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Do you like to travel? Do you like to travel with a certain level of luxury? But do you hate spending money? Well, these 12 luxury travel tips from experienced travel bloggers will help you save hundreds if not thousands for those added luxuries while travelling. Some are super simple, while some are more involved but I am confident there is a luxury travel hack in this list for everyone.
1. Travelling Just Outside Peak Times
By Epic Road Rides
My tip for saving money on luxury accommodation is to look at dates that fall just outside high season. If you can be at all flexible on when you visit and time your trip to fall just into the shoulder/low season, this can save you loads of money for exactly the same accommodation.
Often hotels and rental accommodation include details of their pricing bands on their website. This makes it really easy to see when the lower rate starts and plan around that. If they don’t include the pricing bands, it requires a bit more legwork to play around with the dates and see if you can find the point at which rates drop.
I have used this luxury travel tip too many times and ended up staying in gorgeous accommodation for a fraction of the price. On a recent trip to Provence in France, we stayed in an upscale villa by using this luxury travel hack and going one step further. We didn’t have flexibility with our dates but loved the look of the house. The cheaper rate started the week after we needed to stay. So I just explained to the owner that I loved the villa but it was outside our budget and was there any chance she’d be able to extend the reduced rate one week earlier, to the week we wanted to stay. She agreed! Moral of the story: if you don’t ask, you don’t get!
Thank You – Epic Road Rides
2. Flight Alerts
By A World to Travel
3. Multiple Credit Cards
By Well Travelled Nebraskan
4. Use Credit Cards Strategically
By Our Globe Trotters
Play your credit cards and frequent flyer points strategically. It helps if your partner has a job where they need to fly a lot, that can rack up the frequent flyer points pretty fast. But even better when this is wrapped with a premium credit card. What this means is a little outlay up front, but a lot of reward later. Our currently credit card costs equivalent $600USD annually, but we make sure that every single purchase we make is on this card (including the flights!) and all our family frequent flyer points over the year are pooled.
Every year if you spend up to their minimum reward threshold which is pretty high, we get a 75% off voucher for the number of points that you need to use for your frequent flyer booking on Etihad. This works out for both of us to fly to Australia for 100,000 miles in business class instead of 400,000. The only way we’ll ever travel home now!
Thank You – Our Globe Trotters
5. Use Points to Upgrade
By Poor in a Private Plane
If you are feeling fancy but don’t have the budget to afford a first class ticket try using points. Even if you do not have enough points to buy a first class or business class ticket you can use points to get an upgrade on an economy ticket, which is a great luxury travel tip.
Recently we flew to Italy on a round trip on Delta One. We paid economy for our tickets and using points that we accumulated from our Delta Credit Card we were able to upgrade to Delta One by just paying for our economy tickets. It was that simple.
Depending on the airline it is a good idea to call ahead. First, you want to make sure the ticket you purchased is eligible for an upgrade. Airlines restrict upgrades to certain fare classes. Also regardless of whether you are traveling domestically or internationally some airlines will also restrict upgrades on codeshares. Second, find out how many points you need for the upgrade. Once you have this number you can start planning.
Finally as a bonus keep a look out for airlines deals when using points. Every so often airlines will send emails offering discounts on business class tickets using points. These promotions do happen. You just have to pay close attention.
Thank You – Poor in a Private Plane
6. Using Frequent Flyer Points with Work
By The Practical Saver
My luxury travel hack is when you travel for work, use your personal frequent flyer membership numbers for both airline and hotels to get points.
I travel a lot for work. I make sure that I always have my membership numbers for both airline and hotels ready so I can get points for using them. Believe it or not, both the airline and hotel companies won’t openly tell you that you can use your personal member rewards numbers for work-related travel but you are allowed to use them.
I basically rack up miles and points for free. Given that I stay at hotels for like a week or two straight and travel long distances, I earn so many miles and hotel points every year and use those for family vacations. That means, free flights and hotels. We’ve stayed at five-star hotels and has flown for free several times because of those free miles and points.
7. Volunteer Your Seat
By Travel Gear For Kids
Flights are almost always the most expensive part of a trip. But what if I tell you there is a way to make them cheaper – or even for free!
A lot of airlines tend to overbook their seats, thinking there are always a couple of people who don’t show up. Unfortunately for them, they are in trouble if everybody does get there in time. At this point they will ask for volunteers to catch a later flight in exchange for free food, accommodation and a compensation. You can wait until that moment, however you stand the risk of not being at the boarding gate yet, someone else offering up first or an upgrade to business class seats getting offered to frequent flyers.
A better way is to volunteer right at the check-in gate (or even the separate airline desk at the airport). Just mention that you don’t mind taking the next flight if yours should be overbooked, a great luxury travel tip.
We did this when flying from Brussels to Bangkok and totally by accident! We went really early to the airport because I was in full panicking mode (I blame the pregnancy hormones!) because the online seat selection said there were no seats left next to each other. So, as we were trying to get this sorted at the airline desk, we got offered to take the next flight while we would receive accommodation, food and € 400 each! We didn’t know whether we were flying or not until boarding started at which point they told us that they’ve upgraded us to business class. That was not a bad deal at all!
So, worst case scenario, you take your planned flight, but you might just get your plane ticket for (almost) free or get upgraded to business!
Thank You – Travel Gear For Kids
8. Error Fare Plane Tickets
By Family Bites Travel
One of the best luxury travel hacks is buying an error fare plane ticket. Airlines have to be constantly updating their flights’ schedule and sometimes they will make an error in the price. If you can buy the flight before they realise the error you can snag yourself a bargain flight.
An error flight can be due to a number of reasons. It can be a human error, currency conversion error or a computer glitch. The most common error seems to be caused by a “self-dump” where an automated update as omitted fuel surcharges or taxes. That can amount to a lot of money, particularly on long-haul flights.
My favourite site is called Secret Flying but there are many others in the same vein. The way to get the best chance of getting an error flight is to get notifications from the companies that share the error flights. Often the error is discovered pretty fast by the airline company. So, you have to be even faster.
There is a chance that the airline might cancel or not honor the flight. Some airlines are worse than others. The main thing is to not take buying an error flight too seriously. You would never book a really important trip on an error fare as there is a higher risk than normal that the flight may be cancelled. I see it as a fun game and see if I am lucky enough to get a bargain flight. It is the risk you have to take to save potentially hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.
Thank You – Family Bites Travel
9. Using Hotwire
By Rachel's Ruminations
One of my favorite luxury travel hacks is the website Hotwire for booking hotel rooms. You can book a room on Hotwire in the normal way, just like on, for example, Booking.com. However, Hotwire has an additional gimmick that has allowed me to stay in four-star or even five-star hotels at a three-star price.
On their site, you enter the information on where and when you need a room. Next, you are taken to a map with neighborhoods marked in gray. On the map, select the areas that would be acceptable to you. As a tourist, that usually means the ones in or near the center, but a little googling will give you enough information to see which neighborhoods would work for you. You can filter for the number of stars you want; I’d recommend choosing the star categories higher than what you want to pay, so I generally choose four or five stars. I also filter for free wifi and I set it to sort by price. Click “search” and then look for “hot rate” listings.
The catch on Hotwire is that for “hot rate” hotels, it will not tell you exactly what hotel you are booking until after you pay: only the star rating and the general location is clear. Instead, it will reveal four hotels, one of which is guaranteed to be the one you are booking. If all of those four fit your requirements, go ahead and pay. After paying, you will find out which hotel it is. I’ve gotten some great deals this way!
Thank You – Rachel’s Ruminations
10. Using Make My Trip
By Jaunting Journeys
Is travelling a costly affair? If you nodded yes to that then my dear friend you are travelling the wrong way. Yes, not everyone is a backpacker who loves to crash out in those hippy hostels or traverse in the rickety buses. But this doesn’t mean you don’t travel because you can’t afford luxury. I am a travel blogger and personally have managed to crack out jaw dropping deals on luxury stays. The deals were so lucrative that I even extended the duration of my trip just to relinquish the glossy services of 4 star hotels and resorts. The first instance I can recall is from my trip to Jaipur where every morning on the breakfast table we used to lookout for a new hotel and Make My Trip was raining offers those days. I didn’t plan for it to be a 5 day trip but the deals made me do it. One day I managed to stay in a 4 star property at almost 70% discount on the next day I was at a runway view hotel for dirt cheap prices with all coming with a complimentary breakfast. You just need to keep your eyes and ears open, be a little flexible and spend time time over the web and there are many such online apps with offers on the go.
Thank You – Jaunting Journeys
11. Buying The Entertainer App (Middle East)
By Wandermust Family
Is the Middle East expensive to visit? It can be if you like luxury hotels and I love my luxury hotels. One way in which I save money in the Middle East is by buying the Entertainer App! They offer rooms at a buy one night get one night at fab hotels like the Intercon, the Grand Hyatt and the Westin, which are some of my all time favorite luxury hotel chains! Also, included are buy one get one free vouchers on the pool, beach days and at some of the regions best restaurants! It is a great way of getting luxury for less in the Middle East.
Thank You – Wandermust Family
12. Complimentary Stays as a Travel Blogger
By Planet Pilgrims
A couple of years back a Travel Bloggers Conference was held in Cape Town at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel in Woodstock. A really nice hotel where I’ve been to events before. Since it was a Travel Bloggers Conference, I thought the hotel would be open to negotiating a complimentary stay.
I knew this conference was going to be very good, especially the after-parties so I was trying to find a way to not have to drive home. What better way than if I could organize myself a nice room at the hotel? I had never asked for anything like this before but I thought it would be suitable. So I simply just dropped them an email and proposed that I would write a blog post on my travel blog about the conference and about my stay at the hotel. Within minutes I received a reply with a confirmation and that they were looking forward to reading my blog post. Wonderful! I was now even more looking forward to spending 2 wonderful days with the travel bloggers community as it had become a weekend getaway as well.
Upon arrival at the hotel I was pleasantly surprised that they’d even given me an upgrade to one of their Townhouse Suites. Whoop whoop! No need to mention that I had a wonderful time and it was great to just pop up to my room after all the partying was finished.
Thank You – Planet Pilgrims
So there you have it – 12 Luxury Travel Tips to get more from your travel for less. Do you have a luxury travel tip that you used? Would you like to share it? Please comment below because we are always looking for new an innovative luxury travel tips.