Lazy Man and Money

Aww Phuket, I’m Outta Here

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phuket-beach.jpgThere comes a time, where you’ve just had enough. I think my wife and I have reached that point. So we decided to take some time off and say Phuket… …… Phuket Beach in Thailand that is. We are going vacation this September. If you read my posts a few weeks ago about military travel and my lust for the Asus Eee as a travel computer, you may have already connected the dots.

We didn’t set out to go to Phuket. We actually were expecting to go to Australia for 2-3 weeks. When we looked at things a little more, we found a few ways to maximize our savings on what will be a three week-long trip, such as:

  • Hawaii – Using nearly free military vacations, we’ll fly there from Travis Air Force Base for free. They go almost everyday and very often multiple times per day, so this should be easy. From there we’ll stay at the Hale Koa for $100 a night or possibly stay on base, while we try to get to Australia for free via the military.
  • Australia – We have tickets from Hawaii to Australia that we paid for, but if we can fly via the military we’ll pay a small fee and use the tickets next year (perhaps to go to Tahiti). If we can’t fly via the military we’ll just fly to Australia as is.
  • Thailand – From Australia we’re paying out of pocket to get to Phuket beach. We’ll use our Marriott timeshare in Aruba and stay at a deluxe Marriott. We lucked out because we are able to trade a one bedroom for a two bedroom for the week. This means that we can bank our other bedroom in the timeshare or sell it off. (If anyone is ever interested in a deluxe place to stay in Aruba feel free contact me.)
  • Australia (part 2) – We’ll head back to Australia where we’ll spend a week in Sydney using Marriott points. We’d like to spend more time and see more of the country, but I don’t think we’ll have the time with my wife’s work
  • Back to the US – We’re paying again to fly from Australia to Hawaii. If the military is going back, we’ll try to hitch a free ride with them and execute the Tahati plan. Once in Hawaii, we’ll get on one of the many military flights and go back to California, where we drive home.

This vacation overall is going to cost us a pretty penny. Flying to Australia, even from Hawaii, is not cheap. Continuing to Thailand as well isn’t cheap. Still, we should be able to reduce the expenses of this trip in half thought the short-cuts outlined above. Well, that’s not really true since we had to buy the timeshare, but that’s paid off in full at this time.

Lastly, now you know why I was so gung-ho for the 2-pound Asus EEE laptop that I bought. I’m only a little sad that it’s already obsolete as Asus has put out about 3 or faster and better machines.

Photo Credit: pete4ducks

Military: Save Money With (Almost) Free Vacations

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toy-plane.jpgMy wife is active duty military – and with that comes a number of perks. One of those great military benefits is a significant savings on vacations via flights, hotels, and car rentals. Eighteen months ago we went to Hawaii at a cost of half what others would expect to pay. On Saturday, I found out how it would have been even cheaper if I did a little more planning. Today, I’d like to share some of the ways to save money with nearly free vacations – but remember, you may need to be in the military to take advantage of them.

Cheap Military Hotels

Navy Lodge – This is usually our first choice to stay wherever we travel. In the summertime, Newport, Rhode Island is an extremely popular vacation destination with some hotels starting at $400/night. A room, just as good, in an arguably better location, at the Navy Lodge is $75. The rooms are big enough to do cartwheels in and come with a kitchenette (refrigerator, stove, microwave, etc.)

Special Military Housing

  • When we went to Hawaii, we stayed at the Hale Koa, a military hotel that I would rate with the best I’ve ever been to. It’s about $100/night – which is a bargain compared to the $300/night hotels on the left and right of you. Plus, it’s the only place you can go to a luau hosted by Glenn Medeiros – sing after me, “Nothing’s gonna change my love for you. You outta know by now…”
  • If you prefer to go to Walt Disney World, you might want to check out Shades of Green. I’ve never stayed there, but prices look to be around $110/night for a prime location on Walt Disney World Resort.
  • While it’s not a hotel, there’s a small place on Martha’s Vineyard that, with extensive planning and luck, can be had for cheap as well. We hadn’t been able to book there before we moved to San Francisco. I wish I had more details, but I couldn’t find anything published on the Internet about it.

Camping and RV Parks – There are a lot of military camping sites available and Military Campgrounds does a very good job of detailing them. I’ve been looking at the Petaluma campsite as a cheap place to stay on a weekend of wine tasting in Sonoma Valley. Reading reviews with comments like this really sealed the value for me, “The food at the dining facility is still great, although now the rates went up five cents! All you can eat for lunch or dinner for $3.55.”

Space-A: Fly For Free

The military has a program that allows people to fly to many places in the world for free. It’s called the Space Available program, but is commonly referred to as Space-A. If it sounds too good to be true, in many case it is. There are two reasons why we hadn’t pursued this option in the past:

  • We didn’t know how it worked. No one at my wife’s job had ever tried to fly Space-A and couldn’t really share how it works. This past weekend I spent a lot of time reading John D’s Space-A FAQ. It takes some time to understand the jargon and common acronyms.
  • You can’t book a flight You show up at the terminal and “hope” that there a plane available, that it’s going where you want, and that there is space for you on the plane. Due to 9/11 restrictions, it’s often not published in advance where and when planes are scheduled to go. We found that the Pepperd message boards flight schedule information is very helpful for determining where planes are likely to go. For instance, we found that planes leave Travis, about 45 minutes from us, and go to Hawaii nearly every day. A few times a month, they continue through to Australia. This can be a savings of $3000 for the two of us – or it could be a nightmare or waiting and lost vacation time.

Car Rentals

Civilians can find many deals on car rentals. However, we’ve found that booking through the military gets us a better deal than any of out other connections. Usually it’s around $30 a day from Hertz for the cheapest – but they always bump us up a class for free.

Photo Credit: Yogi