HOW TO SAVE FOR YOUR TRAVEL PLANS

I spend many an hour trawling various holiday sites. I want to visit every last corner of the earth. I feel that travelling is the most empowering and most educating thing you could ever do, otherwise you aren’t open to new foods, cultures & lifestyles. It breaks my heart that some people refuse to leave England or worse still, expect all the comforts of home as soon as they set foot on foreign soil. Of course, travelling costs a lot of money. The time old quote of ”If travelling were free, you’d never see me again” rings many bells. I manage between 2-3 holidays a year, I’m on an okay-wage and own my own house and often people ask us how to save for your travel plans  (and how the heck we can afford to go on so many holidays) so I’m hoping my tips can help you travel on your holiday of a lifetime and make your dreams come a reality.

Whilst some of these handy tips help us travel the world, they might no means work for you, but I feel that it’s something people will always wonder how to do it, some ideas might just trigger the start of your journey to save for a big trip and if travelling isn’t your thing, you could apply many of these to buying another large purchase too! I am not the world’s best money-saver so it helps that my husband is on his A-game when it comes to saving money (that & he’s from Yorkshire!)

1. Lump sum. Have you been given a lump sum of money? Not many people are fortunate but if you are this is a great way of doing so. We got married in 2014 and asked for wedding money rather than gifts. We already own our own home and have all the pots and pans we could ever need that it just wasn’t necessary. This has meant we have dipped in to the modest amount of money and repaid it back month by month as quick as we possibly can. It’s kind of like our own loan that we can dip in and out with, without using a credit card or pay day loan to achieve our travel plans. This way we always have this money floating around when we want to head off on a whim.

2. Shop around. I am an ex-travel agent, I know the majority of what tour operators and airlines offer. Some companies have special relationships with certain hotels and usually have a much favourable rate compared to their other travel counterparts. These hotels are normally classed ”our favourite” or ”our bestsellers” in the brochures so make sure you look for those – they bulk buy beds at the hotel and have to sell them, usually at a highly reduced rate. It may seem a pain but it’s worth using sites like IceLolly.com or TravelSupermarket.com or even SkyScanner.net for flight only to make sure you are getting the best deal.

3. Low season. This counts for a lot, especially if you aren’t tied to school holidays. Usually the best deals can be found at the start and end of the season. Resorts are still up and running but are in wind down mode or are only just opening up depending at what time of the year you go. We went to Mexico a couple of weeks after the school holidays ended in September and just before their peak season came in to play (their summer is our winter) and we managed to get a huge £500 saving off one of ”Forbe’s most romantic hotels in the world” which was great. You take a small risk with the weather, but normally it’s only a day or two that tends to be a little rubbish (if any!). It’s worth it to save a couple of hundred pounds. Remember where you could head to next with the savings you made.

4.  Get a separate bank account. 50% of most people’s wages tend to go on bills and household things (maybe even more!) so when you have your disposable income left why not think about saving 10-15%and putting it in to another bank account. Keep the card but don’t find out the pin. That way you won’t be tempted to use it when you’re out shopping and it means when you find your flights you have the account & card ready to pay for it. I highly recommend this over a money box, you’ll always be inclined to try and to open it up & then you’ll have to go to the bank to cash it in too.

5. Email the hotel. Found the perfect hotel but it’s too expensive to upgrade your room. Book the standard room and follow these simple tips. It doesn’t have to be a special occasion for room upgrades. If a hotels not full, they do want you to have a good time, so much so you’ll come home and write a review on tripadvisor and tell your mum, aunty and the next door neighbours dog what a good time you have in the hope that they might head there too. A lot of the time they’ll offer you a free upgrade or give you a reduced rate if you book it in resort when you check-in to make sure you have the best holiday you could at the hotel All it takes is a simple email to the hotel a couple of weeks before you travel to make your request known.

6. Book in advance or very last minute. Two complete polar opposites, when travel companies first release prices they don’t know how well the route will do so they normally have big savings to entice people to book, then there’s the other end of the spectrum, they want to sell the seats on their flights and fill those beds so will normally offer some really good deals if you can shoot off in the next week or so. It’s a simple tip and it’s worth noting.

7. Hopping around? It does help to plan in advance where you want to go and where you want to stay. A lot of backpackers pick their hotels on a whim when they are in resort, but for those who prefer to know what they are doing using sites like booking.com are great as most of the time you can pay on arrival. If you do like to pick and choose when you are on a long trip travelling it’s a great way to book your hotels because if you decide you want to stay at another hotel you can cancel free of charge 24 hours before your stay. It just means that you do have a bed for the night when you arrive.

8. Keep an eye on the rates. I’m not saying get in to stock markets and analyse the currency market second by second, but by checking the rates daily on places like xe.com you’ll see the inflation and decrease of your destinations currency. If you see it rising well before you go on holiday it might be worth dipping in to your funds and purchasing as much as you can. This means that when you are finally there, you can enjoy so much more for even less. Another thing about currency is always use the local currency, if you aren’t au fait with exchange rates you’ll more often than not get ripped off as you’ll get your change back in their local currency and lose out, not massively but every penny counts when you are away enjoying yourself.

And that pretty much wraps up most of my savvy tips for saving for your travel plans. I’m sure that there are many other hints & tips I could share with you, given my knowledge of the travel sector as I’ve found so many ways of getting the most for your money and the tips & tricks to get the best deal when travelling. I’d love to hear from you if you have any advice on saving for holidays and travel plans, did you get the holiday of a lifetime by doing so? Please let me know in the comments below.

Bee xxx

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