EXPLORE the world. LEARN the cultures. LOVE the journey ♥: A Trip is a Trip No Matter the Distance

During the week I have been working on making reservations for the celebration of my 21st birthday which is on October 18th. All of my friends are already 21 so we decided that a night of bar hopping in downtown Boston would be perfect! I live about 45 minutes away in Derry but going to the city and experiencing the excitement of ordering my first, second, third, fourth, and so on (you get the picture), legal drink. At first I contemplated getting hotel rooms for me about 20 of my friends but came to the conclusion that the cost of travel, the hotel, the cover charges at bars, and my drinks was going to get very expensive quickly. After some brainstorming I came up with the idea to take a limo down with my friends for the night that way we could bring our own alcohol in the car and bar hop in style without having to spend as much on the overpriced drinks at the bar, but still get the full experience.

Step 1: Find the baseline

A limo is no cheap feat either, so knowing how to get the biggest bang for your buck is important. I am a thrifty girl and I love to save money where I can so the first BIG thing to know is that you can’t settle for the first price you are given. Shopping around will show you all of your options. I bet most of you don’t know that there is a site very similar to kayak.com or priceline.com and it is called limos.com. If you use this site you will get a listing of many limousine services in your area, their cost, and what type of vehicles they have to offer. I started off by going here and to my surprise was then emailed by several of the limo services with special offers and discounts. I received special incentives which made the deals even sweeter!

Step 2: Call around

The next step in finding the perfect deal is to look at the listings on limos.com and make the calls! Call several places (I called 5) and get different prices. The price they show online isn't always the best price and getting personal makes them want to work on the price with you. Let them know you are shopping around! This will make them want to be even more competitive on their price. When you call you should ask how much their rates are, does it include gratuity, availability, and also get pricing on a few of their vehicle styles.

Step 3: Review your results

I had gotten 5 places to provide pricing on vehicles ranging from a 10 person stretch town car to a 30 person party bus and all the options in between. I love spreadsheets, (I know I am a nerd) so I put it all into an easy to compare format that I could quickly narrow down. I found that a few of the options were WAY over priced and immediately eliminated them. After I narrowed my options down to what vehicle I wanted, a 20 person Cadillac Escalade or a 10 person stretch Dodge Charger, I was ready to get down to business.

Step 4: Call back and Negotiate

After I chose my vehicle, I found that only 2 of the 5 places I had called offered these vehicles for the night I wanted. I decided to call the two locations and play the prices of the other business off each other to get them to drop their pricing. I first called Celebrity Limousine and informed them of the pricing I was looking for. This was my second choice because I really wanted the 20 person Cadillac Escalade, in PINK. Celebrity did not have it in pink but their pricing was a bit better. They were not willing to move at all on the price so I called Premier Limo and said I wanted to go with their company but their pricing was a little too high. I had previously been quoted $960 all-inclusive for 5 hours of service. After informing Premier that Celebrity gave me a price of $860 for 6 hours all-inclusive, Premier offered me 6-hours all inclusive for the original price of $960. Since I really wanted the pink vehicle I agreed!

Morale of the story, I got my pink limo for a decent price of $960 total split among 20 people for only $48 a person! Check out what it looks like!!!!