By NATIONAL PAYDAY
If you’re like most people, you may decide that the way to budget for a trip is to look up the best prices for tickets online. Then, you just pack your bags and go, without giving your budget a further thought. However, there are many ways you can prepare ahead of time to get a budget that saves you money by buying restaurant certificates, entertainment books, or scoping out deals through clubs and organizations in which you belong.
Restaurant Certificates
You can now go online and look up different restaurants in other cities and buy discounted gift certificates to that restaurant, before you even arrive at your destination. This not only helps you to figure out what restaurants might be worth visiting, but also saves you money too. You do have to abide by the terms of the certificate, which can place limits on the days you can redeem the certificate. You also might have a minimum order to meet. But, you can save anywhere from 50 to 80%, particularly on days when they have additional online promotions.
Entertainment Books
You can buy an entertainment book ahead of time and get discounted entries to popular attractions in various cities. If you are going to someplace like Busch Gardens, it’s definitely worth a look to see if you can get discounted tickets. You can even buy the entertainment books at a discount, if you hit an online promotion. Some credit card companies offer deep discounts for their members on these types of books.
Check Out Your Club Memberships
Triple A (AAA) and AARP are both organizations that provide travel perks to their membership. If you check with them first, you might find you can get not only deals on hotels, but restaurants and attractions too. Don’t forget that showing your membership card at various hotels will also give you benefits, but you have to know where to go.
I’d also add request gift certificates from grocery stores and take them when you travel. My mother-in-law gives me gift cards for Whole Foods that work at home and on the road. It even buys me lunch when I’m in Manhattan. Brilliant!
.-= Travel Muse´s last blog ..Where shall I go =-.
Good point! That’s really smart. And you seem to have a very nice mother-in-law :)
Also always a good idea to book your car hire before you go. It’s much cheaper that way (especially if you sort the insurance at the same time) and you’ll get the type of car you want. If you wait until you get to the collection desk it can be much harder to keep costs down.
Thanks for the suggestion, Gemma!