Budget Travel tips

Following is our regular summary of the latest travel news and best frequent traveler promotions reviewed during the past week.

For the 1 percenters, whose dining-out budgets are boundless, choosing a restaurant often entails a perusal of one of the established price-is-no-object restaurant review guides. You know the ones: the Michelin Guide, Zagat, Gayot, La Liste.

If you’re looking for yet another reason to cross the Atlantic, WOW Air just gave you one: The Icelandic-based airline is expanding low transatlantic fares and “second city” air routes.

Bare fares—cheap coach fares with few perks and plenty of restrictions—are a thing. The unbundled fares, as they’re also called, are what have made Spirit, Frontier, and other ultra-low-cost carriers the darlings of the most price-sensitive customers, and of Wall Street. And the legacy carriers can’t afford not to compete for those flyers.

If New York has its way, the popular accommodations-sharing company Airbnb will be toast.

If so-called basic economy fares aren’t yet a pervasive fact of travel life, they soon will be.

Enter the Atout France USA “Lancome Paris 2016” sweepstakes by August 8, 2016, for a chance to win the grand prize: a one-week trip for two to Paris, including air, hotel, and a day trip out of the city.

Earlier this summer, Delta became the first and only U.S. carrier to offer all inflight entertainment for free. It’s still the first, but no longer the only.

Flying ultra-low-cost airlines like Spirit and Frontier means a bare-bones experience in many ways, not all of them expected. While most customers know they’ll be shoehorned into no-legroom seats in exchange for rock-bottom ticket prices, they are often surprised to discover a less-publicized tradeoff: Neither Spirit nor Frontier participates in the TSA’s PreCheck program for trusted travelers.

As travel times between major metro areas go, the flying time between Los Angeles and San Francisco is about as short as it gets: less than an hour in the air, and a bit longer gate-to-gate. Getting to the airport probably takes longer than the flight itself.

Planning a trip to Europe or beyond? If you’re looking to tack on an extra destination to your itinerary, it’s easier than you might think. Portuguese carrier TAP is adding flight stopovers in Lisbon and Porto to all of its transatlantic routes, with added freebies like hotel discounts and free wine from their partners if you do choose to stop in either locale.

Fly roundtrip to or from select Asian destinations for as few as 50,000 Delta miles in coach.

Cuba’s swing from “It” destination to last year’s Caribbean wannabe has been nothing less than breathtaking, an unprecedented turnaround in the annals of tourism marketing.

Part of what has made Uber the undisputed leader in ride-share services is its no-tipping policy. As recently as a year ago, the following promise was featured front and center on the company’s website: “No cash, no tip, no hassle … When you arrive at your destination, just hop out—we’ll automatically charge the credit card on file. And there’s no need to tip.”

Donald Trump. Love him or hate him—and the U.S. election results suggest you’re as likely to do one as the other—he’s become a fact of everyday life. And not just for Americans. His election has reverberated throughout the world.

Enter the Hamptons Lane “Discover Historic London” sweepstakes by July 15, 2016, for a chance to win the grand prize: a five-day trip for two to London, including air from New York, hotel, a $500 gift certificate redeemable for art at 20×200, and a Tarts & Pies box from Hamptons Lane.

With around 450 properties, mostly in the U.S., and a narrow focus on the budget segment of the travel market, Red Roof Inns isn’t for everyone. But if it is for you, this offer makes the chain’s low rates that much more attractive.

Bike sharing has become a way of life for many Americans—a quintessentially Northern European trend that took hold of our hearts and wallets in recent years, and that grows each time someone moves to a city and opts for a two-wheel commute. Trendy and sustainable, bike sharing is now a major presence in every major U.S. city.

What’s better than free hotel WiFi? Free fast hotel WiFi, of course.

The market for Europe travel has softened, undermined by Brexit and terrorism concerns, among other factors. And what market there is is served by a growing contingent of cut-rate carriers like WOW and Norwegian Air.

Norwegian Air, famous for offering ultra-low fares to Europe, has long had its legitimacy challenged here in the U.S. At question is the airline’s subsidiary headquartered in Ireland, which is seen as (possibly) a way of dodging local labor standards. Despite these concerns, the Department of Transportation (DOT) approved to fly to and from the U.S.