My wife and I were planning on accompanying my brother and soon to be sister-in-law to the Big Island of Hawaii in June, and as a result I did quite a bit of planning for the trip. Being cost efficient is important to all of us, but making sure we end up with decent accommodations at a good value is possibly even more important.

I thought I would document my search methodology in case it helped others to find and book their travel online. Please note that I am very meticulous when it comes to travel planning. I’m picky about where I stay, how I get there, and want to know what I’m going to do while I’m there. I even make printouts and carry a small binder with me. Anal, I know… but it works for me.
Read the rest of this entry »

Everyone has been driven crazy by a poorly staffed call center, sitting behind a horrible Interactive Voice Response Unit (IVRU) while calling a service provider like the phone company, cable company, government office or technical support. Well, help has now arrived.

Paul English, the CTO of Kayak.com, decided to build a site to help people get through to a real human after one such frustrating call. The result is GetHuman.com.
Read the rest of this entry »

As previously mentioned, I’ve been using Kayak for travel planning for some time now, but I actually just discovered a new feature that is one of, if not the, best tools I’ve yet seen for helping to plan vacations that involve air travel.

The Kayak Buzz section offers a very cool, Google Map enabled shopping comparison tool which overlays destinations onto a regional or world map. The site lists the top deals for any given period of time and generally helps you decide where to go on vacation.
Read the rest of this entry »

It’s true. There is nothing like making a few $Hundred grand a year. But almost as good is buying stuff for half what its worth!

So, being the excellent consumer I am, The Man has compiled a list of 8 great tips for saving loads of cash. I’m not being paid a dime to make these recommendations, I’m just sharing a bunch of services which have saved me a cumulative ton of money in the past.
Read the rest of this entry »