Hotel Reservations

If you are making a hotel reservation online this summer you may want to stop at HotelReservations.com and run a price check first. I typically start with the usual suspects (Priceline, Kayak, Travelocity and Expedia), but that might change. I saw an add for Hotel Reservations and had some time to kill today so played around with the site. The site surprised me. Most places claim that they can undercut other vendor's prices, but in practice they are all the same. I did not find this when I used Hotel Reservations. I'll explain more below.

On Hotel Reservations you can choose from hotels, motels, resorts, and vacations rentals among other things. I ran a quick Kayak search and compared the results to HotelReservations.com and the prices were surprisingly worse on Kayak. For purposes of my not so scientific survey, I conducted a search for Milwaukee, WI hotels. Based on the results of my search, it looks like the mid-tier hotels are about $20 cheaper on HotelReservations.com than the travel spider sites. In my particular search I compared two hotels the Ambassador in Milwaukee as well as the Hyatt. The Ambassador was $120 on Hotel Reservations vs $159 on Orbitz. The Hyatt was $150 vs $178 on Expedia.

As an added bonus, right now the company has a deal running where you can get a $30 rebate if you book a two night stay through the site. If you add in the extra $30 savings, the deals begin to look even more attractive. The site also has flights and cars available, but I was not able to compare the pricing on these for this post.

So head over, you might save some cash the next time you make Hotel Reservations and of course it is free. I think I am working the site into my usual rotation of travel searching.

Free Stuff Roundup

Everyone likes free stuff, even if it's not a big ticket item. Below is a list of free items you can get right now online ranging from post-it notes to coffee.

3M is giving away a sampler pack of Post-it Note Cubes, Post-it Flash Cards, Post-it Flags, and Post-it Flag Highlighters until September 30. Direct Link.

For the pet lovers out there, you can get a free bag of IAMS Healthy Naturals dog food, by requesting a rebate coupon here. Direct Link.

Anyone with kids, or possibly looking to relive their college years can score a free hamburger helper microwave single here. Direct Link.

The next time you are shopping at Target, if you stop into Starbucks, you can buy one coffee and get one free by printing the coupon here. Direct Link.




Image by: Eurleif

Credit Where Credit is Due

Many companies have learned that the internet makes it incredibly easy for mistreated customers to air their bad experiences. While it cuts both ways, the maltreated customers tend to make a much larger racket (check out Consumerism Commentary if you don't believe me).

It's time for me to give credit where credit is due and talk about a good customer service experience I had recently. I am a relatively new customer of Liberty Mutual Insurance and so far have only good things to say. This may be common practice, but regardless I'm happy about it.

I lived in a different city for the past three months and have recently transferred back. I purchased a whole year renter's insurance policy on the temporary apartment I was living in because I couldn't find any agencies offering shorter terms (plus it was less than $100). When I called to get a new policy issued this week the agent, who I had never spoke with before, canceled the old policy and credited nearly the entire balance to my new policy. This was great news for me because a) I didn't know this was possible, b) it was done without me even asking for it. I haven't had too many experiences where people take initiative to save a client money.

While it might seem that most of the time services go unappreciated, the little acts don't go overlooked... especially when you are broke and in grad school.

If you are looking for insurance around Chicago or NW Indiana email me and I'll look up her name.

** FYI, some alumni associations give discounts for Liberty Mutual Insurance. For example, you can receive a 5% discount by using the link found here at the University of Wisconsin Green Bay website and the offer is open to anyone -- not just alumni.

Toyota and Honda up Incentives to Move 2007 Models

With the market jittery over just about everything these days, it looks like car manufacturers are operating with some urgency as well. Honda and Toyota trying to clear out room on lots for the 2008 model year cars by throwing greater incentives at customers which is good for you.

Toyota has upped incentives about $480, while Honda has increased incentives about $250. This may sound like pocket change when you are considering a new car, but the incentives have rose from $896 to $1,146 for Honda and $1,009 to $1,492 for Toyota since July of last year.

Reports are also saying that the two companies are pushing leasing incentives that are worth even more money. You may not get the newest model, but lately the improvements year-over-year have been minimal. There is a good chance you will save a bunch of money on your car or at least you will have more leverage than normal.

Read the whole report from Forbes.

Blog Partnership

We are happy to announce that we have entered into a partnership with the Techno Connoisseur blog. It is a new blog, but will have information on the newest tech, gadgets and web services for people who want to be on the cutting edge of all things technology. In the next week or two check it out and hopefully there will be some interesting content there (and more stuff here as well). Also, we will soon be looking to partner with more blog sites to expand our reach and work together. If you are interested send us an email.