$22.50 Off Any Hotel, Flight, or Rental Car

I came by a post on Flyertalk that mentioned a discount at the German AMEX travel website. Apparently, all you have to do is enter the promo code "jetztamex" at check out for a 20 Euro ($22.50 USD) discount on any booking. This has the most value for areas with low cost hotel rooms. 

I checked it out myslef, I found that the promo code work even when the hotel night only costs $24. My total cost after the discount was less than $1. Many of these deals have a minimum cost for a book like $50 or $100. This promo code does not require any minimum price. You have to use an American Express credit card to get the deal. I'm getting ready to try some bookings for an upcoming trip I have to Thailand. Check it out!  Let me know what success you have.

IHG Hotel Point Breaks

IHG stands for Intercontinental Hotels Group. IHG Point Breaks

Last Week, IHG (Intercontinental Hotel Group) released its newest list of Point Breaks. Point Breaks are a selection of hotels that can be had for just 5,000 points per night. Many of these hotels regularly cost 30,000 points.

You may not be aware of the IHG rewards program, but the Point Breaks can be a great reason to sign up for Chase IHG Rewards Club Visa credit card. 

The Chase IHG Rewards Club Visa credit card is often touted as one of the best hotel credit cards available.

I was able to use my points on Point Breaks for a four night stay in at the Intercontinental Mendoza in Mendoza, Argentina. I visited with my parents for four nights. We had two different rooms. The cost was just 5,000 Priority Club points per night. The regular points rate is 25,000 points per night. Over the four night stay in two rooms we saved 140,000 points by paying just 40,000 points total for the two rooms for four nights versus 200,000 points. We also received free breakfast for all of us because of the IHG Platinum status that came with the Chase IGH Rewards Club Select Visa credit card.

   

If you wanted to maximize the points you received from the Chase IHG Rewards  Club Select Visa credit card and only use them for Point Breaks, you could get 12 free nights from this one credit card.

There are many other good value hotels in the IHG program. This winter I am planning on a ski vacation to Whistler, BC. There is a HolidayInn that only charges 15,000 points per night for a suite.

This website shares how you can buy 5,000 Priority club points for $35 with this workaround. You do need to have at least 10,000 Priority Club points in your account already to use this trick. 

How I Find the Best Deals on Budget Hotels

In 2014 I spent more than 100 nights in different hotels and guest houses in five different countries. Most of these nights were in budget hotels and guesthouses. If you want to know how to find a good deal on a budget hotel or guesthouse when traveling I am somewhat of an expert in that area and I want to impart some of what I have learned and the methods that I use.

The internet has come along way in the last five years. When I first started traveling internationally in 2007 I would usually use my guidebook and walk door to door once I arrived in a city to find a guesthouse or hotel. Now you will find that even many of the small guesthouses are listed on hotel booking sites. As a result, I now almost always book ahead when traveling to a new city even when I am backpacking for extended periods of time.

The largest directory of hotels in the world with more than 507,000 hotels listed worldwide is booking.com. I always include booking.com in my hotel searches. This is because it is one of the largest hotel booking sites with lots of reviews and includes most of the properties in the area with exception of a few hostels and AirBnB listings which I will get to later. The booking.com website also has one of the best property filters available so you can sort on geographic area within a city, price, review score, accommodation type, and many other factors.

The next site that I always include in my hotel searches is Hotels Combined. This site is very popular with people looking for mistake rates, but also includes results from all of the major hotel search engines as well as many smaller websites. Hotels Combined does a great job of  comparing the prices between different websites.

A third website that is still in Beta is called All the Rooms. This site is really growing on me as I only recently started to use it. This website claims itself as The World's Most Comprehensive Room Search Engine. This website also includes listings from AirBnB so you do not have to open that site separately if you use All the Rooms.

AirBnB has become very popular recently. On AirBnB you kind find individuals renting out there own spaces. This includes private rooms, studios, entire apartments and even houses. You can find some pretty great value on this site. I have used AirBnB one time when I went to Oktoberfest in Germany. My friends were staying in a hostel dorm room with 7 other people and paying 70 Euro a night per person. My girlfriend and I were able to find a private room with easy access to the event for 70 Euro for both of us. It worked out great!

If you are interested in checking out AirBnB use my referral link: AirBnB and you will get $25 off your first booking of $75 or more.

I generally start all my searches filtering on price. I do not necessarily stay in the cheapest place available, but it is a good starting point to know what the cheapest place available will get you and how much the cheapest place available costs. From there I look at reviews, location, amenities, etc.. To find the best place within my budget. If you utilize these sites, you will definitely find the best price for the hotel you are looking at. Another piece of advice is to go directly to the hotels website once you have identified your best option. I have found that in some cases the hotels website offers a cheaper rate than is posted on major hotel search engines. This is especially true of smaller hotels and guesthouses.