In the seasonal surge to the skies and roads, spring break promises a recharge — and a financial pinch. That’s especially true this year, when flight prices are up 20 per cent compared with last March and April, according to travel booking app Hopper, and hotels in the United States are averaging US$316 a night, up 64 per cent in the same time frame.
Naturally, even eager travellers are nervous. A recent study from the nonprofit Family Travel Association found that while families are keen to travel — 85 per cent of parents said they were very likely to travel with their children in the next year, compared with about 70 per cent in 2019 — budget concerns are top of mind.
“Affordability has always been the No 1 challenge for families,” said Peter Bopp, the director of research for the association, adding that the pandemic’s effect on family finances and inflation have heightened that concern.
“Everything is higher,” said Lauren Masarik, a travel agent based in Jackson, New Jersey, who runs Vacations by Lauren.
To help families stretch their vacation budgets, agents, analysts and bloggers offered the following 12 tips for saving money.
1. BUDGET FOR TRAVEL
Conscientious spending allowed Antonia Grant, a Minnesota-based publicist and writer for the blog Families Love Travel, her husband and eight-year-old to spend a month in Italy last summer. They are planning a similar trip to Scotland this year.
“After our mortgage and groceries, travel is our third budget item,” said Grant, who sets aside roughly 20 per cent of the household’s budget for travel. She added that the family has one car and “not the best car or biggest house” because “travel is what we prioritise.”
2. Start with flights
Flights are often the biggest travel expense, so experts suggest tackling them first.
“A lot of time, instead of saying, ‘I’m going to Paris,’ I’ll start with the flight,” said Colleen Lanin, the founder of family travel blog Travel Mamas.
She has a US$49-a-year membership with Going (formerly known as Scott’s Cheap Flights) that alerts her to inexpensive flights from her selected airports. Based on a sale notification several years ago, her family went to China for US$450 a person, round-trip from Phoenix.
“I set up price alerts when I get the school calendar,” said Kate Williams, the chief communications officer for travel search platform Kayak and the mother of three boys, referring to a Kayak tracking tool that notifies users when prices drop or rise. Her latest tracked flight recently came down US$65 a ticket for an April trip to Arizona.
Since many airlines have relaxed penalties for canceling trips and often return the value of a canceled ticket in the form of a flight credit, travellers who find a lower fare after they’ve booked can cancel and rebook using the flight credit, assuming both reservations are with the same airline.
When hunting for flights, use basic flight search budget strategies, including searching for alternate airports near your departure and arrival destinations, and using flexible dates to show the lowest fares.
Online travel agency Expedia recommends flying domestically on a Wednesday to save 15 per cent on average and booking at least a month out to save 10 per cent.
Read the fine print on budget carrier sites. Their ticket prices often don’t include things like carry-on bags or seat assignments, as do most fares from larger airlines such as American, Delta and United, except for basic economy fares. Add those fees in when comparing prices.
3. FIND ALTERNATIVE DESTINATIONS
As with flights, be flexible about your destination, advised Lauren Doyle, president of the Travel Mechanic, an agency based in Raleigh, North Carolina. For savings, she recommends Belize in place of Costa Rica, and St Lucia over Hawaii.
Consider visiting more popular places during their low seasons. When Mexico beach resorts were expensive last Thanksgiving, Gunjan Prakash, the founder and CEO of the Families Love Travel blog, and her family went to Paris. This year they plan to go to Porto, Portugal, for Thanksgiving — another place that is not busy in November — booking round-trip flights for about US$300 a person from New York City and a hotel room for four for US$200 a night.
In summer, when U.S. national parks can be overrun, consider a secondary preserve. The 16,000-acre Harriman State Park in eastern Idaho, for example, lies within the greater Yellowstone ecosystem, and has 22 miles of trails, and rental yurts from US$82 nightly.
4. CASH IN ON THE DOLLAR’S STRENGTH
One way to get more for your money is to travel to a country where the dollar is strong. It is currently worth about 0.94 euros; by comparison, it was worth 0.81 euros in early 2021. Mexico and Canada have also recently offered favorable exchange rates, as have countries in Asia, including Thailand and Vietnam.
Bopp of the Family Travel Association noted that closer destinations “make a lot of sense because it’s not expensive to get there.” Asia may have some great deals, he said, but “it’s expensive to fly there.”
Mexico, of course, is among the closer international destinations for US travellers, but it has experienced a recent wave of violence that is deterring some travellers. Still, it was the top international destination in the Americas among families, according to the association’s 2022 survey. Be sure to check the State Department’s detailed travel advisory when planning a trip.
5. SAVE ON CITY STAYS
Full-service hotels in some big cities such as San Francisco and Washington have not fully recovered from the pandemic crash, which might yield some deals, according to Jan Freitag, the national director of hospitality analytics at CoStar, a real estate analytics firm.
“Be aware of the meeting calendar,” when hotels are likely to attract business travellers, he added.
Scrimp on urban accommodations if you’re unlikely to spend a lot of time in the room.
“The key is a good location to walk to places, but you’re just crashing,” said Prakash, who, instead of staying in an expensive hotel, rented a bargain two-bedroom Airbnb in Rome last April for US$100 a night.
6. BOOK FAMILY ROOMS
Finding spacious rooms suitable for the entire family takes some digging. Booking site Hotels.com has a “family friendly” filter to identify properties with multiple rooms and amenities for kids like clubs or child care.
Or consider a hostel. Design-focused groups like Generator, with 15 locations mostly in Europe, and Freehand, in four U.S. cities, have rooms with multiple beds that families can book privately. The Freehand Chicago recently had rooms with four beds from about US$145 and the Generator London offered them from about US$234.
The more basic a&o Hostels have family rooms with up to eight beds among its 40 European locations. A recent search for a quad family room in Vienna turned up a rate of about US$30 a person.
7. RENT A VACATION HOME
Since the pandemic began, travelers have embraced home rentals for privacy and space. Airbnb said its family business has grown 60 per cent compared with 2019, with the average price per person on family stays globally at US$52 a night.
In a recent survey of 1,000 Americans commissioned by short-term rental service Vacasa, 65 per cent of respondents said renting homes offered the best value. The service identified its best domestic bargains in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, (around US$104 a bedroom per night, including rentals with multiple bedrooms), and the Great Smoky Mountains (US$116).
Travel between April and early June to get prices averaging 20 per cent less than summer rates, according to rental platform HometoGo. On Vrbo, filters for a “weekly discount” and “new listing discount” help renters find deals on the site.
Check GetawayGoGo for last-minute deals. The new platform, which is working with more than 46,000 properties in 39 countries, offers sales on vacation home rentals available up to 14 days in advance. Recent listings included an eight-bedroom villa in the Dominican Republic at 34 per cent off for US$300 a night.
