I love to travel. This year, I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to some pretty amazing places including Santorini, Mykonos, Athens, San Diego and Tulum, Mexico. Over the past year, I've picked up a few tips and tricks that has saved me a ton when booking my trips. Traveling doesn’t always have to break the bank. No matter where you’re going, there are plenty of simple ways to save money.
Whether you’re planning a holiday getaway or just planning to travel more in the new year, here are my 5 tips you might want to keep in mind when booking your next trip.
Booking Online (Change to Private Browsing): Here’s a tip I wish I would have discovered earlier. Has this ever happened to you that you’re browsing for airfares online and suddenly the flight you had searched (literally 2 minutes ago) has now gone up in price? This has happened to me plenty of times! When you’re searching for airfares be sure to use the “Private Browsing Mode” (Chrome: “File>New Incognito Window”, Firefox: “Tools>Start Private Browsing”, Safari: “Safari>Private Browsing”, IE: Switch Browsers). This will prevent sites from using cookies and tracking your history, which is then used to strategically inflate prices.
Stay in a Hotel with Free Meals: An easy way to save money is to book a hotel with free breakfast. As a Hampton by Hilton Seekender, I got to travel to San Diego this year and I absolutely loved their free hot breakfast. And we are not just talking a continental breakfast here. They had everything from hot oatmeal, fresh fruits, waffles, eggs and all the works. Plus it also saved us so much time in the mornings since we would just go downstairs, eat breakfast and then head out to enjoy our day.
You can check out my San Diego trip here.
Travel Off-Season: By traveling off-season you'll be able to save tons of money on airfare as well as other things. Besides many places are interesting any time of the year. This year I traveled to Greece in May. The high season technically starts in June. We were able save approximately $300 on airfare and still got to enjoy beautiful weather.
Travel on a Wednesday or Thursday: We've all heard several tips on what is the best day to travel.
From my experience the best days to travel is either Wednesday or Thursday. Fridays on the other hand are one of the most expensive travel dates and one of the busiest. It makes sense since most people are wrapping up the work week. Prices on airfare and even fuel generally peak on this popular travel day. On average you can expect to save anywhere from $50-$70 bucks. If you're looking into a small getaway I recommend flying out on a Thursday and returning on a Monday.
Consider Flying to a Nearby Airport: Look into alternate (regional) airports when booking your trip. There are several airlines that fly to smaller airports. For example, when traveling back home I'll look into flying into FLL (Fort Lauderdale) instead of MIA (Miami International Airport). It's about the same distance to my house. If traveling to Paris for example you can also look into Orly Airport instead of Charles de Gaulle Airport (Paris' main international airport).
Quick Tip: You can also check one-way flights (and buying it seperately) instead of purchasing a round-trip flight).
This post is brought to you by Hampton by Hilton. All opinions as always are my own. Thank you for supporting the sponsors that make this blog possible.
No comments
Post a Comment