It's great to have your car waiting at the airport when you get back home after a business trip or a holiday. Though most airport parking costs are fairly reasonable, you might just get a great deal if you looked at off-site parking. Satellite parking lots usually give away good deals thanks to the competition they face from other parking lots. So if you are quite smart and savvy, you might just end up saving a lot!



How do you get the best deals in parking? If you tend to use a parking lot often, especially for overnight or longer, try and find out from them if they will give you a discount on a certain minimum number of vouchers purchased. Some of them give up to 50% off if you buy the vouchers online or with a credit card.

You can also choose the parking space you want in some parking lots. You might just find that some spaces cost less than the more easily accessible ones. If it is a long trip you are off to, it would make sense to enquire about this because the savings would probably be considerable. Also enquire about daily versus weekly rates. Most parking lots offer considerable discounts for long-term parking. Some even offer facilities for frequent parking, much like the airlines' frequent flier scheme.

There are schemes open to members of certain automobile organizations too. So if you are a member of say, AAA, you could find out from them or their web site whether there are any special offers for the members at certain parking lots. You might just get a hefty discount in some lots or, if you're lucky, you could avail of a service where they pick up your car from the airport when you leave and drive it there when you get back.

Of course, nothing can beat the Internet as far as offers are concerned. Keep tabs on it days or maybe weeks before you leave. You might get very attractive deals. You might even pick up a free day's coupon off the Internet! Or get a day free if you park for two days. With so much competition, parking lot operators want you to try parking at their lot and to feel comfortable there. Once they've got you as a customer, they hope you'll stick around for a long time. So you might as well make use of this and get the best deal out of them. It's worth surfing the Internet and doing a bit of research. All you need to do when you've got a good deal is to pay online, print out the transaction receipt and take it along with you to the parking lot where you will have to submit it. If you do it well in advance, who knows, you might save as much as 60%.

Special holiday season discounts, too, are a good idea and many operators offer them before every holiday season. Sometimes, travel operators either tell you of good deals or give you a good deal like free or discount vouchers themselves. You'll need to spend a bit of time finding out which one is the best deal for you but at the end of it, you'll find the savings more than make up for the time spent!