Timeless Savings on Land, Sea

A reminder to seniors:

You endured World War II. You muddled through the Cuban Missile Crisis. Heck, you survived Tiny Tim. Society owes you.

And so, you over-60s, you’ll want to benefit from the many senior discounts out there, especially at major hotel chains. At the low-cost motels belonging to Choice Hotels, telephone (800) 4-CHOICE (424-6423), a “Sixty Plus Rate” offers 20% discounts, making this one of America’s top vacation values. It’s available at most Comfort Inns, Sleep Inns, Econolodges and Rodeway Inns.

Folks of all ages can benefit from the glut of cruise ships and resulting lower prices.

GalaxSea Cruises of California, tel. (800) 662-5450, is selling cabins on the seven-night Jan. 21 sailing of the Ocean Princess for as little as $454 per person. (That’s for an inside cabin, of course, and the price doesn’t include round-trip air fare to San Juan, Puerto Rico, the ship’s port.) Feb. 3 and Feb. 10 are even better dates for the one-week sailings from San Juan of the Dawn Princess, but the starting price of $454 is the same from the discount cruise broker.

On even better ships, prices of $544 per person for inside cabins and $644 per person for outside staterooms should be available on scattered dates this winter aboard one of Princess’ newest and largest, the 2,600-passenger Grand Princess, again from GalaxSea.

On land, Amtrak is beginning to issue selective sharp discounts, available only on the Internet. On recent Monday mornings, the Amtrak Web site has been displaying markdowns of up to 50%. Example? Fares as low as $52 for the Los Angeles-Seattle run, $17.50 between Oakland and Bakersfield.

You get the discount by buying your ticket at https://www.amtrak.com.

In a related decision, Amtrak has taken a page from the airlines and announced it will reward frequent passengers with miles earned. On its new “Guest Rewards” program, the miles a passenger racks up will count toward savings on future train travel, or for air travel on Continental, United and Midwest Express.