Cheap Tricks: A Case Study

In the March issue of the Singapore American Newspaper, I reveal all (well, most) of my tricks for finding deals on flights and accommodation.   

Oh the Skies You'll Fly

Let’s say you’ve been invited to a wedding in Newburyport, Massachusetts. You’re past the congratulatory Skype call and now have to book flights and accommodation. Thankfully, you have a strategy and sit down at your computer with confidence. Being the savvy traveler you are, you know your web browsers track cookies and that booking websites might nudge up the price if you take your time. To get around this, you open a new window in incognito mode. In Google Chrome and Safari, this is enabled by hitting Control (Command for Mac users) + Shift + N. In Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer, you hit Control (or Command) + Shift + P.

The wedding is Saturday June 16, so you decide to depart Singapore on Tuesday June 12 or Wednesday June 13 and to return on Tuesday June 19 or Wednesday June 20, because you know Tuesdays and Wednesdays are usually the cheapest days of the week to fly. Google tells you the airport nearest to your destination is Boston Logan International, but you note that Manchester-Boston Regional as well as airports in New York and New Jersey are also feasible.

Time to search. You open six tabs in your incognito browser window: Kayak, Skyscanner, Kiwi, Expedia, Google Flights, and Momondo. If you were flying to a country within Southeast Asia, you would also check the websites of the regional budget airlines since these are often not indexed by the search engines. After inputting your dates and destination, you compare the results. Kiwi and Google Flights both indicate that in this case, departing Singapore on Monday June 11 is less expensive than Tuesday or Wednesday, and so you adjust your search parameters. In descending order, in SGD, the fare for a single traveler in Economy comes out to be:

  • $1410 on Kayak
  • $1315 on Expedia
  • $1238 on Kiwi
  • $1220 on Momondo
  • $1139 on Google Flights
  • $1018 on Skyscanner

You realize that the cheapest flight has two layovers and the total travel time to Boston is 42 hours. This doesn’t bother you, so you snap up the Skyscanner deal. Or you’re a human being and you fine-tune your filters to search for journeys with one layover and a travel time of 27 hours max. All the search engines now quote around $1430, with two exceptions. Kiwi’s estimating $1550, so you close that tab, and your heart skips happily that Google Flights’ quote remains at $1139.

You’re itching to snap up those tickets. But you take a deep breath and examine the details. The layover is a measly 2 hours but since both legs of the journey are operated by the same carrier and since you’ll be in London Gatwick, a small airport, that should be enough time to make your connection, despite traveling during the busy summer season.

And there’s one more angle to consider. Your hotel in Newburyport will cost about $150 SGD per night, $1200 for your entire stay, which means the total price of your trip would tally up to $2339. You check whether Kayak, Expedia or Momondo have package deals that can beat that. Momondo’s best offer is $2656 and Expedia’s is $2378, but lo and behold Kayak quotes you a package at $2013.

You again wisely counsel yourself to be patient and check the fine print. Sure enough, some tweaks have been made to your parameters. You would be leaving on Sunday June 10 and your hotel is in Boston, a 45-minute drive outside of Newburyport. You decide that’s a compromise you can live with, carefully reread all the details of your booking before paying, and then muse at the irony. The website that initially seemed like the worst deal wound up being the best.

BONUS TIPS!

Here are a few more resources, exclusive for my online readers.

I book trips to other countries once every other month, on average, and Secret Flying has some of the best deals I’ve ever seen. They track down short-term promotions and error fairs on airlines. At the time of writing, they’ve unearthed a deal that would let you fly from New York to Cambodia for just $470 USD roundtripTravel Pirates is a similar resource, though it focuses more on package deals and trips based out of the United States. Six nights in the Hawai’i Hilton plus roundtrip flights from Los Angeles for $890 USD, anyone?

What I like about Secret Flying and Travel Pirates is that they both give very clear instructions on on how to get the discount prices. You’re not surprised by fees or confused by the process, which is refreshing. If you’re flexible when it comes to timing and/or destination, you can find some amazing trip deals.

Lastly is a site for maximizing your layovers: Air Wander. My family lives 16-22 hours flight time from where I live and those long-haul journeys can be exhausting to tackle in one sitting. Enter Air Wander, which lets you pop in your dates, departure and destination, and the number of days you’d like to spend on a layover, and then searches for available options. You can even add more than one stopover or specify which cardinal direction you’d like to fly in.

Say I’m flying Singapore to Ireland on June 1st and can spare two days for a layover. Air Wander tells me that a stopover in Amsterdam will save me the most money, but lists all possible options and how much extra it would cost to stop there (Madrid’s only $8 USD). Turns out, I can fly one-way from Singapore to Amsterdam to Dublin for $430 USD. This isn’t necessarily cheaper than searching through Kayak or Kiwi, but it’s much more convenient than typing out all your multi-city parameters and I love having the ability to compare all possible long layovers without having to do repeated searches.

Happy Travels!

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Easy Peasy, Lemon Squeezy

Published on February 1, 2016 in the Singapore American Newspaper:

Though it might not pack the wild personality of cities like New York or London, Singapore is hard to beat when it comes to sheer convenience. Here is a list of what I think makes living in this city-state a uniquely easy experience:

Public Transportation. The most obvious of Singapore’s modern conveniences, the buses and trains are clean, cheap and punctual. One of the benefits of this city state’s youth is that the train network was built less than 30 years ago (unlike the NYC subway and the Tube, which are each over a century old), so its infrastructure is up-to-date and even allows for cell service. And if there aren’t any buses or MRT stations near you, the taxis are equally convenient, inexpensive and accessible.

Overhangs. Though it often goes unnoticed in the day-to-day, the majority of the city’s buildings have been carefully planned to feature an overhang in some form. While these are crucial for those sudden rainstorms, they’re equally vital for weathering the tropical sunshine. During a visit to nearby Malacca, I was surprised at how much more intense the day’s heat felt and realized that the difference was the abundance of shade that Singapore’s overhangs and plentiful trees provide.

AXS Stations. Like shrines to convenience, the 900+ AXS machines tucked into corners all over the island are most impressive for allowing you to pay all your bills in one fell swoop, from utilities to medical to the credit card. Not only that, bills that arrive in the mail have a barcode at the bottom that you can scan into an AXS Station, so you don’t even need to type in the details before dipping in your debit card. These stations also enable you to pay fines, top-up your ez-link card, buy and collect movie tickets, book an NParks BBQ pit and apply for a camping permit.

Mobile Phones. For anyone who has wrangled with AT&T or Verizon contracts and despaired over their rules on which phones you could use, Singapore’s system is a refreshing change. As long as you have a local SIM card, you can buy a new phone at any time without having to navigate a tangle of regulations. Plus, phone numbers are portable, meaning you don’t need to change your number if you switch to a new service provider.

Everything is Online. Singapore was ranked highest globally for smartphone penetration, according to a 2015 survey by Deloitte’s Global Technology, Media and Telecommunications. Following suit, local retailers have also increased their online presence. RedMart and Cold Storage allow you to order groceries online or through mobile phone apps. A slew of restaurants, like Simply Wrapps and Smiths Authentic Fish and Chips, have unique apps and rewards programs. Even government services make accessing information and submitting feedback through websites a piece of cake.

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Potent Nostalgia: Cocktail Bars from Bygone Eras

Published on April 1, 2014 in the Singapore American Newspaper:

As I sipped a bliss-inducing Lemongrass Collins at the Miss Wong Cocktail Bar in Siem Reap, I wondered: Just what is it about bars devoted to the past? A speakeasy can now be found in just about every major city – from Raine’s Law Room in New York to Milk & Honey in London to R2 Supperclub in Tokyo. If I had to choose two reasons why, I would say it’s partly the nostalgia for a straightforward form of glamour and partly the luxurious, hand-crafted cocktails. For anyone bored of the standard mixer/spirit combo, these bars’ bespoke recipes, freshly-squeezed juices, and house infused liquors are a godsend. And while these drinks will obviously cost more than your average rum’n’coke, the rich ambience makes up for it. These bars invite you to step out of your daily troubles and experience life as a member of the exclusive elite from a time past. The vintage Shanghai atmosphere of Miss Wong is a soothing and seductive counterpoint to Cambodia’s dry heat and Pub Street’s pulsating clamor, but don’t worry if you’re not swinging by Siem Reap any time soon. There are a couple of speakeasies to be found right here in Singapore.

However, Abhishek Cherian George would be reluctant to brand his cocktail bar, The Spiffy Dapper, as a speakeasy. With its tables plastered in vintage comic book covers and a pair of colonial Indian fighting staffs on the wall, the establishment is more of an homage to the creative and irreverent spirit of the 1920s. Originally from South India, George calls himself an “insufferable capitalist” and is an enthusiastic advocate of trial-and-error. Many of the custom ingredients on the shelf behind the bar (which bear labels such as Turkish Black Tea Gin and Cayenne-Citrus Himalayan Pink Salt) are the result of mistakes. For instance, accidentally over-dehydrating some tomatoes led to a reinvented Bloody Mary called the Ossified Mrs Grundy, which translates to ‘The Drunk Prude’ in 1920s lingo.  Every beverage on the menu sports a jazzy name and a rich description because, George says, “A product is only as good as the back story.” For him and his lead bartender Hilda, the creation and consumption of a cocktail is nothing short of art. The idea behind the drink is vital to the process and the beverage must convey the artist’s thought or emotion to the drinker.

House of Dandy

House of Dandy in the Tanjong Pagar area also has a proclivity for the irreverent. Despite being a temple to the dandy (a middle-class man in the 1800s who highly valued his refined appearance, aristocratic mind, and leisurely hobbies), the upscale cocktail bar hasn’t limited itself to top hats and aristocratic superiority. As their menu explains: “A dandified life is one that is refined and tastefully in excess. Keeping an edge without sacrificing neither style nor standards.” Thus, among the myriad of hedonistic idols that the lounge pays tribute to are Beau Brummell, Oscar Wilde, and Andy Warhol—see the Dandy Warhol cocktail, an inimitable and delicious blend of vodka, Midori, Limoncello, lemon juice, sugar syrup, and egg whites.

While the Miss Wong Cocktail Bar in Siem Reap seeks to emulate 1930s Shanghai, both The Spiffy Dapper and House of Dandy allow themselves to follow the spirit of an exalted era through the years. The bathroom at The Spiffy Dapper is a maddening tribute to Stanley Kubrick’s film A Clockwork Orange and the walls at House of Dandy feature portraits of women wearing revealing outfits and Stormtrooper helmets. Singapore isn’t searching for a flawless recreation of a past decade, but rather for a taste of the irreverence that was once possible. The speakeasies of today strive to provide that old, gossamer spirit of carelessness in a world where now every foolish act can be splattered across the internet in seconds. So if you find yourself nostalgic for a time when leisure was uninterrupted by mobile phones and secrets remained secrets, slip into the dim interior of a speakeasy. Bring high expectations for a quality cocktail. Remember to sip slowly.

Where to Find:

Miss Wong Cocktail Bar
The Lane, Siem Reap
Cambodia

The Spiffy Dapper
2/F 61 Boat Quay
Singapore

House of Dandy
74 Tras Street
Singapore

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