In our ongoing quest to attend as many cons as humanly possible (that’s your ongoing quest, too, right?), today we’re going to talk about how to get there without breaking the bank! Ready? Set? Go!
Choosing a Con
How and why you choose a convention will have a lot of bearing on the cost, or rather, how willing you are to fork over the cash. If you’re going to a convention as a fan, to cosplay, and to see your favorite guests, a high expenditure may not be as worthwhile for you when compared with going to a convention for personal or professional development.
As an example, I’m much more willing to spend extra money for a convention with a great writing track (classes and panels about actual writing, not just authors) than I am a convention that is strictly about meeting famous folks.
So know your goals.
A simple way to limit costs is to set a distance limit. Decide how far away you’re willing to go from home and then just look at conventions within that perimeter. Driving four hours (assuming you have reliable transportation), taking a train, or taking a bus will be less expensive than flying, in most cases.
Getting There
I generally either drive or fly to events. While I would love to take the train, it’s just not usually convenient to use from where I live. But if it’s convenient for you, definitely consider it as an option.
Often, a train ticket is about the same price as a plane ticket, which can make it seem like a waste when you consider how much more quickly a plane gets you somewhere. But there are some things to look at.
Flying is often lost time (for me anyway). You lose at least an hour, but more often two, because you have to arrive early enough to check bags and get through the mess that is always the TSA. The airlines pack us into the big metal tube so tightly, if you so much as twitch, you’re just about sitting on your neighbor’s lap. And most laptops cannot be used on tray tables anymore because there is so little room between seats that the amount of space only lets you have your laptop open. It doesn’t let you actually see the screen effectively, let alone type on the keyboard.
On a train, you’ve got a lot more room; there is usually access to electrical outlets, often free wifi, plus there’s almost always a dining car where you can get real(ish) food and sit at an actual table. So if you’ve got the time for the travel, you might consider a train.
Driving
Driving probably gives you the most flexibility. You can bring whatever you can cram into your car. But be careful. Because you can bring whatever you can cram into your car. 😉
If I’m driving, I pretty much always over-pack. That’s fine if you’ve got a room on your own. If you’re sharing with one or more people, it’s gonna get a little cramped. Be mindful of your roomies.
When driving, you’ll want to consider the cost of gas, distance, any tolls along the way, mileage, and wear and tear on your car. If your car gets bad gas mileage, you might consider renting a car. I’m gonna share a quick hack to get cheaper car rentals.
Renting a Car
As you’re reading this, I am currently driving to NJ for a convention. That’s a 14-hour drive for me. I would normally fly at that distance, but I’m visiting a friend along the way (which also means getting a hotel room on the way there and back). I decided to rent a car for this trip. In part because, while my car is in pretty good shape, it has 135,000 miles on it already. No sense tempting fate. (The other part is that we’re a one-car family and I didn’t want to leave hubs without a car for a week. I’m all considerate like that. 😉 )
I scored a good deal. Renting a full-size car from Hertz (arguably one of the most expensive rental companies) for a week with unlimited miles is costing me $220. That’s the same price as a regular economy or compact rental. It also turned out to be better with gas mileage (30mpg) than the others.
Here’s how I did it:
I have 15,000 points in my Marriott account, which is about enough for one free night at many Marriott properties (two, if you can catch a special, which I couldn’t *sadface*). Since I needed a room both on the way there and on the way back, in the same place, I looked for the cheapest room I could find on the Marriott site, which was $89/night or 10,000 points. (I promise we’re getting to the car. Stick with me.)
I decided to pay money on the way up and use points on the way home. I booked the first night and the total was about $99 after all the crazy taxes they throw in. On the confirmation page, they had partner deals. Marriott happens to partner with Hertz and they offered a code for a car rental that gave 30% off weekly rates on a full-size vehicle plus 5000 Marriott points.
…Shop around to make sure you’re getting the best deal.
I did some shopping around (particularly Enterprise, which is often the cheapest of the national car rental companies), but that was a really good deal and I was especially drawn by the 5,000 Marriott points, since I was going to be blowing 10,000 on the return hotel room. That basically gives me a 50% discount off the return hotel room, plus I still get points on the room night I’m paying for. Definitely jumped on that! 🙂
You might not be a Marriott person. Maybe you like cheaper rooms; maybe you like more fancy rooms. Either way, sign up for the hotel’s points program, no matter what sort of hotel or motel you prefer.
This is just an example of how to get things cheaper. This also goes for when you book flights; you’ll often get a deal for a hotel or a car on your confirmation page. Pay attention to it, but also shop around to make sure you’re getting the best deal. Also remember that AAA and AARP offer discounts at most hotels and car rental companies, and military folks often get good reduced rates too.
In the Air
So, let’s talk about flying for a minute. The downside to flying is, of course, that you have to limit what you bring (which isn’t always a bad thing!); you’ll lose some time to the TSA, and you’ll likely be somewhat uncomfortable for the duration of the flight. There’s also the chance of delay or cancellation, as well as lost bags.
The one benefit to flying (because I really do think there’s only one) is that it is usually, of course, the fastest way to travel, even factoring in the extra time for security, waiting on bags, etc. So whether you fly or drive really comes down to comparing cost and time and deciding what’s most important to you.
For my trip to NJ, a flight would have cost about $300, so with my $220 car and my $100 hotel room, plus, say, $75 in gas, I’m really only spending about $100 more than if I flew and I have the convenience of having a vehicle on site if I need it. So that calculus worked for me for this particular convention. Especially since it’s possible the con will reimburse my gas, since I’m teaching four classes for them. (We’ll cover that sort of thing in another post 😉 ).
Saving Time and Money When Flying
Time and hassle are things I always want to save myself. If you can afford $85 every five years, signing up for TSA’s Pre-Check is 100% worth the money. Pre-Check members get their own special TSA line, apart from the unwashed masses (as long as it’s open — I had a 6am flight once and had to get to the airport so early that Pre-Check wasn’t open yet). You also don’t have to take off your shoes or take your electronics or your liquids out of your bag.
I signed up for TSA Pre-Check early last year because I knew I was going to be doing a lot of air travel. Every single time I’ve used the Pre-Check line, I’ve gotten in and out in six minutes or less. Six minutes. And that’s from the moment I hit the back of the line until I left the security area with my bags.
I decided it had paid for itself after that very first trip. No stress, no hassle. Also, if you book two tickets on the same reservation, I discovered that your companion also gets Pre-Check. I was surprised and it may not always happen, but it’s happened both times I’ve flown with someone so far.
If you know you’re going to be doing international travel in the next few years, you might want to opt for Global Entry, which is slightly more expensive at $100. You still get to use the Pre-Check lines, but this gives you the added benefit of moving more quickly through customs upon reentry to the country.
Because I’m Cheap
I hate paying a lot of money for anything, unless it’s really worth it. Most things aren’t really worth it and plane tickets are definitely not. I recently got my husband and myself two round trip tickets from Atlanta to Chicago for $300. Total, for both. I once got a flight for my dad from Chicago to Atlanta and back for $65. Again, total, roundtrip. I’m cheap.
I thought I’d share some tools I use to keep the cost of flying down as low as possible.
First, I always check Southwest Airlines. Obviously if Southwest doesn’t fly to your city, you can skip this step. But Southwest is often the least expensive of the major carriers and they don’t nickle and dime you to death. And many times, the legacy airlines drop their prices to meet Southwest’s, so if you’d rather fly Delta or one of the others (perhaps you’ve got more points with them), checking Southwest might give you a heads-up for lower fares coming.
You get two free checked bags on Southwest, so if you’re bringing a lot of costumes or other things for your convention, it may be worth it just to not pay $25-50 for a checked bag. But you have to check their site directly, as Southwest does not allow any of the aggregate sites (like Expedia) access to their information.
Always factor in the cost of your bags, of choosing a seat, of getting a row with better leg room, etc. If you can do your convention with just a carry-on bag (weirdo!), you might look into one of the really low-budget airlines, like Frontier or Spirit. But usually if you’ve got a checked bag and a carry-on, the extra charges for those things end up bringing the cost of the ticket up to what you’d pay on Southwest or often the other legacy carriers, so definitely crunch those numbers.
Next, you’ll want to get an idea of how much the tickets are for your trip at the moment, so do a quick search on a few of the big travel sites, like Expedia or Travelocity. I don’t usually book through these (though I do sometimes), but they’re good to get an idea of what the cost is.
Then, go to Momondo.com. Momondo is the absolute best for seeing how the cost of your ticket changes over time and getting an idea of what days are the best to travel for your particular route. It gives you a cool little graph where you can see the price fluctuations.
And if you change your departure date, you’ll also get to see how tricky the airlines are, as the return flight’s prices will change based on when you fly out. It’s sort of depressing, but you can at least get an idea of what the ticket usually costs, so then you’ll know when you’re getting a good deal.
Momondo isn’t the only site with useful info. Hipmunk is a good one that I use regularly, as well. You can set up price notifications so they’ll let you know when the price drops or, in some cases, goes below a desired amount that you set. I also use Hopper on my phone for this.
Hopper has the added benefit of letting you know whether they think the price will go up or down in the future. This is really handy, because sometimes it might seem like a price is really good, but historically, that flight has gotten cheaper but we have no real way to know that without doing a lot of work. Hopper does that work for us.
Once you find your flight for a good price, you’re going to want to book it. Before you do that though, make sure you’ve signed up for that airline’s frequent flyer points system. There are some great ways to save money on travel so you want to get points whenever you can.
I’m not going to go into those sorts of things, as it would be a whole other series of posts, and there are some fantastic sites that already put all that information out there. I’m not a big fan of reinventing the wheel. If you’re interested in maximizing your travel points, definitely check out The Points Guy.
Also, make sure you’ve signed up for Ebates. It’s an affiliate system that shares the profit with you by way of rebates they send to you via PayPal (or paper check, but who does those anymore?).
When I booked my room at the Marriott for this trip to NJ, I did it through the Ebates link and will get 1.5% cash back. While few of the big-name US airlines have rebates on the site, the aggregate sites like Expedia, Priceline, and Travelocity have some big discounts — 7%, 10%, etc. So that could factor into your flight number-crunching. There are a few of the major hotel chains and almost all the big car rental companies on Ebates. Just remember that you don’t get credited for the rebate until after the travel is complete.
The cool thing about Ebates is that many of the places we just normally shop at online have rebates through them. I’ve saved a lot of cash over the years. I use their extension for Chrome, otherwise I forget to go through them. 😉
Whew! So there we go! Some advice on how to travel as cheaply as possible. Next month, we’ll tackle where to stay and how to do that cheaply too! We’ll discuss the debate between staying at the host hotel or staying somewhere nearby that’s cheaper.
What do you do to save money on travel?
Flight resources I mentioned and an extra bonus one:
Southwest
Momondo
Hipmunk
Skyscanner
Hopper
Unless attributed otherwise, all images are CC0 licensed.
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