ONLINE OPTIONS MAKE LUXURY GETAWAYS MORE ATTAINABLE.Byline: Marla Matzer Rose Correspondent If recent events caused you to rethink your travel plans for the next several months - making arrangements shorter-term or closer to home - you're not alone. War, the economy and SARS are among several factors that have wreaked havoc with the travel industry recently. This could be a perfect time to find good local travel values online. But without a specific hotel or destination in mind, searching the entire Web for travel can be intimidating in·tim·i·date tr.v. in·tim·i·dat·ed, in·tim·i·dat·ing, in·tim·i·dates 1. To make timid; fill with fear. 2. To coerce or inhibit by or as if by threats. and time-consuming. A longtime fan of online travel buys ourselves, we set out for a couple of days in April to see what kinds of ideas and deals we could find for May or June trips that were within a half-day's drive of Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. . You may not be able to find these exact deals anymore, but similar ones should still be available on the following sites. Besides seeking a reasonable drive from L.A., our criteria were that a package be for four nights or less and it cost less than $1,500. This ruled out several sites, including Site59.com and airline sites, which can offer good values on last-minute trips but usually only offer packages including air fare. We also avoided rock-bottom sites like Priceline.com, as we are not the adventurous type when it comes to purchasing travel: We want to know exactly what we're getting before we buy (Priceline doesn't tell you the name and exact location of a hotel until you agree to pay for it). Our first stop was Bid4Vacations.com. The upside Upside The potential dollar amount by which the market or a stock could rise. Notes: This is basically an educated guess on how high a stock could go in the near future. See also: Bull, Downside to this site: It offers very good rates and is easy to use. The drawback: Its offerings tend to be somewhat limited and restrictive, and tend to be heavy on cruises and condo rentals. We found one deal on Bid4Vacations that was very good and met our criteria. It was a three-night stay in a standard room with king bed at the Donatello Hotel, located one block from Union Square in the heart of San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden . We weren't familiar with the hotel, but it got good reviews on several sites we checked. A choice of two arrival dates was offered: May 15 or June 5, both Thursdays. In exchange for the lack of selection on dates, an attractive price was offered: $249 or $297, depending on the date one chose, plus a $14 booking fee. The rate didn't include San Francisco's 13.65 percent hotel tax - but it was approximately one quarter of the stated retail value of $990. Despite the name of the site, Bid4Vacations offers both auctions and instant-buy packages. This was one of the latter - no bidding required. We used the site to book a room at one of the most charming inns in New Orleans New Orleans (ôr`lēənz –lənz, ôrlēnz`), city (2006 pop. 187,525), coextensive with Orleans parish, SE La., between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, 107 mi (172 km) by water from the river mouth; founded a while back, and were pleased with the experience. Next we visited LuxuryLink.com. LuxuryLink's champagne offerings for folks on a house-wine budget have made it our favorite online travel site. Some of their packages are just too pricey Pricey Term used for an unrealistically low bid price or unrealistically high offer price. pricey Of, relating to, or being an unrealistically high offer. An offer to sell a security at $50 when the current market price is $47 is pricey. for us, but we've booked half a dozen trips on the site over the past few years for under $1,500, including first-class packages within California, in Seattle and in Vermont. The site itself is based in Los Angeles, and always seems to have a good selection of Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, and Southwest offerings at any given time. Our search turned up several attractive options on Luxury Link. At auction, a four-night package at the SunBurst Resort in Scottsdale, Ariz. went for about $750, including tax and service charges (Luxury Link adds its own $15 auction handling fee). The stay included breakfast for two each day, an additional $100 dining credit and a couple of other perks perk 1 v. perked, perk·ing, perks v.intr. 1. To stick up or jut out: dogs' ears that perk. 2. To carry oneself in a lively and jaunty manner. ; the closing price was roughly half the stated retail value. Four other packages including accommodations and breakfast were available through Luxury Link at special prices, with no bidding. One-night stays at the Carriage House Inn in Carmel-by-the-Sea and the Hotel La Jolla La Jolla (lə hoi`yə), on the Pacific Ocean, S Calif., an uninc. district within the confines of San Diego; founded 1869. The beautiful ocean beaches, in particular La Jolla shores and Black's Beach, and sea-washed caves attract visitors and in San Diego San Diego (săn dēā`gō), city (1990 pop. 1,110,549), seat of San Diego co., S Calif., on San Diego Bay; inc. 1850. San Diego includes the unincorporated communities of La Jolla and Spring Valley. Coronado is across the bay. were $299 and $199, respectively. A two-night getaway including a his-and-hers massage and a bottle of champagne at La Casa La casa (Spanish for The House) is a 1954 novel by Manuel Mujica Laínez. It tells the story of a family living in a stately Buenos Aires mansion from the heyday of Argentina's oligarchy in the 1880s to some time in the post-1946 period, the era of Peronist populism, del Zorro zorro: see fox. Zorro masked swordsman, defender of weak and oppressed. [Am. Lit.: comic strip (1919); Am. Cinema: Halliwell, 794; TV: Terrace, II, 461–462] See : Disguise in Borrego Springs was $915. The swank new St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort & Spa in Dana Point offered three nights for $1,035. A few general hints: If you like to be on the lookout for in search of; looking for. See also: Lookout travel ideas, sign up for e-mail updates from several sites. In addition to Luxury Link and Bid4Vacations, we get regular e-mails from AccommodationSpecials.com (offering promotional deals around the country, including frequent Las Vegas Las Vegas (läs vā`gəs), city (1990 pop. 258,295), seat of Clark co., S Nev.; inc. 1911. It is the largest city in Nevada and the center of one of the fastest-growing urban areas in the United States. packages) and several hotel chain sites. Speaking of hotel sites, it's always a good idea to do a little research on a hotel you're not familiar with before buying one of these packages, as they're almost always nonrefundable. Fodors.com and Frommers.com offer good supplements to the information you can get from a hotel's own site. Another good resource is TripAdvisor.com, a clearinghouse with links to Fodors, Frommers and other free travel-information sites. Most hotel sites offer their own specials, so compare those to any others before buying. Which leads us to the final point: Read the fine print carefully. Most packages have restrictions such as no holiday periods, and some black out all weekends (none of the above packages did, however). Almost all expire within a year of purchase, and some are good for a much shorter window of time. But after you've done your homework and read the rules, relax. Even for novices, these sites are a safe and fun way to get great deals. |
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