Affordable Luxury Travel – How to Enjoy the Luxe Life at a Low Cost.
Affordable luxury travel is life but what’s even better is the low cost if you know how to find it.
If you have school-aged children like me and you prefer the consistency that term-time schooling gives them, then you have no choice than to travel only during the school holidays.
In England, the UK, there are 13 weeks of school holidays. Travel during these 13 weeks tends to be more expensive because the travel providers take advantage of the demand and then increase the cost of supply.
In order to enjoy affordable luxury travel at a low cost during school holidays, you need to follow my 5 ‘go-to’ tips.
Affordable Luxury Travel Tips #1. Time
With seven continents and over one hundred and ninety-five countries in the world, you are spoilt for choice with where to go. The question is when?
In order to find when to travel, you need to pick a location, search for the possibility of natural disasters, peak periods and non – peak periods. Then, book the non-peak period that is favourable for you.
Read my post on the Best Family Holiday to Turkey to find out how we travelled to Turkey during February half-term school holidays which was not a peak period hence it was unbelievably affordable.
We stayed at the prestigious Concorde De Luxe Resort.
Affordable Luxury Travel Tips #2. Have a growth mindset
Growth Mindset simply means you need to be flexible and have an open mind about achieving your travel plans. The best deals at a particular school holiday period might not be where you have on your list but giving it a go could be the best decision you ever made.
For example, when we booked our first Easter school holiday to Cyprus about five years ago, we didn’t know what affordable luxury life Cyprus had in stock for us and ever since we first visited, we have ritually continued to visit Cyprus every year and we have even joked that we will retire in Cyprus one day.
Affordable Luxury Travel Tips #3. Use Comparison Sites, Cash-backs and Discounts
Comparison sites are great for checking out what’s on offer. Trivago and Travelscoop are one of my favourites for luxury school holidays offer.
Cash- backs are great for comparing various booking websites like Expedia, Booking.com and icelolly.com offering cash-back deals when you book with them. I mostly use Quidco for these.
There are a number of career-based discounts that are great at giving you staff discounts. The most popular is the National Health Service (NHS) discount. If you work with the NHS, make sure you use the health service discount website to check out what discount is on.
Affordable Luxury Travel Tips #4. Use Prepaid Currency Card
I have introduced Revolut travel card to a large number of friends already and they’re all so happy about the fact that they don’t need to pay handling fees or transactional fees unlike credit cards from banks.
Revolut travel card works like a credit card and you can conveniently transfer money from your account to your Revolut card and vice- versa, whilst keeping an eye on what you’re spending. The range of currencies on offer is amazing and I noticed that Revolut’s conversation rate is usually higher than the banks.
For more guidance on the best and worst debit cards to use abroad, check out this blog post by Veggievagabonds.
| Bank | International ATM fee | International transaction fee | International withdrawal limit | |
| Monzo* | Nil | Nil | £200 per month. 3% charge for foreign withdrawals after. | |
| N26* | 1.7% | Nil | No limit | |
| Revolut* | Nil but 0.5-2% on weekends | Nil | £200 a month. 2% charge for foreign withdrawals after. | |
Affordable Luxury Travel Tips #5. Use Rewards and more Rewards
We all love to be pampered right? Rewards come in different shapes and sizes. Using them on your luxury travel makes it all more affordable. How?
Ensure your credit card gives you points and offers for using it. An example is the British Airways American Express Premium Plus card which gives a 2 for 1 companion travel on a BA flight for an annual fee of £195 and a minimum spend of £10,000 over a period of 12 months.
Ensure you use your supermarket loyalty scheme which has partnership points that can be used for travel. Examples are Tesco Club-Card points which convert into Avios and Sainsbury’s Nectar points which can be used for travelling with Easy-Jet.
The secret is out! This is how you too can enjoy affordable luxury travel during school holidays.
I hope you find these tips useful and if you have the tips that you wish to share, please do by leaving them in the comments below.