Summer travel tips to save money at the last minute

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Many are packing for the July 4th holiday travel and the I-Team has new travel hacks to help you save money at the last minute.

Travel experts say they're seeing a huge increase of people booking flights, hotels and car rentals and there are some creative ways to save money.

"Forty percent of hotel reservations experience a price drop that occurs, from the moment they are booked until the last date of free cancellation," said Doron Nadivi, Chief Digital Officer at Pruvo, an app which helps consumers monitor hotel prices and price changes for free. "We come in and we start monitoring the prices of your existing hotel reservations. We monitor the price 24/7 on hundreds of different sites and hotel suppliers, and we notify you if one of your hotel rooms had a price drop. And once we do, we basically guide you step by step to rebook the exact same room that you booked for a lower rate."

You can do this on your own as well, if you have the time to keep checking in with your hotel.

"The average savings using our service is 14% when a price drop is found," Nadivi said.

Experts say the same trick can be used for car rentals, up until you check in for your reservation. This doesn't work for cars or hotels if you have already paid in full.

You can save you a hundred dollars per person, when booking your next flight.

"I would say the larger your group is, the more likely you're going to find discounts by searching one ticket at a time," said Scott Keyes from Scott's Cheap Flights.

He said instead of booking as a group, you should book individually because the airlines have "buckets" of cheaper fares available and if you book two people at once and they only have one flight left in the "cheap bucket," then the two flights will both ring in at the more expensive price.

But if you buy flights one at a time, you could save.

"Let me walk you through an example. I recently took a look at flights from Seattle to DC. When you search for two tickets the cheapest came to $299 per ticket, but when I reduced it down to one person, all of the sudden the price dropped on the exact same flight down to $199," Keys said.

He added that this travel hack can be used on any search engine.

"This tip is especially important when you're traveling with a large group where you can save you know, $300, $400, $500, $600, often times, on, on flights," he said.

If you book separately, just remember to call the airline afterward and ask them to link those separate itineraries. This way, if anything changes and you need to alter your flights, you'll all be handled as one group.