Two Simple Ways to Save Some Cash on Your Summer Vacation

We don’t care how old you are, there’s one word that gets EVERYONE excited, and that’s vacation. We all work hard all year and quite frankly, we earn the right to spoil ourselves every now and again with a nice night out on the town or a trip to somewhere new.

While you should certainly enjoy the finer things in life and plan as many vacation as you can, there is definitely a right and a wrong way to go about seeing the world. It’s very excited to get carried away and wind up growing broke before you even make it through the trip of your dreams. It’s important not to waste money on middlemen and to book intelligently, so pay attention to these two helpful hints that will have you lying in the sand (with a full wallet!) in no time.

1. Book Your Own Vacation at the Right Time – Long gone are the days where your only means of learning about exotic places like Fiji and Greece were from travel agents leveraging a slew of paper catalogs and limited reviews. Honestly, the easiest way to save money on your vacation is the simplest one- just book it yourself. There are plenty of online services that can scan for the best deals on everything from direct first class fights to LA to hostels or Air BNB’s at Oktoberfest. Shop around and see what works best for your plans- either piece it together yourself through a variety of vendors, or use someone like Travelocity who can get you the flight, hotel, car, airline transportation, etc. all bundled together. Just keep in mind that airlines have the highest rates for weekend departures and arrivals as obviously those are the most desired travel times. Whenever possible, try to plan your vacation to travel on weekdays for instant savings; Tuesdays and Wednesdays normally yield the lowest airline prices. Don’t forget to check out off-peak times too for excellent deals; for example early June or the last week of August into September can help with in-season pricing and heavy demand. Additionally, you also need to be cognoscente of the time at which you actually book your vacation too. Did you know the best time for low airfare is actually Monday night/Tuesday morning through Wednesday afternoon? Experts also suggest that you need to purchase your ticket six weeks prior to a domestic trip and 21 weeks before a European vacation if you want to avoid inflated “last minute” prices.

2. Get a Credit Card with Mileage Bonuses- It’s very important to have a credit card with an excellent reward program regardless of your travel plans; that being said, just about every major creditor offers either flight mileage, free hotel stays, and plenty more that can make your vacation that much more affordable. Let’s face it, life is expensive; between gas, groceries, and bills, we spend significant amounts of money every month. So why not allocate those purchases towards at least getting something meaningful back? Aside from travel, most cards will also allow you to trade in rewards points for gift certificates for major chains like Target. Therefore even if your trip doesn’t require a flight, you can still alleviate some of the cost of clothes, food, etc. through your every day credit card purchases.