Here it is – a treasure trove of money-saving summer travel tips from priceline.com’s (Nasdaq: PCLN) in-house Travel Ekspert, Brian Ek. Some tips are new for summer 2009, while others are tried-and-true tricks for bringing the cost of a summer vacation way down.

“Considering all the sales out there, 2009 is a great year to travel from the leisure traveler’s point of view,” said Ek. “Finding bargains this summer should be easy. But to make your bargain hunting even easier, I’ve pulled together some of my absolute favorite ways to reduce your travel costs.”

From more travel advice from the Travel Ekspert, visit his blog at http://www.priceline.com/travelblog/ or follow him on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/travelekspert.

Summer 2009 Money-Saving Travel Tips From The Travel Ekspert

• Keep an eye on Mexico. At one point during the H1N1 flu outbreak, Mexican hotel occupancy was down 50% to 80%. With travel restrictions lifted, watch for the Mexico tourism industry to respond with some incredible deals for the summer and fall. Priceline Vacations has packages available for $100 or less per person per night – and that includes roundtrip airfare and your hotel.
• Visit business convention cities. Cities like Las Vegas, Chicago, Orlando and New York that host conventions were hit hard by the business travel cutback. The cities are looking to leisure travelers to help make up the revenue shortfall and the deals are especially good. Travelers using priceline.com’s Name Your Own Price® hotel service are successfully bidding as little as $50 a night for 3-star hotels in Orlando’s Universal Studios/Sea World area, and $79 a night for 3-star hotels on Chicago’s North Michigan Avenue.
• Visit Las Vegas mid-week. Las Vegas hotel rooms are often at a premium on weekends. Visit mid-week and you can get a 4- or 5-star hotel for what you’d pay for a 3-star hotel on the weekend. For example, as of June 3^rd, a room at the 5-star The Venetian is listed at $229 a night for the weekend of July 17-19. Come a little earlier and stay Tuesday-Thursday, July 14-16, and the rate drops to $139 a night.

• Make this your year to visit Europe. Yes, the euro and pound have gotten stronger of late, but airfares to Europe and hotels are still at bargain prices compared to a year ago. As of June 3, July round-trip flights from New York to London could be found for as little as $612. A search of priceline.com’s enhanced Winning Bids feature found that recent Name Your Own Price® customers were getting 4-star hotels in London’s Kensington/Knightsbridge area with bids as low as $89 a night, and 3-star hotels in Paris’ Latin Quarter/St. Germaine neighborhood for as little as $105 a night. A 6-night vacation package from New York to Paris, with round-trip airfare and accommodations at the 4-star Hilton Paris La Defense, could be found on priceline.com for as little as $1,211 per person, including all taxes and fees.
• Name Your Own Price®.