Sadly, since the pandemic a lot of prices for travelling abroad have increased. It is natural these companies will want to recoup some of their loses. But it can make the thought of travelling abroad a difficult “bill” to swallow! However, after all the travel restrictions we want to spread our wings and resume travelling. I have a few suggestions below to save money travelling abroad.

Saving on Car Hire

To save money on hiring a car make sure you book early.  Not only will you have a wider choice of cars to pick from you will also save money. Car hire prices fluctuate with supply and demand so its worth getting your booking in as soon as possible. Especially if you are planning a trip during popular times of the year like the school holidays.

Don’t forget to use a car hire comparison site as this can save you time and money. Auto Europe has access to prices from Avis, Budget, Europcar, and Hertz and other regional suppliers you might not even be aware of. It’s helpful that they do all the hard work for you.

Another advantage of a site like Auto Europe is they will also aim to match or beat any car hire price you get. So, it makes sense to try them out first just because they do offer unbeatable rates.

Delete Cookies

Have you noticed the holiday you have been looking at getting steadily more expensive? It’s rumoured companies do this to quickly encourage you to book. I have noticed first hand when I deleted cookies and started my search again the prices go back to the cheaper price I first saw. So perhaps there is something to be said in deleting cookies. According to this article in the Express travel companies use stored cookies so they can access your search history; “If you’ve searched for a flight before, this information can be used to influence the price you’re given for a flight.”

Luggage Allowances

Rather than pay extra to have a suitcase in the hold, make the most of your cabin allowance. Some people are getting around this by wearing more clothes for their holiday on the flight, “pack light and dress heavy”. You could even take a travel soap so you can wash clothes in the hotel sink and reuse anything that gets dirty whilst you are away.

Avoid Eating At The Airport

The cost of eating at the airport before you travel can be extortionate. Make sure you bring enough snacks with you, so you do not have to pay a premium price for sustenance. Especially if you are travelling with children as they are always hungry!

Book Off Season

If you can try and book your holidays off season. The school holidays really ramp up the price of getting away. I value my children’s education so did not like to take them out in term time once they reached secondary school. But you can make big savings with just losing one day of school. Our trip to Barbados we travelled Sunday to Sunday of the half term holiday (through the night so arrived back on Monday in the UK). It was £700 cheaper than flying Saturday to Saturday. That is a lot of money to save for just one day of lost education.

Save on Your Flight

Certain flight times are much cheaper because they are not so convenient. These tend to be the flights that leave very early in the morning or late in the night. So, if you can be flexible with the time you travel you can save up to 25%. Likewise certain days of the week at cheaper, Tuesday and Wednesday usually cost less. I am not a fan of night flights but its worth giving them a try if you can save a considerable amount.

You can also make big savings booking connecting flights. Although after my experience travelling to Vegas with a connecting flight in Amsterdam I would rather pay more for a direct flight. We barely made the connection on the way out and had to sprint through the airport. On the return flight a few people missed their connections because we left an hour later than we should have. Sometimes its not all about saving money but minimizing stress. Holidays should be relaxing after all, so make sure you factor that in too when trying to save money.

Join Reward Programs

When you have chosen who you are booking your holiday with make sure you check if they have a rewards program you can sign up with. We did with Virgin and saved some off our holiday to Vegas because of our earlier holidays we had booked to Orlando with them. It wasn’t much but every little helps.

Secret Hotels

You can save money travelling abroad if you are willing to stay in a secret hotel. The only problem with benefiting from this discounted price is you don’t know which hotel it will be.

I am the type of person who enjoys making sure that holidays are planned and organized to the smallest detail. Therefore, I would not feel comfortable with that unknown element. Although you can pick the area the hotel will be and the star rating so it will not be a complete disaster. But reading through the Trustpilot reviews of one popular secret hotel site about unsafe stays, unclean rooms and even cockroaches in an “excellent rated hotel”, I think I will pass.

Hopefully this article will give you some useful ideas to save money when travelling abroad. Comparison sites are always worth using. But think carefully about some savings like connecting flights or secret rooms which might not always go quite to plan.