I Got A Round-Trip Flight, Rental Car, And Three-Night Hotel Stay For $400. Here’s How You Can Too

Every January, I leave the frozen farms of Illinois for balmy Tampa, Florida to partake in the Florida RV SuperShow. That means each year at about this time I have to figure out how I’m getting to Florida, what I’m going to drive, and where I’m going to sleep. I also try to pay the least money possible because The Autopian ends up picking up the tab in the end. This year I scored what I hope is a sweetheart deal. I’ll be going to Florida, spending three nights out there, and going back home spending just $400 on flights, lodging, and a car to drive. I’ve now perfected my cheapskate-ry and now you can, too.

I’ll let you in on some inside baseball. We’re very glad we can deliver our website to you without placing an ad after every paragraph like some of our competitors. Keeping operating costs down is important to our easy-on-the-ads approach, so when The Autopian is footing the bill for a trip – such as getting yours truly to an RV show – we aren’t splurging on first-class plane tickets, luxury rental cars, and staying at a hotel with a restaurant serving gold-encrusted steaks. Instead, we’re quite used to sitting in the backs of planes and staying at affordable hotels, and happy to do so.

I’ve turned it into a game where I try to figure out the cheapest way to conduct a trip without getting stung, sometimes literally, by a poor experience. In 2023, the first year I attended the Florida RV SuperShow, I scored a $58 round-trip flight on Frontier Airlines to and from Tampa. However, I ended up spending $200 on a rental car and another $350 or so on a three-night stay at a run-down La Quinta. We spent $608 on that particular Florida RV SuperShow, which isn’t bad, but I knew I could do better.

I thought that the better year was going to be last year when I got a departure flight from Frontier Airlines for about $50, a return flight from American Airlines for $111, and a rental car for $147. I was sitting at just $308, so to beat 2023 all I had to do was find a hotel for under $300.

Sadly, my plans fell apart as soon as I got to the airport. Last year’s Florida RV SuperShow happened while Illinois was deep into a sub-zero freeze. The folks at Frontier Airlines couldn’t get the plane at the gate fired up, then two more would-be replacement aircraft refused to light their jet fuel. So, my flight was canceled and Frontier had such a bad day that there wasn’t a backup flight. My next cheapest choice was $333 on Spirit Airlines. Ouch. It still hurts to think about spending that much on a Spirit flight. I then paid $252 to stay at what turned out to be a pretty nice Ramada.

When all was said and done, my flight, hotel, and rental car cost was $902, a much bigger bill than my 2023 adventure. Getting hosed by Frontier’s failure to produce a flight really jacked up my plans.

Flying Cattle Class

This year, I’m coming back swinging. I started planning this trip the second my media pass for the show was granted in mid-December. The first thing I did was search for the cheapest round-trip flight. I have a process for this. First, I go to a Google Search, pop open the Flights section, and search for the cheapest flight. Google usually shows what the airline itself offers on its own website, but I also check the airline’s website to be sure.

Once I have an idea of what an airline wants to charge for a flight, I divert to a website like Priceline to plug in the same information and see what I get. Often, I find the price on Priceline is the same as the price offered on the airline’s website. But every now and then, I end up finding a flight for half the price of what Google shows me. To be clear here, this post isn’t sponsored by Priceline. It’s just the app I’ve used for more than four years with reasonable success.

The cheapest flight this time was Frontier, which had a round-trip deal for $70, but I’ve been burned by Frontier enough times that I did’t want to chance it again. Next was Spirit Airlines, which isn’t great either, but in my experience, Spirit at least gets me where I need to go. Spirit offered a deal for $86 round-trip, and I can fit everything I’m taking into my “personal item” bag, so Spirit’s annoying upcharges won’t be a problem.

That Fresh Nissan Smell

I then used the same process to find a rental car. It seemed the best deal came from the Priceline app, which said I could get a rental car for three days for $51. Long after I put in my reservation I found out that Priceline chose Economy Rent A Car as the rental company. This company has mostly positive reviews on Google but mostly negative reviews on Yelp, so who knows what I’m getting? It seems a lot of people don’t like Economy because it charges Florida residents a $500 to $1,000 deposit and then imposes a 150-mile limit on those same residents.

The company I used in 2023 (Ace Rent-A-Car) had the same contradictory review problem and things went smoothly for me. So things could be fine or they could be a disaster. At the very least, I know the final price will be more than $51 after taxes and fees, but the final price should land somewhere in the ballpark of last year’s $147 rental.

While I’m on the subject of rental cars, I recommend carrying a credit card if you can. In my experience, rental car companies tend to be a lot easier to work with when you’re using a credit card. Some rental companies also like adding a daily fee for using a debit card. It was a night-and-day difference when I got a credit card. Seriously, renting cars became so easy it was shocking.

Also, if you’ll be using your own insurance you’ll want to have a copy of your full packet. Yeah, some local rental companies are annoying like that. As a note: Normally I would try to rent a fun car or get a convertible or something like that, but that would be only on my own dime.

After I finished putting in the car rental reservation, the Spirit round-trip was now listed at $120. It appeared that way on travel sites, on Priceline, and even through looking at the prices on a fresh device in Incognito Mode. So, I set a price tracker to let me know when the price came back down. It took almost a week, but the price came back down to $84. That’s when I got the tickets. As of writing, the price for the same round-trip flight is $77, which is nice.

King Bed, No Bugs

Finally, we have the hotel. In my experience, booking hotels can be a bit wild if you’re trying to do it on a budget. The very cheapest hotels and motels will be advertised with random images that do not match reality and you’ll discover problems that are frankly unacceptable even for the most miserly of travelers. I have too many stories of bed bugs, entry doors that don’t lock, and hotel managers who were violently drunk. Trust me, it’s not worth it.

Instead, what I do now is get the cheapest hotel that has mostly positive reviews. In my case, this ended up being a Ramada next to Tampa’s airport. First I checked Google and then went to Ramada’s website, where the price was set to $119 per night, and $405.21 total (above) for three nights after fees.

The same room was $66 per night ($225 after fees) on Priceline, so I booked that version. In my experience, hotels usually honor the price I pay online, even though the $225 will be substantially less than the same room on the hotel’s own website.

Cheapskate Travel

All in, I’m looking at going to Tampa for three nights for around $400 or so, but the variable this time will end up being the rental car fees. Or, I suppose if I want to be the most correct here, that’s what the company will pay for me to do this trip.

Honestly, traveling as a cheapskate is a lot of work. You end up having to do a lot of price comparisons and sometimes you end up taking a chance on a company that might not be a trusted brand. But, what can I say, the thrill of the deal is almost as fun as the trip itself. At the same time, it’s also not all bad. Sometimes, in looking for a cheap hotel with good reviews, you end up in little ma-and-pop motels with lots of interesting history that you won’t get by hitting up the Holiday Inn for another night.

I think the thing I’m most surprised by is that despite everything that’s happened over the past few years with airlines, the economy, and basically everything else, travel is still affordable if you’re willing to dig in, search for good prices, and maybe cut out some luxuries. Hopefully, this trip goes smoothly. But rest assured, if it all turns into chaos you’ll be the first to read about it!