[M_Six]

Holy crap, travel planning is a whole new ballgame now. Car rental, hotels, and airfare are all about double what they used to be pre-pandemic. Service has gone in the crapper. We used to use hotels.com for simple stays like traveling back east to see family. But that website is shit now and there is no way that I can find to speak with an actual human being. I just tried to reserve some rooms for a family event in MA and after filling out the whole webpage, I keep getting, "Sorry, we are unable to process your request, please try again in a few moments." And as I said, there's no way to call to find out WTF this all about.

Traveling from here to anywhere on the upper East Coast has always been a royal pain. But now with fewer flights, it's really bad. I certainly hope this is not the new normal. That will suck.

[Our03z4]

Time to break out a tent...that's what we are going to be doing.

[Nuckle]

We spent our summer at the lake house. No other trips and none planned until this shit gets back to normal.

[vreihen16]

Now you know why I'm looking to buy a Mercedes Sprinter and build my own simple RV for road trips.

The kicker is that our preferred travel hotel chain with OCD psycho dog now charges $25/night for a non-refundable pet fee when it was free before last year.....

[dreamingat30fps]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

Now you know why I'm looking to buy a Mercedes Sprinter and build my own simple RV for road trips.

The kicker is that our preferred travel hotel chain with OCD psycho dog now charges $25/night for a non-refundable pet fee when it was free before last year.....

Unfortunately RVing has gotten crazy. Even when we were doing it in the before times there were RV parks charging $100+ per night and good luck finding any state parks during peak seasons like winter in FL. We managed to get by without any real planning or pre-booking, but we definitely did not get the primo spots all the time.

You can set it up for boondocking but not many places for that on the east coast. We did enjoy it though and IMO it's the best way to travel.

I'm looking for a round trip flight from NC to FL for just a couple of days. I use to be able to book this for under $100 sometimes as low as $60 and this is just back in like March. Now cheapest I can find is around $200.

[F30lolz]

Originally Posted by Our03z4

Time to break out a tent...that's what we are going to be doing.

We’re KOA members and we either tent or cabin at least 10 times a year throughout various states. Tent sites with electric/water are about $35/night while cabins w/o bathroom can be as low as $60/night depending on location/season. We’re thinking about getting a pop up camper and see how that works for us.

OP, try booking.com or KOA if the great outdoors is something that might interest you. As for flights, we just drive all over the east coast/Midwest as we shuttle between Miami and Indy frequently 18 hours each way. I just stomach that drive all the time.

[tgrundke]

Inflation has moved from energy into services. If you think prices are bad now, considering that services "consumption" is still about 25% below peak in 2019, we've got a ways to go.

[Tommy-G]

Agreed, I think the anticipation of travel hassles has caused me to not even look and just stay around Florida.

One sight I do love for hotels is Hotels Tonight. It used to be you could only book for 3 days in advance or so but now you can go a few months. Downside is the room deals are limited to a dozen places depending on the city

Other than that, I never have a problem with Kayak

[2000cs]

I only shop for hotels using the hotel sites now. I start with Maps, looking for hotels in the general area that I want to stay, then checking ratings and comments for significant flaws. When I find a couple of options, I go to the hotel site and verify rates then book there. I have points with Marriott, Hilton and Choice so plenty of options and sometimes they treat me nice.

If I’m not on a hotel trip, like a vacation where I am multiple days in the same area, I use VRBO or just Google and find a lodge, inn, or house to rent.

Same for rental cars, flights, etc.

The aggregator sites for hotels, airfare, and rental cars just don’t work for me anymore either.

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by dreamingat30fps

You can set it up for boondocking but not many places for that on the east coast. We did enjoy it though and IMO it's the best way to travel.

I know where there's a lakeside tree farm in South Carolina that is just right for long weekend boondocking trips.....

[tdott]

Originally Posted by M_Six

Holy crap, travel planning is a whole new ballgame now. Car rental, hotels, and airfare are all about double what they used to be pre-pandemic.

Pretty much 100 correct%.

I had a tripped plan to do LA to Napa in March 2020.

Finally got to redo it this month, everything was pretty much double. $4xx for a week rental, vs $2xx pre-covid. All the hotels were pretty much double the price of the ones I booked before.

I have confirmation emails to prove it.

[M_Six]

The odd (and somewhat advantageous) thing is, the r/t flight from Indy to Boston and back was only about $200 more for 1st class, so easy choice. But that shows how pricey it is for even coach seats. The last time we flew to the UK from Chicago (2019), we flew Main Cabin Premium (or whatever they call it). I swear it was the former business class section. Nice wide seats with plenty of room, free drinks, and better meals. That cost us $3k r/t. If Wifey were going with me to Boston, we'd be looking at over $2k just for the flights for this trip. That's ridiculous.

[dreamingat30fps]

When we went to Spain in 2017 I believe the round trip was around $400. It was actually cheaper than going to CA because that's where we were planning to go originally. I have a google flights price alert on that same trip and I have not seen it lower than like $1300 and up over $2000. In coach.

[///MPhatic]

4 words:

There
Is
No
Staff

Everything is just crap these days because of it.