After finding out that I won’t be getting much Christmas vacation this year (the fate of the new hire grunts) I began to think about how I should best plan Christmas with the family. My first thought was to wait until Christmas was a bit closer to purchase a flight – hoping that by November I would know my work schedule, etc. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that I wouldn’t have an ice cube’s chance in hell of getting a ticket in November. This is where the hedge comes into play.

If I purchased a ticket today I could get it for around $250. If I waited until November and actually found an empty seat I could easily pay twice or three times as much. However, I don’t know what my schedule at Christmas will be or when I can fly right now. By waiting until later to buy my ticket though, that time becomes much more valuable as demonstrated by a hugh increase in ticket prices.

Well, most airlines realize that plans sometimes change and offer to change your ticket for about $100 (depending on the airline). How does this help you? Consider it an insurance plan (or hedge) for my Christmas vacation.

If it turns out I can fly on the weekend I booked then I saved myself between $300 and $600! If I find out I do need to change my ticket I’m still saving $200-$500! It’s a win-win situation in either case. And by hedging my vacation plans I am able to fly in December at today’s prices.

How do you circle the globe in 90 days and still not break the bank? That’s the question that New York Times Reporter, Matt Gross, has been trying to answer since earlier this summer. He has catalogued his journey in a number of articles – with his latest coming from San Francisco on his way home – and has given (and gotten) many interesting and frugal travel tips along the way.

Although there was no set budget per se, he did give himself daily limits on food and lodging with the intent to eat and sleep as cheap as possible. And instead of buying one of those around-the-world flights he decided to book the first and last legs of his journey which consisted of a ticket from Newark to Lisbon on May 11 for $547 and a ticket from Beijing to San Francisco on August 11 for $898.67. To get from Point A to Point A, Matt planned to “hopscotch the globe using low-cost carriers, buses, trains, ferries and serendipity.”

His journey is quite amazing and his series of posts on traveling cheap are perfect for anyone with an itch for world travel. Check out this list of articles to follow his journey every step of the way. (registration required for NYTimes.com but check out www.bugmenot.com)