Tips for cheap travel abroad

[BehindBlueI's]

Tips for cheap travel abroad:

1. Start planning 5-6 months out. Airfares are cheapest at two periods, well ahead of time and ultra-last-minute. Last minute airfare may not be worth it for longer and more involved trips, though because lodgings, train tickets, etc. will likely be more expensive.
2. Be flexible. We keep a list of roughly 6-10 places we’d like to visit. Inevitably we find one that’s much cheaper than the others and much cheaper then it was in years past. Big tourist cities like Paris and Barcelona tend to stay cheaper then harder to reach places like Peru.
3. Be flexible with your dates as well. Flights can be much cheaper on certain days of the week, usually the ones business travelers don’t often use. Sundays and Wednesdays will usually be significantly cheaper than Fridays or Mondays, but not always.
4. Travel light. In cheap international travel, bags are almost passengers needing their own ticket. A single suitcase can increase your cost $120 round trip. You can buy a lot of socks and underwear for $120 if you should need them. If you really do need luggage, see if you can get an airline rewards credit card that offers free upgrades. More on that in a bit. For our upcoming trip to Spain we’ll be taking a small backpack each. We’ll wear our “nice dinner out” clothes on the flight and have two sets of outerwear and four sets of underwear in the backpack. That’s about 4 kg for me, including the bag. Some European airlines limit you to 8-10kg for carry-on. A fairly lightweight wheeled bag is 2 kg by itself, and the wheels eat up cargo space. I’m a fan of backpacks not only due to weight savings but because it’s just easier to keep up with then a suitcase.
5. For travel abroad, get to Chicago. Either budget airline or drive and park. The larger your group, the more worthwhile this is. Indy has a great airport and it’s very nice for domestic flights, but it’s much more expensive to fly to Europe and you’ll have to go through Chicago or Detroit or New York anyway. Ex: I just ran flights to London for some dates in October. CHI is $338 a ticket and is a direct flight. $658 for IND, and that’s with a 3 hour layover in Boston. $628 is the cheapest, but that’s with a 8 hour layover in CHI. Figure your group size vs amount of pain it would be for you to get to CHI, but you get the idea.

Airfare:

1. Remember to play with your dates, a day or two forward or backward may result in big price swings.
2. For years I used hipmunk.com and loved it. Unfortunately they were bought out (apparently for patents) and the parent company shut the brand down on 1/23/20. I liked them because you could search for nearby airports, +/-2 days for travel dates, etc. I’ve had to adjust a bit, so here’s what I’m doing now. I use Google Flights with CHI as my home airport. Put in the dates you want to travel and you’ll get a map you can scroll around on. The map will show you costs to fly to various cities. Note the ones that are in the price range you are interested in, and note the details. This is where you start.
3. Once you’ve got your destination in mind, run it through a couple other metasearch sites. Cheapoair.com and skiplagged.com are the two I’m using post-hipmunk. (For domestic travel, remember some airlines don’t show up in metasearches. SouthWest, for example. So search SouthWest and Frontier separately.) You can also check through the airlines’ own websites You’ll note that these metasearches might come up with a few different prices. Go with the cheapest for the flight you want, these are just search engines and you are not actually booking through them.
4. Pay special attention to baggage rules and any upcharges or fees. Need to take a bag? Prices range from $60 to $115 or more per leg of the trip, which is why I said treat the bag like another passenger and calculate it’s ticket cost as well.

Lodgings:

1. We use AirBnB a lot. If you don’t have an account, PM me and I’ll send you my friends referral link. I think the current offer is you get $55 off your first rental and I get a $30 kickback. We find that generally for anything longer than an overnight, AirBnB is the cheapest way to stay for a few reasons.
   1. The apartment itself is cheaper than a similar quality hotel room
   2. Rent a place with a kitchen and you can eat some of your meals ‘at home’, which both lets you play with local ingredients and saves you money
   3. You’re more likely to have nearby restaurants and shops that cater to locals and have local prices vs tourist prices.
   4. You have laundry facilities, which is why you can carry less baggage and still have clean socks each day.
2. We do sometimes use hotels. Especially if your flight arrives at an odd time, hotels are usually flexible with checking you in early or at least storing your bags. Again, I use multiple metasearches. Expedia.com, Tripadvisor.com, hotels.com, and booking.com. However just like with the flights, I use these to get an idea of where the best price is and what the reviews say. Before I book I always go to the hotel’s own website and see the dates. It’s often cheaper. Tripadvisor.com has been great lately as they will have a bonus code for you to use at the hotel’s website. We did book a hotel at one city and got free breakfasts for everyone included for the stay (roughly $12/day normally) with the tripadvisor code.

Food:

1. Eating out gets pricey quick, but part of the fun of travel is trying local foods, right? So eat local foods. I touched on it in the lodging section, but we will get groceries and eat breakfast in our apartment. We’ll often return for either lunch or dinner, but eat the other meal out and get snacks or pastries around the city.
2. Ask locals. People think I’m joking, but I swear I do this both home and abroad. Find a middle aged heavy set local lady who’s dressed nice but not too nice. Ask her for a recommendation of where to eat. If you rented an Airbnb, ask your host. Get out of the touristy areas and try the restaurants they eat at in their home city. Now, we will eat at touristy places as well, sometimes it’s part of the fun, but sparingly.
3. Tripadvisor.com is helpful, as you can sort by price point and look for reviews from locals.
4. Know the local tipping customs. Many places don’t tip like the US. Some don’t tip at all, or just round up to the nearest Euro. Seldom is more than 10% for great service normal outside the US.

Getting around:

1. Be fit enough to walk. This is just good advice for life in general, but most larger European cities are very pedestrian friendly and not particularly traffic friendly. I’ve rented a car exactly once while abroad, and that was in Cyprus. I rented a RAV-4 and it was like driving an extended Suburban would be here. *Sometimes* a car rental is worth it if you’re touring a lot of small towns, and the rental itself is often rathe reasonable. Add in gas, parking costs, and remember a lot of places are off limits to cars and many lodgings will be impossible to park at and it becomes a bother.
2. Public transport tends to be quite good. It helps if you speak a bit of the local language, of course, but I’ve yet to find a subway system that wasn’t intuitive and inexpensive. Bus systems are more spotty as far as ease of use. Of course rideshares like Uber exist in many European cities as well. We’ve found that the subway + walking is usually the best for in city travel, but do occasionally take a bus. Research ahead of time how to buy tickets, they are usually cheapest in books of 10 and each will be good for a set amount of travel. Often a single ticket is good for multiple modes in a set time period, such as a subway trip then a bus trip as long as it’s within 30 minutes, etc.
3. “City cards” can be a big discount. For example, Rome has the “Roma pass” which you can buy online ahead of time or any tourism office. It gives you discounts on public transportation and admission to many attractions without waiting in line. You just swipe your Roma Pass at a special gate and enter. (Side note, we bypassed a multi-hour line at the Colosseum with our Roma Passes, only 3 people ahead of us to swipe at the turnstyle). See if your city has a pass, what it includes, and if it’s worth it for your group.
4. Taxis are the most expensive, but can actually be reasonable for a group from and to the airport due to flat pricing. Again, research ahead so you know if you’re being cheated. Paris, for example, has flat pricing. From the airport to anywhere on one side of the city is 30 Euro, the other side is 40E, IIRC. If you have a group of 3-4, that’s pretty attractive, especially if you ignored the advice about travelling light.
5. It’s cheapest to stay in one city, of course. You’ll usually get weekly rate discount, and most of the cities have plenty to see for at least a week, but sometimes you want to see more. Trains and intercity busses are usually pretty reasonable when booked in advance. Raileurope is a handy site in that it is English regardless of which country you are looking at, has a good search engine, and let’s you compare times quite easily. This is handy as ticket prices swing wildly during the day (for three tickets, I saw prices vary from USD $99 to $278 depending on time of day you wanted to leave). Traveling while most people are at work is usually the cheapest and, happily, is easier to coordinate with check-in/check-out times for your lodgings. This is where prior planning comes in, again, though. These tickets are discounted quite heavily more than 60 days out, then less so at 45 days out, etc. Again, I can send you a referral link if you like and I think it’s 5 Euro off your first trip. **NOTE: This will likely set off your bank’s automated fraud detection the first time you try it. You’re in the US using an England based company to buy train tickets in France or wherever. It’s probably a good idea to call your bank ahead of time and let them know you’re doing this or they’ll likely block the transaction as possible fraud, you should also let them know your travel dates and destinations for the same reason**

Bonus discounts (and getting local currency)

1. Use a travel oriented credit card. We have used the American Airlines card in the past, which gave us free checked bags. When they stopped waiving the annual fee, we dropped the card. Now we have a Navy Federal card which gave us $500 in bonus points for spending a certain amount in 3 months, 3% back on travel related purchases and 2% on other purchases, and no foreign transaction fees. Don’t be afraid to swap cards as the bonuses come and go. Just pay off the card each month and enjoy the free money. Remember many cards will waive the annual fee for the first year or two, don’t be afraid to ask and cancel if they won’t and it’s not worth it to you.
2. Gift cards. I use Raise.com (again, if you don’t have an account send me a PM and I’ll send you a referral link. It’s not much of a discount, but I think you get $10 and I get $5). Raise guarantees your gift card to be good for a year, so if someone steals the money on the card in that time they will refund you. I just buy cards as I need them. Currently you get 4% cashback on Airbnb cards. Using the above mentioned credit card and the 4% cashback, I’m getting 6% off my AirBnB reservations. Buy a gift card, it’s delivered electronically, immediately add it to your AirBnB account, reserve your apartment. (Note they also sell gift cards for various restaurants and stores, I use them whenever I buy something from Lowes as well)
3. Cash from ATMs, not from money changers and not at airports. Your first trip, you may have to use an airport ATM since you may not have any Euros yet. I always return with 80 Euro or so for the next trip so I’ll have a bit of local currency to start out with for taxis or whatnot on the next trip. I use my credit card whenever I can (cash back and no foreign transaction fees make it cheaper then cash, plus no risk if it’s stolen) but some places only take cash. I try to have 150-200 Euro for smaller establishments, like buying a painting from a roadside artist sort of things. Check with your bank/credit union about foreign currencies and ATM use.
4. Know the local haggling customs. In some countries, everything is a used car purchase and only suckers pay sticker. Knowing a bit of the local language, and how often to pretend to have a heart attack or accuse the seller of starving your children to death, can save money and be rather fun if you’re into that sort of thing. I sometimes forget and fake a heart attack in the US (theatrical Sanford & Son variety). Netted me 30% off at a NASA gift shop, once.
5. City passes vs individual attraction tickets. Like the above mentioned Roma Pass, some cities sell a swipe card that lets you gain entry into a set number of tourist attractions, museums, and so many bus rides/subway rides, etc. These can be a money saver IF you are interested in the package they offer. They are often a time saver as you can bypass lines and don’t have to buy individual tickets.

I usually buy a local SIM card so I have data for navigation, buying tickets online, communication with my AirBnb host, etc. This can be done in country upon arrival or through several websites. $30-$50 will usually get you a month of use, such as: https://www.amazon.com/Orange-Holiday-Europe-New-Package/dp/B07RXYH2NW/ Just be sure not to activate it until your trip, as the countdown to expiration starts when it's first used, not when purchased. Verizon will let you use your usual account abroad for $10 a day and you can sometimes get a free day, so for shorter trips if you're a Verizon subscriber just do that. Also note some hotels have a mobile hotspot you can take with you as long as you're staying with them which can be cheap or included with your room.

With a family of three, I’ve been able to take my family to Paris Wed to the following Thurs for less than $2k in airfare, public transportation/taxis, and lodgings.

Anyone else have tips to share?

 

[BugI02]

I, like you, usually tavel to a gateway city first, but mine are on the east coast. Be flexible about your departure point. I scored major savings last year to Heathrow by using BOS as a departure point rather than NYC. I got $400 RT when most other options were $7-900 because Virgin and Aer Lingus were having a fare war for certain departure times. Also look at seat maps and seat rating sites, often foreign flag carriers have much more comfortable seating and better amenities in the back (we chose Aer Lingus over Virgin for these reasons despite a short stop in Shannon vs non-stop on Virgin on the way over)

 

[BugI02]

When riding domestic airlines (I'm assuming most of us will ride in the back) checking seat maps is also important. I advised my sister on selecting flights from ALB to LHR on Delta that a flight operated by a B767 was preferrable to one using an A330 because the seating on the 767 was 2-3-2 so six out of seven seats per row were either a window or aisle seat and only one was a middle. The seating on the A330 was 2-4-2 with narrower seats and a higher proportion of undesireable ones. Older (by only a few years) aircraft are also less likely to have put the squeeze on [STRIKE]steerage[/STRIKE] coach to expand business class to accomodate layout seating. That space has to come from somewhere and it is usually your legroom that is taken

 

[chipbennett]

Following, and will hope to contribute, also.

 

[Ingomike]

We got literally a steal on Delta flights to Europe. Used Skyscanner app, checked multiple times per day way out like Blue suggests, Indy now has a direct flight to Paris daily. Then prefering more seat room (big guy+long flight) and priority boarding, about 2 weeks before we called Delta direct, we paid a very fair amount to upgrade our deeply discounted 3rd party seats. Our upgraded seats were cheaper than most in coach.

 

[injb]

Great advice! I would add a note about taxis: there are still some places in Europe where taxi drivers can charge whatever they want if you don't agree a price up front. Be especially careful when you see rows of taxis lined up with the drivers standing around idly. In some places they prefer to rip off a small number of customers and spend the rest of the day doing nothing.

 

[JettaKnight]

BBI, perhaps you or someone else can explain why flights into BCN, and Paris, are sooo much cheaper than anywhere else?

I just picked some week day flights, and those two are $327 & $297 and most other places are over $550. AMS, which is a major hub, is over $1000!

 

[chipbennett]

BBI, perhaps you or someone else can explain why flights into BCN, and Paris, are sooo much cheaper than anywhere else?

I just picked some week day flights, and those two are $327 & $297 and most other places are over $550. AMS, which is a major hub, is over $1000!

Most immediately, I would assume supply and demand are at play. Air travel (along with travel in general) is down significantly in the short-term, due to COVID19 hysteria.

 

[JettaKnight]

Most immediately, I would assume supply and demand are at play. Air travel (along with travel in general) is down significantly in the short-term, due to COVID19 hysteria.

I imagine so, but I was looking toward August and September.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

BBI, perhaps you or someone else can explain why flights into BCN, and Paris, are sooo much cheaper than anywhere else?

I just picked some week day flights, and those two are $327 & $297 and most other places are over $550. AMS, which is a major hub, is over $1000!

I would suspect the same reason Chicago is usually cheaper than Indy. They are major feeder hubs so lots of flights to other places pass through them en route to those other places, creating a larger supply of flights then would otherwise be warranted.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

Dang it. I misread the thread title. I thought it was tips for a cheap broad to travel.

 

[tv1217]

For a limited time: Cough on anything and it's free!

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Old thread bump, but:

If you're willing to fly out of Chicago and want to go to London and/or Lisbon, there are some smoking deals right now through Virgin Atlantic, American Airlines, or British Airways. Note AA and BA are the same flights, they are global partners so it's the same plane. The only difference in who you book through is reward points or if you have frequent flier status/credit card deals with either. You can get a British Airways co-branded credit card and get 10% off any tickets you buy as long as you have the card. If you don't have a Citibank AA card already, you can sign up and get $200 off your first flight. Both then offer bonus miles (or Avios, as BA uses) if you meet pretty easy spending goals.

You can pretty easily snag economy tickets under $400 round trip right now for the low season of post-Thanksgiving pre-Christmas travel. $325 for a Tuesday to Tuesday flight with a 4 hour layover in NY, for example, and that's without the credit card boost.

 

[CallSign Snafu]

Are you retiring from the popo to be a travel agent?

 

[JettaKnight]

Old thread bump, but:

If you're willing to fly out of Chicago and want to go to London and/or Lisbon, there are some smoking deals right now through Virgin Atlantic, American Airlines, or British Airways. Note AA and BA are the same flights, they are global partners so it's the same plane. The only difference in who you book through is reward points or if you have frequent flier status/credit card deals with either. You can get a British Airways co-branded credit card and get 10% off any tickets you buy as long as you have the card. If you don't have a Citibank AA card already, you can sign up and get $200 off your first flight. Both then offer bonus miles (or Avios, as BA uses) if you meet pretty easy spending goals.

You can pretty easily snag economy tickets under $400 round trip right now for the low season of post-Thanksgiving pre-Christmas travel. $325 for a Tuesday to Tuesday flight with a 4 hour layover in NY, for example, and that's without the credit card boost.

I don't have any FF plan, or tied CC (I have a Sapphire Preferred).
I don't have date restrictions, and my destinations are generally restricted to "a former 2nd world European country".

How can I find deals? Most of the flight search engines demand you specify a destination and date.

EDIT: Kayak let's you specify a month and loose number of days! $479 to Vilnius!
Who wants to freeze their butt off in the Baltics? (well, besides this guy)

 

[JettaKnight]

And here's my tip: Basic Economy sucks!

No checked bags, you sit in the very back, they might not even let you use the overhead bins...

The "old" economy is now called "premium economy" and if you're like me and want to check a bag, premium economy is better value and most search engines let you specify that in the search.

 

[JettaKnight]

Second tip: Icelandair is pretty good. A lot of leg room, cheap upgrades, and flights to Europe are decently short because of a layover in Iceland. Bad thing: The food sucks, so pack your own.

Worst case is that you miss a flight and you're put up overnight in Iceland. (And they use a different currency, so you don't know how much those three beers cost till you get home and do the math. )

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Are you retiring from the popo to be a travel agent?

No, I'm retiring to be a traveler. Not today, mind you, but soon and for the rest of my life.

I just see a lot of folks who ask me "how do you afford to..." and the answer is finding deals and not wasting money on things I don't care about. We almost never eat out when we aren't on a trip. I don't have many recurring fees/subscriptions. I buy vehicles I like then keep them for a long time. We well underbought on our house. Etc. We went to Italy by saving $150/mo for 18 months back in 2007, and I guarantee there are people who'd love to go to Italy but "can't afford it" who pay that in cable bills and fast foot every month. Some people would rather have cable, and I get that and it's ok, but I hope posts like these show how accessible travel actually is if you're willing to put in the work. We did all of these trips on one salary (mine) and without accruing debt, even if we had to wait 2 years between trips.

As my salary has went up, we've accelerated our tempo and are taking more trips, but the premise is the same.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

I don't have any FF plan, or tied CC (I have a Sapphire Preferred).
I don't have date restrictions, and my destinations are generally restricted to "a former 2nd world European country".

How can I find deals? Most of the flight search engines demand you specify a destination and date.

EDIT: Kayak let's you specify a month and loose number of days! $479 to Vilnius!
Who wants to freeze their butt off in the Baltics? (well, besides this guy)

Google flights as mentioned above, which lets you just pick a home city and then you see all the destinations. Expedia and use "flexible dates". Search individual airlines and flexible dates. Many will show you a grid of prices for at least a week. I use Excel and keep track of who's offering what until I pull the trigger. It's work, but like reloading I find it relatively enjoyable and something I can do instead of wasting time with TV or video games or whatever (I do waste some time there, as well, mind you, just not much)

Branded credit cards are worth it, even if you drop them later. I picked up the Citi AAdvantage card again, got another $200 off, free checked bags, etc. I hit "Gold" FF status this year without taking a single AA flight prior to hitting it. I get miles from my CC, miles for taking surveys, miles for keeping money in Bask Bank (1.2 miles per $1 annually, but those are considered bonus miles and do not count toward FF status like the others). My wife is going to apply for one as well and she'll get the bonus miles and discount, too. I'll drop mine next time the annual fee is do if they don't credit it for me and then get it again in the future once I'm eligible for bonuses again. I'm currently looking for a good hotel or general rewards card that pays for global entry, since it's time to pay for 3 accounts of that and I only have one card that pays it back at the moment.

Anything that gives you status with a hotel or rental car company can often be tied back to your FF account as well. I get bonus miles for renting from Hertz, and 10% of my rental back as an Amazon gift card. We rented a Wrangler for an upcoming trip to California where I intend to do some softroading tourism and I'll get both. Be brand loyal when there's no downside, but be prepared to jump ship if someone has a better deal. We rented from a European brand in Spain last time, Hertz was way more expensive even with the bonuses.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

And here's my tip: Basic Economy sucks!

No checked bags, you sit in the very back, they might not even let you use the overhead bins...

The "old" economy is now called "premium economy" and if you're like me and want to check a bag, premium economy is better value and most search engines let you specify that in the search.

Basic economy sucks, and sucks more on budget airlines. British Airways is worse than Royal Jordanian. Premium economy is more than the old economy, in that the seats are closer to 1st class seats in terms of space and adjustability, you often get a different meal, etc. I'm playing roulette this time and hoping to upgrade last minute, at least on the flight back. I hate flying cattle car, but will tolerate it for shorter flights. Once you're hitting 10 hours+ I'll spring for the upgrade. Sometimes I get complimentary exit row seats then I'll just stay in coach.

Traveling without bags is best if you can. It really speeds things up when you don't have to wait for the luggage to come out at baggage claim. Plus you can still sight see until your hotel is ready if you get there early and just have a backpack vs a suitcase.