My husband and I love to travel.
We love the experience of going to new places, seeing new things and experience different environments. My husband even loves the experience of going through TSA, passport control and checkin as quickly and efficiently as possible (maybe I'll write about that in a different post).
But the problem with loving to travel is that it can get quite expensive. There are a few things that you can do to help minimize the costs of traveling and these are some of the tricks we use to get the most out of our vacations.
1. Booking flights on a low-cost airline.
When we want to take a small weekend get away we turn to the low cost airlines to find where is the cheapest place we can go that we haven't been to yet. Here in Israel EasyJet flies to many different European locations and we have been able to go to both Geneva and London for relatively cheap.
The secret with low-cost airlines is to make sure that you only take what you absolutely need. Because the baggage fees can be large on these airlines (thats where they make all their money) you need to travel light.
For a quick weekend getaway we are able to get by with one or 2 small backpacks and a rolling carry-on each. This means no checked bags, no fees and no waiting at baggage claim when you get there.
We have also been fortunate that on one of the flights they decided to gate check all rolling carry-ons so we were able to gate check our bag for free.
2. Get the miles
Some thing that I have discovered recently is that if you are a milage plus frequent flyer member through United or Star Alliance is that you are earn miles from shopping online.
For the longest time I had thought that there were only two ways to earn miles.
1. Fly more often
2. Get an airline credit card
But there is a third option, its online shopping.
This all started when my miles were about to expire (yes they expire) and I wasn't planning a trip on United anytime soon. I took a quick look on their site to see maybe there is another way for me to keep my miles (I didn't want to have to buy more miles) and there was!
When we travel to the states we order just about everything that we are planning to buy there online through the United Airlines Mileage Plus shopping site and earn thousands of miles.
Just on this last trip my husband ordered a laptop from HP at 12 miles per dollar! Not all the offers will be this good but if you are someone who typically does a lot of online shopping, this is definitely worth checking out.
The miles that each store gives can vary day to day, I recommend only placing an order when the milage is more than 1:1 so your dollars will go father.
If you rack up enough miles you could fly for next to nothing or stay at a nice hotel.
3. Know where to book
In addition to the miles for shopping you can get cash back for booking your hotels and flights online.
I have used the site Ebates to get cash back on flights and hotel stays but you can also get cash back on car rentals and even luggage.
If a place that you want to order that flight or rent a car from isn't on the United list then check Ebates because you could get as much as 10% back from just activating Ebates cash back!
So traveling doesn't have to break the bank. Book a cheaper airline, order the tickets through a cash back site like Ebates, and do all your online shopping through United.
Before you know it you will be traveling the world for less.
The world is waiting for you.