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.
14 thoughts on “Affordable Luxury Travel – How to Enjoy the Luxe Life at a Low Cost.”
Planning and research are quite important for a great trip. We all love a bit of luxury now and then and you have given some great tips for enjoying luxury travel at an affordable cost. if we plan ahead, then we can really get some good deals. You are also so right about growth mindset. We have found some of our favourite destinations in totally unplanned trips. I did not know much about travel prepaid cards, now I would have to look into them.
Research and planning are key to success for making the most of your travels. The reward plans of many cards are really worth having. If one does lesser trips in a year, one luxury trip can definitely be planned with a little with a little bit of studying around. Sometimes the off-the-beaten destinations turns out much better than the touristy ones.
Thanks for compiling all the tips for affording luxury travels in your blog. I so agree with the point of reward and more rewards. Sometimes, even I am not aware of the benefits of various travel cards and airline member discounts. But I have saved a lot of money and also got many services at the same cost when used them.
Wonderful ideas on having affordable luxury holidays. Time is very important and I have seen in shoulder season the holdiays at luxury location are very affordable. If we opt for Venice or Greek islands in month of March or September then they are not very expensive destination. Also using rewards is very useful in saving money. Choosing hotel or flight from comparison sites is very helpful advice.
These are some great tips! I usually use my credit cards for great offers/deals and cashing in points etc and that has gotten me some great deals and helped with luxury travel. Definitely agree with the time part, always been doing that. Picking off season leads to lower hotel/flight prices and great deals although i do like to make sure it’s not way too much during the off season, specially if the destination faces heavy rains, hurricane season etc. but yes time helps a great deal
Yes great tips. But sometimes despite the intention I am not able to travel during off peak periods because my wife cannot take leaves being a teacher. But on the others I do use currency cards, do a lot of research to avail discount offers. Also use a credit card which rewards through miles and that comes very handy with many free flights throughout the year.
I like the idea of just heading somewhere even though it’s not on your list, but choosing it because of the cost. We haven’t used this approach for a holiday, but when I’m heading to a specific country, I’m usually flexible about which airport I fly into, even if it means having an overnight at a different destination and having to travel. This way it gives you a chance to see somewhere we wouldn’t usually have thought about visiting.
Flying to a different destination is surely a great way of seeing more places and it all adds to the memories created.
This is really an insightful post on affordable luxury travel. I mostly use my credit card and when enough rewards are collected, I use it to book upscale hotel. I use many website to compare hotel Prices. As you said time of holiday matters, I travel after or before the peak season, hence more discounts for the actual Prices.
It’s great that you are already using points and rewards.
Quite insightful! Thanks for the tips!
Thank you
This is really inspiring!Hope to make use of this tips someday.Well done friend!
Thank you.