No doubt you’ve heard of travel sites Expedia and Priceline — or if you’re like me, frequent them anytime I’m planning a trip. These sites buy unsold rooms and unrented cars from the major travel companies and resell them to us (with their own fees added on).
Although the prices we pay on those sites are almost always cheaper than buying direct from these travel companies, the truth is, you could be paying even less.
Discount travel site JIFU.com charges their members the same wholesale price they paid for various travel bookings — passing along 100% of the savings with no markup. Members just have to pay a monthly fee for access to the discounted rates.
If you’re looking to get the edge on cheap travel bookings, you’re going to want to pay attention.
1. JIFU lets you try out their discount travel membership free for 30 days.
You don’t even have to give them a credit card to test out JIFU. The free 30-day trial gives you half the discount of a regular member, and it doesn’t give you access to everything — no flights! — but you can compare JIFU prices on hotels, rental cars, excursions, golf, airport ground transportation, and airport lounges for a whole month.
When you sign up for the JIFU free trial, make sure to check your spam folder for the link to confirm your email address. You can’t log into JIFU until you click that confirmation link.
2. Pay $25/month for access to all of JIFU’s discounts.
JIFU claims “up to 37% savings” for people who try out their limited 30-day free trial on hotels. But if you want the real power of the JIFU portal, simply upgrade to a member. While the prices you find during the trial will be pretty good, they’re half as good as what JIFU offers their paying members. For example, if you see savings on a particular hotel is 23% while on your trial, that same hotel would be 46% off as a member.
JIFU says members can get discounts of up to 75% on hotels and big savings on the following travel activities:
- Ocean Cruises
- River Cruises
- Sail Boats & Yachts
- Rental Cars
- Flights
- Rental Homes (similar to Airbnb)
- Unused Timeshares
- Select High-End Destinations
- Activities (Excursions)
- Golf
- Emergency Travel Services
- Gift Cards
- Restaurants
- Airport Transport
- Airport Lounges
- Wine Club
- Worldwide Tours
3. JIFU’s flight search is one of the most complete you can find.
JIFU does something that few ticketing sites do: They include all of the airlines in their flight search. Expedia, Priceline and even Google Flights don’t show flights from Southwest Airlines, for example, in their search results. JIFU does.
Although JIFU claims some pretty deep discounts on flights, you’ll want to do comparison shopping. Ticketing sites are constantly trying to outdo each other, and prices constantly shift, so you’ll find that when it comes to plane tickets, sometimes JIFU wins, and sometimes they don’t.
Pro tip: When in doubt, browse JIFU at 3 p.m. Eastern on Tuesdays; that’s when prices for the week tend to settle down. We’ve got lots more information about the best time to book flights.
4. JIFU’s prices on hotels and rental cars are lower than other discount travel sites.
During my free trial, I scoped out some scenarios of travel plans, comparing JIFU to their competitors. Although JIFU lists competitors’ prices when you’re browsing booking, — be aware that these sites are constantly changing prices to beat each other.
Note, when comparing the prices of JIFU vs other travel sites, JIFU always shows you the total price including taxes, whereas the others do not show this till the end of the booking process.
2-night Hotel Stay at the Linq Hotel in Las Vegas: April 4 – 6
JIFU: $44/night + $11 taxes+$45/night resort fee (paid upon arrival); total $200
Priceline: $94/night +$18 taxes + $45/night resort fee(paid upon arrival); total $319
Hotels.com: $99/night +$13 taxes +$45/night resort fee; total $315
Expedia: $99/night +$13 taxes +$45/night resort fee; total $315
In this scenario, JIFU saves you $119 for two nights versus Priceline and $115 versus Hotels.com and Expedia (who are owned by the same company). As a free trial member you would save approximately $58.
Rental Car (Economy): April 4 – 6 in Boise
JIFU: $46/day; total $119
Priceline: $51/day; total $140
Expedia: $59/day; total $150
Note: Many hotels in Las Vegas (and other resort towns, like Orlando) charge a nightly resort fee on top of the nightly lodging rate. JIFU doesn’t normally list these resort fees, so make sure you know what the price at the resort is before booking.
5. Plan your cruise excursions with JIFU to save an easy 33%.
I was really sad when ShoreFox closed their doors in 2020. That website was a great way for people to find highly rated and trusted excursions outside of the overpriced cruise line economy.
Thankfully, JIFU has picked up where ShoreFox left off, not just beating the cruise ship prices for excursions, but beating other discount sites as well.
I found a cathedral tour in Barcelona, Spain, that was $76.30 per person on Viator that cost just $51 per person (during the same dates) on JIFU. That’s 33% savings! This pattern regularly repeats itself.
6. JIFU rewards members who pay for an entire year with a 7-day stay at a 5-star resort in Mexico.
You can cancel your monthly membership anytime, and so in order to hang on to members, JIFU offers a weeklong stay at the Vidanta Grand Mayan Resort to members who pay a year at a time ($324). This one week is valued at over $6,000. JIFU really does get crazy deals!
7. Get a $1,500 travel voucher when you join JIFU’s affiliate program.
If you’re a member of JIFU’s referral program, you’ll earn between $10 and $180 every time you get somebody to sign up for JIFU.
And even better, once a year, affiliate program members get a $1,500 travel voucher good at 126 resorts worldwide. In order to get the voucher, you have to be an active affiliate member in good standing.
8. Need help? JIFU members have access to a free personal concierge.
Another big benefit of JIFU is that if you’re overwhelmed by all the options, or are otherwise not super tech-savvy, you can schedule a free call with a concierge.
JIFU’s Member Service Specialists have the ability to book unique vacations not available on the website, including custom and multi-destination travel, exotic travel, safari tours, mountain excursions and more.
On the concierge page, you can schedule an appointment, or get help immediately via online chat.
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