Travel Planning Tips
1. Check out www.tripadvisor.com for first-hand advices from other travelers, especially on the hotel you are planning to stay. Alternate site is www.travelpost.com.
2. Price check: www.kayak.com will check multiple airline simultaneously.
3. For last minute deals (this and next weekend), check out: www.site59.com. You may be able to get a good combo-deal (flight + hotel) or hotel + car.
4. Check in on-line via your airline site (usually 24-hour before your trip) and print your boarding passes. (Southwest airline you have can do it after midnight, also from mobile phone: mobile.southwest.com). You can usually pick or change your seats (sometimes exit row seat with more leg room). A good site to check where the good airplane seats are is www.seatguru.com.
5. Some other travel sites that may have good deals: www.hotels.com, www.travelocity.com, www.expedia.com, www.orbitz.com, etc.
6. Use Google maps to view the area you will be staying or touring: maps.google.com.
7. Sometimes you will get a fantastic deal at www.priceline.com. The key is to pick a higher class hotel (3 stars +) and select the area you want. Remember, you can only bid once, and once it’s accepted, priceline will automatically charged your credit card. Also, you will not get any frequent-stay point at that hotel.