My Newest (and Best?) Giveaway Yet? Actual Money Courtesy of Bing Travel!

by Gary Leff

Bing travel wants to get your (and my) attention.

I’ll admit, I hadn’t paid them much mind before, I’m used to searching with ITA Software and with Kayak, booking directly through an airline site or with Expedia or Orbitz if need be. I often find that Orbitz is good for putting together complex multi-carrier itienraries, and depending on the carrier they may be updating inventory at a lag from other sites, so Expedia or Orbitz might be cheaper on any given itinerary on occasion.

So I was surprised to find that Bing seemed very much in the tradition of Kayak, the site I’ve recommended most often to non-experts for search for travel. Very good to know!

So how did they get my attention and now yours?

They’ve laid out their summer travel forecast and have quite an offer to promote it.

Here’s what they say about overall air and hotel pricing:

The average airfare to domestic destinations is up 22% from 2009 and 4% higher than 2008 fares, averaging $303 per ticket. But don’t kill the messenger – you can still save big with your hotel stay!

On average, premium hotel rates in domestic destinations are down 10% over 2009, averaging $166 per night. Choosing the right destination this summer could allow you to make up for higher airfares. Some destinations we recommend considering are Las Vegas, Seattle, San Francisco, Honolulu, San Diego, and New York City, where hotel rates are down considerably and can help reduce your overall trip cost.

And they actually provide some reasonable advice on booking summer travel, not the fanciful made up stuff that you get out of most commentators but advice on using alternate airports (and an implication would be add a train or European discounter segment if you need it) and to book the best deal you can now rather than waiting. Nothing new for the expert, but sound nonetheless for general guidance.

So what are they offering exactly? Money. Serioously. Bing-branded prepaid Mastercards. They’ve sent me 100 $15 cards. I’m going to package them as (20) prizes of 5 cards apiece. Which means there will be (20) winners receiving $75 each.

These prepaid Mastercards say “15 Dollars / Bag Fee on Bing.com” but I know many of my readers are elites whose baggage fees are waived. Use the cash for whatever you’d like.

Personally, I love keeping low-dollar prepaid cards around, for (1) free trial signup offers that require a credit card and (2) for testing out bidding on Priceline when I don’t want to play the incorrect security code trick. And I’ve also been known link debit cards to my Paypal account and shoot the balance over to my wife. Or just load up my Starbucks card.

There are (2) ways to enter:

  • Visit Bing’s summer travel forecast and post a comment here on this blog post answering the question where will you go this summer?. 15 winners will be chosen at random from these entries. Only one entry per person.

  • Follow @garyleff and @Fareologist on twitter and tweet
      RT this and follow @garyleff and @fareologist to win actual CA$H http://tinyurl.com/vftw-bing

    5 winners will be chosen at random from these entries. Only one entry per person.

Enter once using either or both methods no later than Tuesday, May 11 at noon Eastern time.

Very generous of the folks at Bing Travel, and as always I pass the goodies on to you!

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

More articles by Gary Leff »

Comments

  4. I plan to go to Fayetteville, NC and Long Beach, CA. At the end of Summer I’ll be going to Guam, USA too!

  6. I’m going to Rehoboth Beach in June (no volcanoes between here and the Delaware beaches!) and Boston in August. Thanks, Gary.

  9. I am going to Edinburgh as well. Not really cheap but will be a lot of fun.

  11. May: Casablanca, Morocco
    June: Paris, France
    July: London, United Kingdom

  13. LAS & PHX – but it’s a dry heat…
    MSP – it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity…

  15. I’m planning a trip to Colorado with the family in August! I’m sure there’ll be another trip or two thrown in there somewhere!

  19. Awesome! I’m going to New Hampshire in June, Seattle in July, and Massachusetts in August. Have a good summer!

  22. I’m going to NYC and Germany!

    Nice, is bing travel FARECAST or EXPEDIA? I have used farecast for about four years now, LOVED it, noticed the past tense. After being purchased by MSFT I think it has gone downhill and doesn’t work too well too often. bummer it was a GREAT product

  24. I will go to Portland Oregon, and maybe Seattle and Vancouver too! 🙂

  25. Thanks for the tip on keeping small gift cards around. It’s always nice to learn a new Priceline trick, even though I rarely use it these days.

    In addition to frequent trips to Atlanta, we’ll be going to Washington DC, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Boston, New York, Rio, Buenos Aires, Tampa, Stockholm, and Singapore.

  30. Tolpuddle, Dorset (UK) for the Martyrs’ Festival
    Cambridge (MA) & Montreal (CA) for conferences
    New Jersey (hi, Mom!)

  33. madrid and tuscany in june for a wedding, immediately followed by qingdao, china for work thru mid-july. diving in jamaica in august. steamboat for labor day wknd.

  35. Travelling to Prague w/ Mrs. Andyandy in BE courtesty of Delta Skypesos! Astounding!

  49. I am having a mellow travel year, with London and Nice being my only destinations.

Comments are closed.