Has anyone else noticed that it has become harder and harder to find a good deal. The past few years the post COVID travel deals were at an all time high. As with everything these days prices seem to just be going up. As travel has started to get back to a more normal pace those peak travel times of the year have become challenging to find good deals.
We have put together a few tips to help make the best decision for your family.
- Book as far in advance as possible. Our family has been trying to start to book for summer 2025. While this isn’t alway manageable due to finances or schedules, if you can put a deposit down and start to pay off monthly. We found some much better prices on cruise for 2025 than we are seeing for 2024.
- Be flexible with dates. Now this one can be challenging for many reasons. Real world jobs sometimes come with parts of the month that make it hard to travel. Kids have school and extra curricular activities that may play a factor. If you are flying, check the dates surrounding your desired travel dates, you may find leaving a day earlier or later makes a big difference in the price of your flight. Headed to a cruise? Try booking air travel through your cruise company. You may also find taking shorter trips is the right answer for your family. Hotels in a lot of destinations will have premium pricing during holiday’s and weekend.
- Is your destination drivable? It may end up costing less even if you have to rent a car. We have found for our family of 5 flights end up being a big cost for vacations. While we don’t love to drive I am willing to sacrifice the driving time if it saves us significant money. You can also look at alternate airports to compare prices. It may benefit significantly to drive a few hours to catch a flight for hundreds of dollars less. Just be sure to calculate the cost to park during the duration of your trip.
- Loyalty programs and credit cards can be helpful. If you aren’t part of a loyalty program for a hotel chain you can generally sign up for free. There can be some great benefits if you are consistent with staying with the same chains over and over. Credit cards can also offer some great travel benefits, they each come with different benefits so just be sure you know what you are getting into before signing up for anything.
- Compare, compare, compare! Do your research before booking anything. If you want to take a cruise check out all the cruise lines not just the ones you have been on before. You may find a similar itinerary on a different line for less. Stay open to trying something new. Check out those price comparison sites, but check the actual hotel or cruise sites they may have a better deal. Check with a travel agent, they may have access to special deals.
While the deals may be fewer then in the past there will always be ways to stretch your money to find a destination that works best for your family. Keep us posted on what you are doing to find travel deals!
