worst at the airport, and worse still at the arrivals area.

My preference is to carry as little Aussie cash as possible and upon arrival head for the nearest group of ATMs. I use a Citibank Plus VISA Debit card (not a credit card) specifically because it has no international currency fees, NONE, no fee for using it, no percentage fee on the amount withdrawn or spent, and it’s spending my money not borrowing money. At this first ATM I’ll withdraw enough cash for a day or so, in Malaysia this may be 500RM, it’s enough to by some food, get a local SIM card set up, pay for a taxi to the city, handle incidentals the following morning and yet not so much that I’m walking around the airport half asleep dropping a fortune everywhere. Thanks to the Citibank Plus VISA debit card I pay basically spot on the market rate shown on www.xe.com/ucc

I’m making a big deal of the fee-free international transactions and cash advances because these fees add together really really fast.

Imagine using a card where there was a 3% surcharge on the currency exchange, and perhaps a AUD5.00 on every foreign cash withdrawal (excluding any local ATM fee). It adds up. If you’re on a long trip or spending bigger amounts you could be giving your bank hundreds!

Lets face it, the less cash you carry, the less you’ll lose if you’re the victim of crime OR just get careless and lose your wallet.

Local ATM fees can suck, but not all banks charge the same fee. My Citibank Plus VISA Debit card attracted a fee in some ATMs, when I was told of the fee I’d cancel the transaction and try another banks ATM. Turns out if I avoided ATMs from one bank only I was completely fee free! So yes it can look silly but don’t just accept fees as a fait accompli. Test out the competition.

The more you rush, the more you spend

I’m also a big fan of avoiding cash altogether. It’s amazing how easy it is to buy Starbucks when you want one and don’t have to run around trying to exchange another lump of Aussie $$ in Ringgits and probably pay less in the process! In short if you can use your fee-free card for “every day” transactions do it. Your bank statements will become another part of your travel memorabilia!

For me my happy medium of cash withdrawals is around AUD200 chunks. Seems to be enough money to get by anywhere for a day or two without overstuffing your wallet. Naturally if you’re anticipating needing to pay for long taxi trips or theme park food pack a bit more….

Malaysia 2015: The Plans are complete!

After scoring the deal of the century on flights and the Formula1 dates being announced I’d waited for Sepang Circuit to put them on-sale and taken the time to plan some Side Trips.

This left me with one last accommodation puzzle to complete.  Where to stay in Kuala Lumpur for the 4 nights over the F1, and how to ensure the total expenditure fell in under AUD1500.

About the planning Process

Trip Advisor Badges
Trip Advisor Badges

As a reasonably active member of the TripAdvisor community I have started taking a few steps to post things actually related to Bargain Travel in the Bargain Travel forum.  So to open with I created a thread that largely talked about the planning for this years F1 trip and some of the methods I’ve used.

It’s spread over a few posts in a single thread

Back to my accommodation choice

I switched back to using Hotels.com because there was simply no difference in price using any other site, and this way with the exception of the Tune Hotel at Danga Bay I’ve got all my bookings in one place.   So we shall see how the oddly named 12fly works out.

Where to now for revenue creation?

Making money online is everyones dream isn’t it?  Turning a website in a revenue stream is something I’ve tried and not succeeded at for years!

I’ve raved and ranted enough to friends over the years about how people somehow can create a passive income sufficient to support living in some of the most exotic places in the world.  Jealous?  Certainly, I won’t deny that, but I’m also curious how one steps from obscurity to “success”.

But enough of my green eyed monster, after my debacle with Adsense and discussions with colleagues and friends I’m hitting out on a new path.  It’s almost certainly more interesting talking about the mechanics and how well the idea performs than actually “doing it”.

 

Welcome to TheBookingSpot

Back in October I took a punt and registered a couple of domain names through my usual GoDaddy account and bound them to the basic GoDaddy Hosting.  TheBookingSpot.com and the back-end domain ReservationDestination.com are to be my little foothold into the multi billion dollar business that is Travel, and more specifically Whitelabel and Affiliate based Travel searching.  The potential here is pretty obvious.  I like travel, I like a good deal, and I have some ability to string together lumps of code into websites.

This way to revenue (Where to start)?

The first challenge was to work out a gimmick, an idea that would give me an enthusiasm for the project, and somewhat touch into my personal experiences.

I settled on a combination of trip-planning resources and Motorsport events around the world.  The idea is to utilise the motorsports draw-cards and help fans find flight and accommodation deals to get there by bringing the information they need into one place.  By pre-loading destination information, setting reasonable date ranges prospective travellers are able to quickly work out starting costs and go on from there.

My “experience” as a TripAdvisor user and Senior Contributor has taught me that more often than not people want to have their hands held when planning travel, they need to have dates suggested so they arrive in time, they need to be told where and when to go.  Condescending? Yes.  Fact? Yes.  So I’m trying to combine those elements.  Maybe I should sell reviews?  According to site sites there’s significant revenue opportunities (about USD20-40) per review by a Senior Contributor.  It’s probably a better paying option than this!

Whats it built on?

I’m a fan of WordPress, so I’m using that as the backend and linking together various tweaks and plug-ins to create a more specific experience.  Underpinning the revenue collection aspects will be “Whitelabel” arrangements and regular “Affiliate” programs.  To mop up other potential links etc I’ll continue to use Skimlinks as a catch-all engine to bolster income.

The second phase of the project is build a bit of a Community engine, a reason for people to come and stick to using the tools.  The recurring traffic and word-of-text promotion that will eventually reduce a dependency on paid advertising.

Why don’t you try a search right now 🙂

The Blogger Dream crushed by AdSense

It was in January I decided to share my amazement at how people could travel and live worldwide without a “real job”.

Then in August I shared my successes with the Adsense income I was generating through YouTube and a few other sites. By that point I was hitting around 7 cents a day. Not exactly rolling in the cashola.

So have I made it to the big leagues in the last 5 months?

In short, no, not even close.

Instead I’ve joined what seems like thousands of small volume bloggers and content producers who are dropped from the AdSense program by Google for some non-specified breach on the month a long earned payout threshold is reached.  That was it, I completed the review process trying to eek out a specific reason, but none was forthcoming.  could I have clicked on an Advert while watching on of my YouTube videos?  Maybe I wasn’t supposed to have Skimlinks running at the same time?

I just don’t know.

So guess I will have to move on from the easy wins of a passive advertising income until a viable replacement for AdSense crops up.  There are a few but lets just say I’m fussy and I also like the idea of finding a program with a lower payout threshold to be sure I don’t spend years driving clicks that someone is getting paid for only to never see my share.  You see that’s the real scam here, Google sold ads on my sites to advertisers for years, and do you think in 2014 they’re going to refund the advertisers who paid for displays on ausmicro.com back in the day?  Nope, so they win and I (and every other content producer) get screwed.  Not really impressed.

Screw you Google AdSense

The time has come to move on – it’s likely I won’t ever utilize a Google AdSense program as an advertiser or as a content producer, well definitely not as a content producer, supposedly once the account is locked it can’t be unlocked, but yet because its never deleted its a breach of their T&C to create another.

 

Oh well back to the “Get rich quick drawing board”

Build Your Own Formula1 Trip!

Formula1 is Expensive

No, it’s not, if you’ve followed a few of these posts you’ll have seen that I managed to get to the Formula1 in Malaysia for a very small cost, and am repeating again in 2015.

To highlight the low cost I’ve shamelessly “stolen”  one of the Trip-Ideas from TheBookingSpots Reservation Destination suggestions.  While the site is still under development the links do work and provide easy access to price quotes for airfares and accommodation ex-Australia (Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth, Canberra & Darwin).  You’ll still need to add in some tickets which are cheap when bought through Sepang Circuit direct.

If Malaysia isn’t your speed you can check out the costs for the first 6 races of the 2015 Season with the rest to come soon!

Malaysian Formula1 – Sepang International Circuit

27th-29th March 2015

The second race of the 2015 Formula1 season will challenge the durability of the cars in the Malaysian climate.  From searing heat to tropical rains the F1 circus faces it all!

Kuala Lumpur represents one of the most cost-effective races to attend with tickets available directly from Sepang Circuit at great prices, accommodation is plentiful and available to suit every budget.

Our quick search links below will help you find flights and accommodation for the Race, we’ve aimed to have you arrive a day or two before the F1 Friday practice sessions and fly out on the Monday after the race.  Naturally you can adjust these dates to add on some extra time for sightseeing!

Find a Flight

  • Flights from Sydney with Expedia
  • Flights from Brisbane with Expedia
  • Flights from Melbourne with Expedia
  • Flights from Adelaide with Expedia
  • Flights from Perth with Expedia
  • Flights from Canberra with Expedia
  • Flights from Darwin with Expedia

Book a Room

Pick a Package

  • Try a Flight & Accommodation Package from Sydney with Expedia
  • Try a Flight & Accommodation Package from Brisbane with Expedia
  • Try a Flight & Accommodation Package from Melbourne with Expedia
  • Try a Flight & Accommodation Package from Adelaide with Expedia
  • Try a Flight & Accommodation Package from Perth with Expedia
  • Try a Flight & Accommodation Package from Canberra with Expedia
  • Try a Flight & Accommodation Package from Darwin with Expedia

Be Safe with Travel Insurance

Get a Quote from InsureandGo

ausmicro.com Update – 29th November 2014

ausmicro_logo_with_car

With our first full month back online ending I thought I’d take the time to thank everyone for popping back and taking a look around.

While there haven’t been new posts in the Forums it’s obvious to see that the repository of technical information is still appreciated by many.

It’s great to see the Forums still being recognised as holding some of the best Mini-Z and Bit Char-G technical info online.

Myself, I haven’t been so active on the  Forums yet but I am still plugging away slowly behind the scenes working out how to restore some of the attached files and information that make this place what it is.

You can do your bit by sharing the news that ausmicro.com is back on other Forums.  Take it to social media or the streets!

Head over to the Forums to share what’s in your R/C Garage now, ask for tips, or post up about racing happening in your area.

How to Log On with your old Username

When we imported the Forums into the new BBPress system we reset all the passwords.  So to get your old username back you’ll need to use your Registered e-mail address on this page http://www.ausmicro.com/wp-login.php?action=lostpassword to have a new Password generated and e-mailed to you.

Site Updates

I have managed to find in old backups some of our early video contributions from the Bit-CharG days and have uploaded them to YouTube.  You’ll need to check our Forums for a link!

Over the end of year period I’m going to try and get all the old attachment files restored into the forums.  This will be a large amount of work but will be worth the effort as many and central to the quality of our technical posts.

Newsletters

I like to share the updates about bringing back ausmicro.com with all of the former members, and every few weeks I’ll be sending out updates like this.  If you feel I’m cluttering up your mail box there’s instructions on how to unsubscribe at the end of this e-mail.

I can’t wait to see you on the Forums

Home-brew Coffee Syrup

$20 isn’t much money in the scheme of things, but there comes a time when I would rather keep it than spend it.

Coffee Syrups are one of the things that I would rather not spend $20 on so I’ve started to experiment with some home-brew replacements that cost around $1 for the equivalent volume!

Vanilla Coffee Syrup

This is the easy one, it’s my wife favourite addition and the cause of this home-brewing.

In this instance we’re trying to replicate the flavour and sweetness of Davinci French Vanilla syrup that is most commonly used in Australian Cafes.

Get the sweetness right

All a coffee syrup is made of is sweeteners and flavours, to adjust sweetness you simply vary the amount of sugar in the mix.  The commercial product I’m trying to match is approximately 75% sugar.

The scientific way of doing this is to measure ingredients by weight rather than volume.  Naturally I didn’t do this and simply worked on a 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar mix.

As it turns out the 1:1 volume ratio gave the desired sugar content.

The flavour

This is the hard bit.  The commercial syrups will often use Vanilla essence rather than extract – and worse still they can use a completely artificial flavour!  You could do the same of course but the whole idea here is to make a more natural product as well as save money.

To that end I used a Vanilla Extract concentrate which is not cheap but meets with my tasters approval.

How much to add is the question, it’s personal taste sure but to match our commercial product we’ve found it takes 7.5 to 10ml of Vanilla Extract per 250ml of water/sugar.

So we now have a 1:1:2 relationship.  Thats:

1 Cup water
1 Cup Raw sugar
1.5-2 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract.

Alchemy

The last part of the operation is the brewing.  It turns out the most successful way of making this work is to slowly bring the sugar and water to the boil.  The solution will be initially cloudy.  There will be a scummy foam on the top.

Once it’s brought to the boil I allow it to simmer very slowly for at least 5 minutes.  Stir occasionally.  Over then time the liquid will become clear (although it will still be dark due to the sugars colour).

Once the liquid is clear, and there’s no scummy foam on top (and at least 5 minutes have passed) I turn off the heat and add the vanilla.  Stir the mix together and allow to cool to room temperature before decanting into a bottle for serving.

Vanilla Syrup
Vanilla Syrup – The slow simmer