I am a WWW baby. For almost all my travel needs, I am greatly dependent on what the World Wide Web has to offer. At the click of my mouse, I see what needs to be seen. For my budget travel needs, aggregators and other online travel tools help me in selecting what I think is the best for me. There are still those, however, who would still rather talk to a person… a travel agent who they trust would give them the better deal. A travel agent whom they deem more informed of the offers that are out there.

Then when you finally go abroad, you can not only lose money to a petty thief that single out tourists, you can also make unnecessary expenses (akin to losing money, in my book!) if you do not take care HOW you bring money with you during your trip. If you have to withdraw from an ATM, make bigger (hence, fewer) withdrawals to cut the number of transaction fees charged by your bank.

When exchanging to foreign currencies, note that there is loss or gain in the exchange rates. When changing money in exchange bureaus (bureaux de change), make sure that you choose one that shows both their selling and buying rates. If you see both rates, you’d be able to see the bureaus corresponding profit margin which should be around 5%. Lack of transparency (only selling rate is posted) may mean that the profit margin is high.

Having checked the above, it would still also be best to still check and compare total cost of transaction since a good exchange rate are sometimes offset by high commission charges or no commission charge may mean a bad exchange rate.

Then there are those times, just as you are about to leave on a trip, Murphy’s Law intervenes. We find ourselves not willing or not able to leave. This time, the airline is not at fault. What now? When you cancel, would you be allowed to re-book your ticket or get a refund? It all depends, of course, on the kind of ticket you have, your reasons for canceling and each airline’s policy.

Read from Budget Travel Online – 10 Tips to Cancellation, Change and Refund Policies. It prepares you for what you can expect. In addition, there are links to several of the airlines contract of carriage and refund policies.

Remember; don’t give up after you get one negative answer. Dig deeper and you might just save yourself from wasting a plane ticket.