What is the cheapest thing you have done to save on transportation?
Oct 28, 2008, 7:10 pm
#46
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: PHL (and sometimes BKK)
Programs: aa/ua gold; mar titanium. SPG till I die.
Posts: 15,648
five pax plus the taxi driver in this busted Nissan Sentra taxi from the Panama Canal Zone back to the northern end of PTY for $5... total... ai.
That was not comfy. These cheap .........s didn't want to spend an extra buck to take a decent taxi. Seriously.
That was not comfy. These cheap .........s didn't want to spend an extra buck to take a decent taxi. Seriously.
Oct 28, 2008, 7:15 pm
#47
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: PHL (and sometimes BKK)
Programs: aa/ua gold; mar titanium. SPG till I die.
Posts: 15,648
After going for an AM walk, I found the bus lot by the Gongbei/Macau China Gate and waited for the one for the Grand Lisboa to take me back there since my guest house was about a block away.
Oct 28, 2008, 7:19 pm
#48
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: PHL (and sometimes BKK)
Programs: aa/ua gold; mar titanium. SPG till I die.
Posts: 15,648
I met a guy on line (who hasn't) we chatted and exchanged emails for months and he decided he wanted to meet me, and I didn't have the miles or money to do it...and agreeing that there were no lurid strings attached, he western unioned me the money for the ticket TUS - BRU (and I got the miles for it too).
We had a nice visit, but he turned out to be a bit of a jerk, and I need not have worried about any lurid strings - he was Definitely NOT interested. So when we said good bye, I figured it was forever. I had another week to go before I headed home (hadn't told him my return date), so I did some tooling around Belgium on my own. In Bruges (great movie) one day, I stopped into an internet cafe and found a screaming deal on the french SNCF web site for a ticket from Brussels to Paris for $12 USD. I clicked to purchase, but the cafe wouldn't let me print anything out...no worries, i thought. I will print it at the station....but when I got to the train station in Brussels, I realized I had clicked FRANCE when the website asked "country of purchase" and no amount of tears and really good begging IN FRENCH would alter the fact that in order to USE the $12 ticket, I would have to get to France to pick it up. By then, tickets directly to Paris were a lot higher....so I sucked it up, and called the guy...he worked for the Belgium version of SNCF, and he put me on the TGV, in first class, to Paris.
So $12 was the financial cost...the damage done to my psyche for having to call him again was probably more costly!! Hmmm I never DID hear from him after I sent him a thank you note.....
We had a nice visit, but he turned out to be a bit of a jerk, and I need not have worried about any lurid strings - he was Definitely NOT interested. So when we said good bye, I figured it was forever. I had another week to go before I headed home (hadn't told him my return date), so I did some tooling around Belgium on my own. In Bruges (great movie) one day, I stopped into an internet cafe and found a screaming deal on the french SNCF web site for a ticket from Brussels to Paris for $12 USD. I clicked to purchase, but the cafe wouldn't let me print anything out...no worries, i thought. I will print it at the station....but when I got to the train station in Brussels, I realized I had clicked FRANCE when the website asked "country of purchase" and no amount of tears and really good begging IN FRENCH would alter the fact that in order to USE the $12 ticket, I would have to get to France to pick it up. By then, tickets directly to Paris were a lot higher....so I sucked it up, and called the guy...he worked for the Belgium version of SNCF, and he put me on the TGV, in first class, to Paris.
So $12 was the financial cost...the damage done to my psyche for having to call him again was probably more costly!! Hmmm I never DID hear from him after I sent him a thank you note.....
A manufacturer in Zhuhai, China, put me up in the 4* hotel, everything I could drink and eat, all the sightseeing and mall trips for three days at zero cost for me. Why? I still have no idea. My friend there is a client of theirs so I think that had a lot to do with it. I'm not an importer, a financier or anything special.
But I did get a nasty hangover drinking that firewater known as Baijo while slowly and surely learning that I took the most shots since I was the only white guy at every meal.
Quite an adventure. I learned early on to stop asking questions as I never got answers. Period.
Oct 29, 2008, 12:49 pm
#49
Join Date: Dec 2006
Programs: None-Airline employee
Posts: 128
Here's the stupidest thing I ever did to save a few bucks.
I used to transfer motor homes from one dealer to the next. I was picking one up in Indianapolis to drive to Phoenix and the motor home was only 3.5 miles from the airport so I decided to walk instead of pay $15.00 or so for a cab. The flight arrived about midnight in the dead of winter, a light snow falling and temp was 23 degres according to the Captain.
I began walking at a very brisk pace to keep warm and to shorten the time. I figured I could walk there in about an hour at that pace. After about an hour, I crossed an intersection that I could not find on the map. I checked with a convenience store clerk and found out I was headed the wrong direction. Right street but I was headed north of the airport instead of south. So now, instead of being almost there, I was 7 miles away.
I turned around and started heading back and thought I'd just take a cab and forget about it. Only, at 1:00 AM, there were none to be found so I decided I'd walk back to the airport and get one. By the time I got to the airport I was so mad and i did not want to pay for a cab after walking 7 miles so I just continued on and reached the RV at 3:00 AM. A nice 10 mile walk in the middle of the winter night. But I'm $15.00 richer and maybe a pound or two lighter because of it.
I used to transfer motor homes from one dealer to the next. I was picking one up in Indianapolis to drive to Phoenix and the motor home was only 3.5 miles from the airport so I decided to walk instead of pay $15.00 or so for a cab. The flight arrived about midnight in the dead of winter, a light snow falling and temp was 23 degres according to the Captain.
I began walking at a very brisk pace to keep warm and to shorten the time. I figured I could walk there in about an hour at that pace. After about an hour, I crossed an intersection that I could not find on the map. I checked with a convenience store clerk and found out I was headed the wrong direction. Right street but I was headed north of the airport instead of south. So now, instead of being almost there, I was 7 miles away.
I turned around and started heading back and thought I'd just take a cab and forget about it. Only, at 1:00 AM, there were none to be found so I decided I'd walk back to the airport and get one. By the time I got to the airport I was so mad and i did not want to pay for a cab after walking 7 miles so I just continued on and reached the RV at 3:00 AM. A nice 10 mile walk in the middle of the winter night. But I'm $15.00 richer and maybe a pound or two lighter because of it.
Nov 23, 2008, 5:35 am
#50
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: SGF
Programs: AS, AA, UA, AGR S (former 75K, GLD, 1K, and S+, now an elite peon)
Posts: 23,195
I have a habit of mooching off of friends who don't need their cars... 
For three summers, my grandfather and I borrowed a friend's '88 VW Polo and put about 20,000km per summer on it while driving through literally every country in western and eastern Europe. She had a motorcycle and worked just a few kilometers from her house, so she really didn't miss it...and it sure saved us a bundle!
Last month, I actually used this habit to help a friend (really, a business associate...though by the time the trip was over, I'd talked to her enough to call her a friend!) who had moved back to the States from Australia.. She had a car she had left in Cairns but, due to the way Australian states really don't work well with each other, had to be sold in Victoria (where she bought it). She also had a storage unit of boxes north of Melbourne that she had been unable to get down to and ship back home. She gave us free use of the car from Cairns to Melbourne on the condition that we get her boxes out of storage and drop them off at the port in Melbourne and then drop the car off at a specified consignment lot--we gladly did that and saved on a three-week car rental! On top of that, the car's LPG conversion saved us probably 30% on fuel!
For three summers, my grandfather and I borrowed a friend's '88 VW Polo and put about 20,000km per summer on it while driving through literally every country in western and eastern Europe. She had a motorcycle and worked just a few kilometers from her house, so she really didn't miss it...and it sure saved us a bundle!
Last month, I actually used this habit to help a friend (really, a business associate...though by the time the trip was over, I'd talked to her enough to call her a friend!) who had moved back to the States from Australia.. She had a car she had left in Cairns but, due to the way Australian states really don't work well with each other, had to be sold in Victoria (where she bought it). She also had a storage unit of boxes north of Melbourne that she had been unable to get down to and ship back home. She gave us free use of the car from Cairns to Melbourne on the condition that we get her boxes out of storage and drop them off at the port in Melbourne and then drop the car off at a specified consignment lot--we gladly did that and saved on a three-week car rental! On top of that, the car's LPG conversion saved us probably 30% on fuel!
Nov 24, 2008, 6:06 pm
#52
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: SoCal
Programs: AA, USAir, UA
Posts: 868
Four Megabus roundtrips from LAX to SFO & return last winter....which cost a grand total of $43....which works out to a rate of $0.012 cents per mile.
The Megabus .......s canceled the service...because the said they were losing money. The nerve of those people!
The Megabus .......s canceled the service...because the said they were losing money. The nerve of those people!
Nov 24, 2008, 6:09 pm
#53
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Rural TN (but WAS native)
Programs: National Executive Elite, none of the others matter
Posts: 23,823
I underestimated the travel cost for an upcoming trip, so my authorized reimbursement is about $50 less (two cab fares) than it should be - does taking the $1 bus from SAT to within a mile of my hotel, then hoofing the rest of the way count? Otherwise, it's money out of my pocket (or per diem).
Nov 30, 2008, 5:34 pm
#54
Join Date: May 2006
Programs: none
Posts: 140
Last May, Train "Northeaster" Portland ME to Boston MA, continued "Bold" Bus to New York City, stayed with family for one week, returned same way.
Total cost $ 35.75 ( senior train fare $20 RT and Bold $ 7.00 each way plus tax.
Going again next week, but only to Boston and back to Portland ME, $ 16.57 Rt.
Total cost $ 35.75 ( senior train fare $20 RT and Bold $ 7.00 each way plus tax.
Going again next week, but only to Boston and back to Portland ME, $ 16.57 Rt.
Dec 2, 2008, 4:51 am
#55
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: SGF
Programs: AS, AA, UA, AGR S (former 75K, GLD, 1K, and S+, now an elite peon)
Posts: 23,195
Wirelessly posted (The Roaming Phone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5G77 Safari/525.20)
I enjoy riding trains and buses, so taking public transportation--even on long, convoluted, out-of-the-way routings while traveling--is really ultimately for pleasure, not for the purpose of saving money. (In fact, more than once I've spent more than I needed to on tickets in order to ride a line out to the end for enjoyment purposes.) I can't really count those for the purposes of this thread.
However, several years ago, my engine blew out and I couldn't afford to get it fixed right away. I ended up riding the bus to work, which at that time involved a 20-minute walk to the nearest bus stop in sub-zero temperatures (they've since started a new bus route through the neighborhood that passes two blocks away) and 1.5 hours in transit (half of which was laying over--buses run once an hour here...grr...). I did this four days per week for about three months during the winter.
Fortunately, my university student ID functioned as a free bus pass, so the whole thing cost me nothing. That's about the best deal going!
I enjoy riding trains and buses, so taking public transportation--even on long, convoluted, out-of-the-way routings while traveling--is really ultimately for pleasure, not for the purpose of saving money. (In fact, more than once I've spent more than I needed to on tickets in order to ride a line out to the end for enjoyment purposes.) I can't really count those for the purposes of this thread.
However, several years ago, my engine blew out and I couldn't afford to get it fixed right away. I ended up riding the bus to work, which at that time involved a 20-minute walk to the nearest bus stop in sub-zero temperatures (they've since started a new bus route through the neighborhood that passes two blocks away) and 1.5 hours in transit (half of which was laying over--buses run once an hour here...grr...). I did this four days per week for about three months during the winter.
Fortunately, my university student ID functioned as a free bus pass, so the whole thing cost me nothing. That's about the best deal going!
Dec 2, 2008, 5:14 am
#56
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: SGF
Programs: AS, AA, UA, AGR S (former 75K, GLD, 1K, and S+, now an elite peon)
Posts: 23,195
Wirelessly posted (The Roaming Phone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5G77 Safari/525.20)
Oh, one I just remembered: a friend and I hiked Mount Marathon in Seward, Alaska during the six-hour layover before the train went back to Anchorage.
Mount Marathon is famous for the Fourth of July Mount Marathon race, in which super-fit people literally run up to the top (a 3,500-foot elevation gain) and slide back down in ludicrous amounts of times (I think the latest winner did it in under 45 minutes). We figured we could do it in three or four hours, right?
Four and a half hours after ignoring the "Danger: This trail not recommended for public use" signs, we still hadn't reached the top (where we could descend on the supposedly-easier-but-longer other side of the mountain), but we weren't about to go back down the muddy, slippery (it was raining) slide we had just climbed (with the aid of many tree branches and rocks).
I thought I saw a nice trail leading straight down to the easy path leading to the bottom, and we surfed down the loose gravel until we hit the wet grass. We slid down on our behinds for a bit more, making quite good time.
Until we hit the devil's club.
After another hour of crawling through thickets of spiny stems, we finally emerged at the path to the bottom. With less than 20 minutes until the train's departure, I whipped out my nearly-dead phone and called two taxi companies: no luck; they were all out on other calls (I got the impression that these were one-cab operations). I was nearly ready to tell the cabbie that I'd pay double when we emerged on the street at the trailhead, where sat a car with an older couple quizzically looking at the trail.
He rolled down his window and asked, "Is the trail hard?"
My friend and I both looked at each other and said in unison, "When the sign says, 'Not recommended,' they're serious!" Then, on a moment of inspiration, and with barely 5 minutes left before the only departure of the day, I asked, "Can I pay you to take us to the train station?"
Four minutes later, we were safely aboard the train, still a cab fare richer (the nice man refused any payment!). Not a bad deal, considering the cost of missing that train!
Oh, one I just remembered: a friend and I hiked Mount Marathon in Seward, Alaska during the six-hour layover before the train went back to Anchorage.
Mount Marathon is famous for the Fourth of July Mount Marathon race, in which super-fit people literally run up to the top (a 3,500-foot elevation gain) and slide back down in ludicrous amounts of times (I think the latest winner did it in under 45 minutes). We figured we could do it in three or four hours, right?
Four and a half hours after ignoring the "Danger: This trail not recommended for public use" signs, we still hadn't reached the top (where we could descend on the supposedly-easier-but-longer other side of the mountain), but we weren't about to go back down the muddy, slippery (it was raining) slide we had just climbed (with the aid of many tree branches and rocks).
I thought I saw a nice trail leading straight down to the easy path leading to the bottom, and we surfed down the loose gravel until we hit the wet grass. We slid down on our behinds for a bit more, making quite good time.
Until we hit the devil's club.
After another hour of crawling through thickets of spiny stems, we finally emerged at the path to the bottom. With less than 20 minutes until the train's departure, I whipped out my nearly-dead phone and called two taxi companies: no luck; they were all out on other calls (I got the impression that these were one-cab operations). I was nearly ready to tell the cabbie that I'd pay double when we emerged on the street at the trailhead, where sat a car with an older couple quizzically looking at the trail.
He rolled down his window and asked, "Is the trail hard?"
My friend and I both looked at each other and said in unison, "When the sign says, 'Not recommended,' they're serious!" Then, on a moment of inspiration, and with barely 5 minutes left before the only departure of the day, I asked, "Can I pay you to take us to the train station?"
Four minutes later, we were safely aboard the train, still a cab fare richer (the nice man refused any payment!). Not a bad deal, considering the cost of missing that train!
Dec 9, 2008, 11:41 am
#57
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: DFW/SEA
Programs: *A Silver, AA Gold + Miles Scattered Everywhere.
Posts: 2,045
walked the entire length of the yamanote line in Tokyo.....don't know if that counts. didn't really save me any money though..but it was a nice adventure through various tokyo's neighborhoods.
flew to as many places as i could when i was working at B6. what better than free standby. SEA-SJU, MCO, FLL, BOS, JFK etc. good times
flew to as many places as i could when i was working at B6. what better than free standby. SEA-SJU, MCO, FLL, BOS, JFK etc. good times