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The biggest problem with traveling though is the fact that it can be a rather expensive affair.

Be it to escape the tortures of daily life; to partake in a fascinating cultural exchange or even just to see the pretty sights; everyone has dreamt of traveling at least once in their life. Articles on Facebook recommend it, tempting you with promises that it will change your life, help you appreciate yourself and others more with offerings of new experiences.

The biggest problem with traveling though is the fact that it can be a rather expensive affair.

That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t travel if you can’t afford to spend exorbitantly, it just means that you have to be smarter when it comes to traveling. There are many tips available online to help you cut down cost and save. Here are some really good ones you can find on various sites.

Clear your cache

When you’re doing your research online for cheap flights, transportation and accommodation, it’s best to clear your cache as often as possible. Most of these sites may be monitoring your web history and instead of dropping the price, they may raise it even further to raise their margin as they know it’s the destination and date you really want.

Book at the right time

Finding the right timing to purchase airline tickets or even reserving a hotel room really defines how much you’ll end up paying. Book too early and you could miss out on a new sales promotion that could have saved you significantly. Book too late and you may not only pay more but receive far worse offers. So look out for the best deals, keeping track of when cheap promotions are announced and gather information from other people’s experience to help you figure out the best time to book a flight or room.

Be aware of extra fees

Ignorance may be bliss but not knowing all the possible hidden fees involved in your travel plans could be costing you more. Read the fine print of your payment purchases, taking note of the additional fees and how you can possibly cut them out. For example, knowing how much you’ll have to pay for baggage fees could help you from packing just enough without getting hit with extra charges. So find out more on all the extra fees and find ways to avoid them or keep them to a minimum.

Take advantage of reward points

If you have a credit card, loyalty or even membership card that can give you possible free flights or services for traveling, be sure to take advantage of them. Check the amount of points you have and if you’ve collected enough to get what you need, you can use them. But be sure to read the fine print and that there won’t be possible extra charges for the “free items” that you’re claiming. Also, don’t force yourself to spend beyond your means just to get the points that you need as the interest or extra charges you may get may be more than the cost of purchasing the actual item yourself.

Don’t overspend on travel insurance

You can opt for full travel insurance especially if your travel is rather expensive. But make sure that you’re not paying for one when another insurance that you already have has you covered. There are a number of credit cards that offer travel insurance as part of their cardholder agreements, as long as you purchase the flight ticket with the card in question. So check with your provider before making any decisions on insurance.

Saving on food

Other than hotels and airfares, your next biggest expenditure is definitely food. Rather than eat out constantly, look into booking a room at a hotel with apartment or suite facilities that include kitchenettes. This way you could prepare some of your meals in the room and save on exorbitant restaurant prices. In the same way, go for hotels or homestays that offer free complimentary breakfast.

Be sure to do as much research as you can when you’re planning your travels and don’t be afraid to ask the providers questions on any areas that may be unclear. Do read reviews of the services or items you’re interested in purchasing and always check out other brands or services to make a good comparison. Traveling may take a lot of work, but the efforts may make the entire process worth it, so don’t give up! Keep learning and reading what you can online and you’ll soon be enjoying that dream holiday you’ve always wanted.

As she paged through Viking River Cruises’ glossy brochure one recent afternoon, Diane Moskal noticed a new way to save money: If she booked the Waterways of the Tsars itinerary sailing from Moscow to St. Petersburg with something called an e-check, the cruise line promised to knock $100 off the fare.

An e-check is an electronic debit to your checking account, and it’s billed as a quick, convenient way to pay for your vacation that is “as easy as providing your credit card number,” according to Viking.

But like any smart traveler, Moskal wasn’t content with that explanation. “I see that the cruise lines advocate consumer savings if you pay by e-check,” she says. But she also found several complaints online, which made her, hesitate. She wondered: Are e-checks safe?

As airlines, hotels and cruise lines offer new ways to pay for their products, Moskal’s question resonates across the entire travel industry. On several airlines, including American, Southwest and United, you can book a ticket through PayPal. Virgin Galactic made a splash late last year when it announced that it would accept Bitcoin for its spaceflights. One hostel in San Francisco, the Pacific Tradewinds, famously offers a 30 percent discount to guests who pay with the digital currency.

Newport International Group Corporate Travel

While Viking River’s e-check option isn’t new — it’s been available since 2008 — the concerns raised by Moskal and others are. It turns out that there are several important differences between paying by e-check and paying by credit card. And given the popularity of new electronic payment choices, it’s a good time to understand how they work.

Americans made 22.1 billion electronic payments using options such as e-checks in 2012, the most recent year for which numbers are available, according to a recent Federal Reserve study. The number of transactions grew at an annual rate of 5.1 percent from 2009 to 2012, the Fed reports. By comparison, consumers conducted 26.2 billion credit card transactions in 2012, and those numbers grew at a somewhat faster 7.6 percent annual rate.

The benefits to companies are obvious: They avoid paying any fees associated with credit cards and they receive the customer’s money right away, deposited directly into their merchant bank. But consumers have an advantage, too, at least according to companies like Viking.

“Guests who pay via e-check receive a discount of two percent, which reflects a savings that Viking passes on to the guest by not having to pay a fee to a credit card company,” says Viking spokesman Ian Jeffries. He says that the company also recommends payment via e-check as an alternative to a credit card so that you can avoid any interest rates or fees that some credit card companies may charge.

Viking is hardly alone. One recent study found that a quarter of airlines worldwide offer some form of alternative electronic payment option. As companies try to escape the high merchant fees charged by credit cards, these payment choices are bound to become more common in the near future.

“Conventionally, the discounted pay-by-e-check transactions are processed through the traveler’s bank, given the customer’s bank routing numbers and checking or savings account numbers,” says Oliver McGee, a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of transportation for technology policy and a professor at Howard University.

E-checks come in two basic flavors: Check21 electronic payment processing, which is more flexible but also more expensive, and the more restricted ACH wire deposit payments, which are commonly used for handling direct deposits for employees and for paying bills.

As a practical matter, setting up an e-check involves giving the travel company basic bank information, typically gained through the bank’s routing numbers, as well as your account number, and authorizing the transaction.

But you also sacrifice something when you’re paying with an e-check. As with paper checks, once the money is deposited into the company’s account, your ability to reverse the charges is limited. Your right to dispute an e-check travel purchase is governed by the ACH or Check21 terms and conditions as well as the electronic fraud protection conditions of your financial institution.

By comparison, a credit card purchase is protected by federal law under the Fair Credit Billing Act, which, among other things, lets you dispute charges for products you didn’t accept or that weren’t delivered as agreed, and which can quickly fix a billing error.

“You have more leeway to dispute a purchase made with a credit card,” says David Bakke, who edits the personal finance Web site Money Crashers (www.moneycrashers.com).

If an e-check booking goes wrong — say, for example, that your cruise line files for bankruptcy protection and you want a refund — you may lose your money. Bakke says that e-checks can be reversed in only three cases: if you didn’t authorize the purchase, if the e-check was processed on a date earlier than authorized or if the amount of the processed transaction is different from what was authorized. Otherwise, the money is as good as gone.

While complaints about e-checks are rare, grievances with companies over wired money appear to be increasingly common. Not a week seems to go by that someone doesn’t ask me to help retrieve money that had been wired to a company or an individual. These transactions are difficult, if not impossible, to undo. Generally, if you’re dealing with a small local company or an individual, you can kiss the cash goodbye.

After I explained the differences in payment methods to Moskal, she consulted her travel agent, who booked her on the Viking riverboat cruise to Russia this fall. “She never raised the question of paying by anything other than credit card,” says Moskal.

Hangzhou Boiler Group Co., Ltd (hereinafter called company) is a large comprehensive group corporation engaging in the consultation, development, production, sales and installation of boiler, pressure vessel and environment protection equipment as well as other project service business. The former body of the company is Hangzhou Boiler Works which was established in 1955. The company joined Xizi UHC in March, 2000. Based on the principle of “Transferring the manufacturing enterprise into manufacture and service enterprise and transferring the domestic sales enterprise into overseas sales enterprise”, the company has made subsidiary classifications according to the specialized working divisions, and now the company has possessed several subsidiary companies including Hangzhou New Century Energy Environment Protection Engineering Shareholding Co., Ltd., Zhejiang Xizi United Engineering Co., Ltd., Hangzhou Industrial Boiler Co., Ltd., and Hangzhou Boiler General Equipment Co., Ltd. At present, the company can provide full set of design, manufacture, installation and commissioning services and has successfully realized the development from single boiler product provision to the general contracting of the boiler island project and power plant turnkey project.

With the occupation area of 240000m2 and the registered capital of 359.52 million RMB, the company has possessed more than 1400 employees including 400 special technical personnel. The company is the national key high-tech enterprise, national CAD application project demonstration enterprise, national research, development and manufacture base for HRSG and coal-water slurry boiler as well as Zhejiang environment protection industry base.

Since 1970’s, The company has been devoted to the development, design and manufacture of remaining heat generation equipment used for metallurgy, chemical, building material, petrochemical, combined circulation and power stations and such equipment product has ranked top among the same industry enterprises; meanwhile The company has also developed and manufactured series energy-saving and environment protection products including 23～400 MW vertical and horizontal gas turbine HRSG, 130～400t/h blast furnace gas boiler, 200m2 sinter machine HRSG, 75～260t/h dry cooling coke HRSG, 180～340t/h converter HRSG, 20～40 million ton/year pyrite burning HRSG, 1000～10000T/D cement kiln HRSG, and 150～600T/D city refuse incinerator. Up to the present, The company has produced more than 1300 piece (set) of energy-saving HRSG, and The company -developed various energy-saving and environment protection products have accounted for 50% of the total products in the same industry. The company can make an annual saving of 30 million tons standard coal, the annual generation amount is equivalent to a power plant with the annual generation capacity of 90 billion KWH, and the annual drainage of CO2 can be reduced by 600000 tons, the annual weight of refuse can be reduced by 5 million tons, the annual volume of refuse can be reduced by 8 million m3. In addition, The company sales amount for 7～90 MW large capacity hot water boiler, large chain boiler, coal-powder boiler, 300～1000 MW flue gas heater, 300～1000 MW thermal power and nuclear power high-pressure heater, low-pressure heater, deaerator and condenser have also ranked top among the same industry enterprises. From 2002 to 2008, the sales income for Hangzhou Boiler Group keeps an annual increase rate of 53% which has realized the sales breakthrough from 200 million RMB to 26 billion RMB. Depending on its powerful strength, The company is also actively exploring overseas market at the time of domestic market exploration, and The company’s products have been exported to more than ten countries including USA, Japan, Thailand, India and Brazil, which indicate that The company has achieved further international development.

The new facility, Dingqiao facility, with an area of 215,000 m2, the phase I construction area is 87,000m2, which is the “West gas east transfer” project. The workshop is designed as manufacturing 300MW boilers. The Chongxian facility is undergoing, the whole facility covers an area of 155,000m2, and the construction area of phase I is 73,000m2, which will become the heavy equipment manufacturing base of the coal chemical and nuclear power products. The facility is located along the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and supporting construction of 1000-ton dock and heavy equipment shop with the lifting capacity of 1,000 tons.

The Hangzhou Boiler people will keep in mind the important instructions about energy saving and exhaust reduction proposed by President Mr. Hu Jintao when he paid a visit to the company’s parent company, Xizi UHC on Jul. 28, 2007, stick to green development, and contribute to energy saving and exhaust reduction industry

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