Booking flights & hotels - or places to stay in Costa Rica Part 2

This is just a quick post to help those who use internet booking tools to make the most of their money. I book everything through the internet and we travel a lot. I've saved hundreds of dollars doing it myself. I realize some of you reading this post will know all of this info but for those who don't, here are my top 4 tips:

1. Use kayak.com to find the best flights then book directly from their recommendations-they allow you to even specify the times you would like to fly on a sliding scale. They also show you the best days of the week to fly to your destination
http://www.kayak.com/

2. Always clear your cookies (and cache) before each search or booking. Trust me on this one. It makes a HUGE difference. Just the other day my Mom was booking a flight to Calgary. She found a flight for $413 on Kayak via Frontier Airlines. I verified the flight included taxes when she called to discuss it with me. When she went to book it, the price jumped to over $1000. I suggested she clear her cookies and sure enough she booked the flight for the original quoted price.

3. Make sure you join the reward program for all airlines and hotel chains -some of them can be interchanged now so you can almost always find a way to redeem them. I just booked an entire week in Milwaukee (for Summerfest) at the Radisson for free using Gold Points.

4. Check the hotel reviews on Trip Advisor - remember that not everyone has the same expectations so read as many reviews as possible and take each one with a grain of salt. Averaging them out should give you a good idea of what to expect.
http://www.tripadvisor.com/