The pandemic is behind us and many of us want to get back on the road again. So what do you need to know to get the best out of your travel budget? My guest today is Peter Kern Ceo of Expedia Group. Peter. Share with us your top hacks. When booking online, we all want to save some money here. Is it true that shopping discreetly or incognito gets to the best deals?
No, almost never true in most cases, certainly with us, the best prices are available to our members. So signed in seeing all the best prices because basically hotels, even airlines, car companies want to give our best customers the best prices. So incognito, you don't always see the best prices. If you sign in, you get to see all the best prices, you get to see all the benefits that suppliers are trying to
give our customers. And almost always that's going to be your best way to search on probably any site, but certainly on ours. What about
for deals, Peter? There's this idea that if I shop for my flights and for the car hire and the room and so on separately, I'm going to get a better deal. Is that
true in general? That is not true. People believe that if they search all these things, they get confidence that they know exactly what the cheapest price is, et cetera. But there are reality is many airlines and hotels in particular and car hires are willing to give the best prices to package pricing when people are taking longer trips and putting multiple
products together. So while it may feel like you're getting a cheaper price, because you did all the research, if you looked at them separately and then looked at the combined price, you would see that the package price is often cheaper. Now, there's lots of ways to save on our site. You can be a member and get member prices, you can get package prices. There are sometimes mobile deals, you know, different hotels are willing to do different things.
That's why it's good to be signed in. That's why it's good to look at the package prices. But very often the best deal to a given place for five days may be combining an airline ticket with a hotel with a car hire, which would be way better than buying them separately and way less complicated as an experience because you can buy it all at once.
Well, a lot of the efficiency around that relies on the technology, doesn't it?
Yes, it's totally about being able to package each thing together on our sites. You can actually make a pack kids out of anything. So if you know, you want to go from Singapore to Tokyo for four days, it doesn't have to be the old fashioned packages where it's a Sunday to Sunday and you fly on some charter flights, you know, you pick an airline, you then pick hotels and you see what the best pricing is of combining them. That's often the best price. What
about where you get your information from when you're trying to get that travel plan, the perfect one together. Some people think that you have to go to the website because that's where you'll see the full suite. It's going to be easier to navigate websites or apps which are better
generally, apps are best because apps are where the newest features are coming in general. And it's also where again, you're going to have the largest selection of possible savings because if there's a mobile deal, if there's a member deal, if it's all in the app and it's all generally the latest technology and the latest feature set, the web is great for certain people, they prefer it. But in general, the app is the latest greatest with the best value and the best place to search.
So to recap, Peter, generally shopping incognito, going sort of on a VPN and pretending I'm not who I am, that's not going to necessarily get me the best deal I should consider bundling the different elements of my travel together rather than searching for one thing or another, not just separately, you know, the flight or the car or the room and apps just using that app on my phone, that's going to probably give me a better indication of the
deals that are available, the packages that are available and the details that I really need to know to make that travel seamless
and the best and newest features. So let's
go on to loyalty programs because I think I'm a member of some loyalty programs, but I don't even know what the rewards are anymore. I've lost track because it's so complicated and some of them are really inflexible. I should just stick to one or can I have many different loyalty programs?
Loyalty programs are all different. Some are based on points and you have to earn a certain amount to get to a certain level to receive something others are based on number of stay, et cetera. What we're moving towards is a program that encompasses all our biggest brands. So Expedia hotels dot com and are occasion rental brands. You'll be able to use points flexibly basically be one key cash. You'll be able to use it flexibly across anything. It
will be denominated in money. You want have to earn 10,000 to get to some level you'll just earn. But the important thing is you're not choosing that instead of another program, you can get your airline points and book through us and get our points and you can get your car hire points and book through us. You can get your cruise points. So there's many ways
to stack and take advantage of both. Even for those who are trying to optimize everything or have a credit card that has points, you can use that credit card on us to book an airline and get points on three. So it's not about picking one or the other. I think what we're focused on is building a program that rewards everybody, whether you travel 100 times a year or one time a year and make sure you get something for your loyalty, which just hasn't been the case in most of the travel industry. So
it is entirely possible to leverage on many different loyalty programs and still have happy Travel. You can leverage on all of those. What about the best time to book Peter? Because everyone's got a story about the days of the week Monday through Sunday, which is the best time for me to book.
Well, in general booking early is best. Although it's not absolute, there will be some last minute deals from time to time. If you're looking right now, things change all the time. But booking on a Sunday is usually better, leaving on a Thursday is usually better. Fridays are quite expensive things that encompass the weekend and those are the major watch outs. And if you're not sure use our flight tracking
feature and watch the price. And when you're ready to book, you can book and we'll let you know when the prices change
information is key. They say that a journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step. The first step has got to be to get the right information. All I have to really worry about is what to pack.
That's hard. Packing is hard. Depends how long you're going. Thank you. It's a pleasure. Thank you. Appreciate it.
So to sum up the top five travel tips from the CEO of one of the world's biggest travel platforms. Sunday is the best day to book your travel and leaving on Thursday is generally cheaper. Shopping in Cognito doesn't always get you the better deals. The best place to look for member discounts is on travel apps rather than on the web. And you can also often get better deals with bundles that include multiple products and finally sign up for those loyalty programs that
actually give you something back for your loyalty. I'm Dawn Tan and my guest today was Peter K CEO of Expedia Group. Catch Money. Mind on C N A and online at me, watch C N A dot Asia and youtube.