- Planning early helps offset and disperse the cost of your trip. Eric and I always make sure everything is paid before we leave for our destination.
- Sign up for airline mileage programs. Eric and I have approximately 5 Airlines that we collect miles with. Those miles come in handy once they hit a certain amount. In fact, I just used my miles this summer to fly from Boston to Vienna, Austria.
- Once in a blue moon, you find that they have overbooked their flight. If this happens, Airlines will offer an incentive, usually a free ticket if you take another flight. This helped when we went to Barcelona. We use the ticket that we had saved when we were bumped out of our seats one time.
- Speaking of Miles, you can also get a credit card which will give you miles as well. Pay close attention to which stores, gas stations, restaurants give you extra miles. A rule of thumb that we live by, pay the credit card off immediately at the end of the month while the miles are still attached to the airlines.
- If you belong to Costco, you can find some incredible all inclusive and cruise deals.
- DO NOT USE TAXIS for your transportation.... Way expensive!! We always start with an Uber and sometimes we'll even hire our Uber driver for future drives. For example when we took the Mediterranean cruise, we asked the same Uber driver who brought us from the hotel to the ship to also pick us up when we returned. We also have used the Metro, Subway, trains, boats, and bus systems which are super easy to use and quite affordable. If there is a bit of anxiety over using these systems, there are so many people that are willing to help and we have learned a lot about public transportation by actually using them. When we were in Switzerland this summer we took an Uber from the train station to our Cottage. It cost over 50 Euro. We then learned about the ferry system and the same route cost only 10 euro. We live and we learn!
- Hotels are great, they are beautiful, have staff to bring you your luggage and park your cars. If you are staying at a hotel, do your homework and find one that has an included breakfast, not continental breakfast, but a real breakfast where you can get your protein. Also, do your research and find hotels that offer transfers from the airport to the hotel. You will be surprised how much money you save doing this little trick. Also, try to find a search engine that acquires points. Eric and I use hotels.com.
- I always start with a search engine, either Google flights or Kayak, when searching for the best dates and times, stops, and of course price when booking a flight. I then go to the actual website of the airline and research even more. I do not like flying! I find it very unnatural sitting upright for long periods of time, therefore I try and go for Non-Stop and early morning flights. You can also set an alert on these search engines and will be notified when prices drop.
- We also like to stay in Airbnb's. This gives you a bigger area, usually an entire house. You can also save money by preparing your own meals and maybe going out to dinner or lunch a few times during your vacation. We ALWAYS get an Airbnb in Hawaii.
-Finally, organizing the entire vacation on an itinerary sheet helps us budget for each day, each excursion, as well as the entire vacation. Here is a copy of my budget sheet which also includes activities, transportation, and attire for that day. This is simply a sample of the itinerary I used. If you would like access to it, please go to my store and I will send you a version that you can personalize and edit. If you need help, I am in email away.
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