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American Morning
Last Minute Memorial Day Travel Booking Tips
Aired May 21, 2002 - 08:47 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: All right. We decided to get some Memorial Day travel booking tips for those of you who have waiting this long to decide to go some place.
And to help get you in the mood, we asked the question before the break, what is the best day of the week to call if you want to get a discounted airline ticket? It turns out Wednesday is the day when the airlines tend to drop their prices. So that's when you should make your call. And if you've procrastinated this long, you might as well wait one more day and call tomorrow and you can make your reservations.
For the unofficial start of summer this weekend, AAA says there will be 35 million of us Americans traveling more than 50 miles from our homes, by plane, train and automobile. If you haven't made any travel plans, even at this late date, no problem, according to our next guest.
This morning, we have some expert advice to help you book a last- minute Memorial Day getaway. Heidi Sherman Mitchell is the associate editor of "Travel and Leisure" magazine.
Nice to have you with us.
HEIDI SHERMAN MITCHELL, "TRAVEL AND LEISURE" MAGAZINE: Nice to be here.
CAFFERTY: You have some destinations for the last-minute traveler that you've picked out. Let's take a look at a list of places you suggest might be a good place to go. Why these particular places? Vail, Vegas, Washington. What is it about them that makes them amenable to a last-minute traveler?
MITCHELL: Well, they tend to have availability for one, and for another, the Travel Industry Association puts out this wish list every summer of where prospective travelers want to go, and all these destinations were on that list.
CAFFERTY: LaJolla, California, what's there?
MITCHELL: Wind and Sea Beach, those popular rides by the Pumphouse Gang (ph), and it's a classic surfer town. They had the first Polynesian hut there on the coast, so. CAFFERTY: If I'm a last-minute traveler, one of the things, if I decided to go someplace, I might be inclined to do is go to the Internet. There are travel sites on the Internet, discounted sites, travelagency.com and all of -- is that a good idea? And if so, what about these particular Web sites? Why are they a cut above the other?
MITCHELL: Well, hoteldiscounts, start with that one, consolidates all the cheap hotel rooms for destinations all across the country. So you can actually find your price range, for the type of hotel you're looking for, and book that. It's not like a price thing where you pick a category and a price and go for it.
Lastminutetravel.com, 11thhourvacations.com and digitalcity.com, all of them consolidate entire trips. So it's really, you don't have to think that much about it. You just pick a destination or a type of a trip, and they'll pick -- hotels and airfare, coming together with a whole entire package for you.
CAFFERTY: Can you really save that much money using these Web sites?
MITCHELL: You really can save a lot of money. You can save hundreds of dollars, in fact. And sometimes when you book your airfare at the last minute, it's really costly, and if you do it through a consolidator like 59.com (ph) or tripp.com, they can just find better much deals, they buy those sits in bulk and sell them to you at a discount.
CAFFERTY: How much of a different between using a Web site and a conventional travel agent? I mean, can't they find me a deal as well?
MITCHELL: You know, you should call a travel agent as well. If you really want the cheapest price that you can find, you should use all your resources. You can even check the Sunday paper if you still have it. You can go to smarterliving.com, which consolidates all those Wednesday weekend fares, and you should call a travel agent who might have access to some deals you can't see online or might have good relationships with cruise operators or hotels and be able to get you a better deal.
CAFFERTY: The travel agent, though, likely will say, hey, why did you wait so long? Memorial starts in 48 hours, what do you want from me? I'm not a magician here, I'm a travel agent.
MITCHELL: And they pull something out of their hat anyway.
CAFFERTY: Talk to me about a family that may decide they want to go. At the last minute, they say, let's just put the kids in the car and head out for three days and mom and dad maybe have Monday off. And budget ideas, how do I do it on a short dollar?
MITCHELL: One thing you can consider doing is renting a condo or a house instead of saying at a conventional hotel. Usually, they tend to book up like from Cape Cod down the Cape Mann (ph), the eastern seaboard; they tend to book up by the fall. But this summer, because of all the uncertainty in the economy, and in the world in general, people didn't really book so many, so there tend to be a lot of openings. I just booked a Cape Cod house for about $1,000 for a week.
CAFFERTY: Well, that's cheap, right?
MITCHELL: Which is usually around $3,500.
CAFFERTY: Is that for just the weekend?
MITCHELL: It's for the whole week.
CAFFERTY: When are you going?
MITCHELL: I'm not going until the weekend.
CAFFERTY: Number two on the list, visit friends and relatives. Please don't call my house. I don't want to see you. Go somewhere else for the three day weekend. Those are things you can do to save a few dollars.
MITCHELL: Yes, stay with friends, stay with family, you can travel with other friends, rent a house together, three bedroom condo for $1,000, 300 bucks a couple.
CAFFERTY: That's Not bad at all.
MITCHELL: Not bad at all.
CAFFERTY: Where are the destinations to maybe avoid this late? If you waited this long, where are your chances maybe not as good?
MITCHELL: Well, Miami Beach is completely booked. This summer, it is the hot destination.
CAFFERTY: The whole summer...
MITCHELL: Well, this weekend, but, yes, this summer...
CAFFERTY: Even though that's considered the off season, they're still booked up?
MITCHELL: Right. They have all kinds of music festivals and things going on. So the hotels, they're full.
CAFFERTY: What's happened down there that suddenly it has this cache?
MITCHELL: There's just these amazing hotels, vibrant night life, and I think everyone's caught on to this sort of crazy...
CAFFERTY: Great people watching, too.
MITCHELL: A lot of skin.
CAFFERTY: Yes, going back to a theme we were exploring earlier in the program. Where else besides Miami would you maybe not want to waste your time looking? MITCHELL: One thing you would think you would want to avoid is major cities. But actually, a lot of Americans this summer are not wanting to go to cities. If you are looking for bargains, you can still go to D.C., you can go to New York City, Los Angeles, length, and there's still availability, great for families.
After September 11th, everything, prices came down very quickly. Have they recovered and come back yet?
The flights are not full, but the prices are high. They're trying to make their money back by charging more for each seat. It's hard to find deals out there but they're definitely out there.
CAFFERTY: Heidi, nice to see you. Associate editor of "Travel and Leisure" magazine. Appreciate you being with us.
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