(MONEY Magazine) – By now, you've probably heard about spur-of-the-moment travel bargains--especially ones offered on the Internet. Getting a low, last-minute fare to a fabulous destination sounds great, you think, but every cheap flight must go to Cleveland, right? Or high-priced hotels and car rentals will wipe out your savings. Plus, it's too hard to keep up with that stuff. And who really travels that way anyway? Well, Rachel Freeny, for one. The legal secretary and her husband Wayne, a manager at GTE, travel almost every weekend, often at a moment's notice. Doing so doesn't take a fat wallet, she swears, just a little flexibility and spontaneity.

Take her favorite recent getaway. One Monday night, she and her husband caught a TV ad from Southwest Airlines for a three-day advance-purchase round-trip ticket from their hometown of Dallas to Albuquerque for $159. (That's $9 less than the recent lowest-priced seven-day advance ticket and far lower than the unrestricted fare of $280.) "We just looked at each other and were, like, 'Why not?'" she says.

The next morning they booked the flight, plus a car for $33 a day, through the airline ticket agent. Freeny then scouted a few Web travel guides, reserving a $79-a-night hotel room while she was at it. That Friday, they were off. "The sky is so blue there, and the mountains are so beautiful," she says. Would she go back? "Go back? I would move there."

Excitement in the unexpected. The perfect moment, stumbled upon. Such can be the rewards of last-minute travel. And thanks to a number of services catering to savvy shoppers, spontaneous getaways don't have to cost a lot. They do, however, require a little diligence, whether it's looking out for newspaper and TV ads, as Freeny does, or knowing the going rates to a few preferred destinations so you can actually recognize a bargain. But it doesn't take a lot of work, as we quickly discovered in interviews with industry experts and travel fanatics. Follow these tips, stay flexible and you might find your own private Albuquerque.

--Consolidate your e-mail updates. Nearly three years after American Airlines originally hit upon the idea, most major airlines now send subscribers a midweek e-mail announcing a handful of fire-sale flights available that weekend. And while the deals are often a steal (New York to London for $239, anyone?), the proliferation of these programs can make staying on top of them a chore.

Use the table on page 146 to figure out which airline e-fare program is most likely to offer flights to and from where you live. Then you can cut down your e-mail clutter even more by visiting SmarterLiving (www.smarterliving.com), where you can sign up for a free weekly e-mail that consolidates all the Web travel specials being offered by 20 major airlines departing from your choice of 41 cities. At the site itself, you can search anytime for late-breaking deals. The Deal Watch section of InsideFlyer magazine's WebFlyer site (www.webflyer.com) has a similar flight clearinghouse.

Richard DiDonna, a Washington, D.C. legal assistant, has made last-minute e-fares part of his regular travel repertoire. He's taken advantage of such deals six times in the past two years, jetting off to places like New York, San Diego and St. Croix. "I saw the fare to St. Croix was $229 on Tuesday or Wednesday, called my fiancee, and we were on a beach that Saturday," he says. (The lowest recent 14-day fare for that route was $589.)

It ain't all sunsets and pina coladas, however. Nabbing these fares can mean contending with limitations and annoyances. DiDonna's St. Croix flight, for example, left from Baltimore--a sacrifice he happily made, but a one-hour drive from D.C., nonetheless. Most e-fares require a Monday or Tuesday return, which could mean scheduling a day off from work on short notice. And not every airline offers deals from every city, or deals to specific cities, with guaranteed regularity. In general, an airline will offer the most last-minute bargains in and out of the cities where it does the most business.

And what about the much-hyped Priceline.com (www.priceline.com) service, which promises, tantalizingly, to let you "name your own price for airline tickets" and, lately, hotel rooms? Although the service has its fans, we say pass. Why? Because too much control of the transaction has been taken out of the customer's hands. Once you bid a price, you can't back out, even though you won't know the exact time of the flight, the carrier or whether you'll have a stopover until your bid has been accepted. If your bid is rejected, you have to alter your itinerary before resubmitting an offer.

If you're desperate to reach a specific destination at the eleventh hour, a better bet is to call your travel agent or the airlines: Both often have access to deals not available elsewhere.

--Don't ignore hotel and car rates. Air fare is clearly crucial, but too many travelers make the mistake of thinking it's the only factor to consider. "Once you've got your air fare, you're a last-minute walk-up for the hotel," says Laurie Berger, editor of the Consumer Reports Travel Letter. "And they may try to stick you." Best advice: Even though you have to act fast to get a last-minute air fare, don't book that flight until you have reserved a room and wheels. Although some hotels and car rentals require a deposit, you can typically cancel the reservations up to 24 hours in advance with no penalty. With a plane ticket, you're out the money whether you go or not.

For car and room deals, start by looking at the airline e-mails and the WebFlyer and SmarterLiving sites. Most match bargain air fares with discount rates from major hotel chains and car-rental agencies in the destination cities. If those hotels prove unavailable or unacceptable, try your luck with one of the better-known hotel consolidators, such as Hotel Reservations Network (800-964-8835; www.180096hotel.com) or Quickbook (800-789-9887), both of which buy blocks of rooms from hotels and sell them at substantial discounts to the hotels' regular rack rates.

You can also try to snag a room through hotel-chain reservation systems or by calling the front desks of individual hotels themselves. Always ask for the cheapest room, what "specials" the hotel has going and if you can get a discount for being a member of aaa, aarp or another association. Even drop the name of your employer--anything to get the tariff down.

--Get free advice. Now you have to figure out what to do once you get to your getaway destination. Yahoo Travel (travel.yahoo.com) and Excite Travel (www.city.net) are both excellent starting points, providing maps, weather forecasts and links to other sites. Guidebook publisher Rough Guides (www.roughguides.com) is also worth a visit. The site has an impressive array of free information from the travel guides, including recommendations on where to stay and eat. Fodor's (www.fodors.com) also has outstanding comprehensive online guides to 99 of the world's most popular destinations.