[sameer sultan]

Flights

Book on Tuesdays Wednesdays and Thursdays when the fare is lowest for the week as the business crowd prefers to travel on Mondays and Fridays and the holiday crowd on weekends.

Select off peak hour flights.Avoid early morning and late evening flights which have the highest fares.

Low cost airlines like Airasia Air Arabia Flydubai and Scoot offer some great deals when booked well in advance of the departure date. Just book the basic fare without check in bag, seat selection or meals as the basic fare includes 7kg of carry on bag plus 1 personal item like a laptop bag or sling bag hand bag etc. At the airport when you check in the airline will allot seats free of cost though it might be a middle seat. As we are talking of frugal holidays who cares as long as you save some money!

If you have a Platinum Visa or Mastercard(Debit or Credit) you get lounge access for a nominal charge of Rs 2(for debit cards its Rs 25) at major Indian airports. These lounge's have nice buffet spread where you can eat before your flight so you can avoid buying the expensive inflight meals.If you don't have a credit card which gives lounge access then have your meals at the kiosks at the entrance of the airport as the food costs cheaper here than the food outlets after the immigration/security check area inside the airport.

Search for deals in all the online travel portals as they have promo codes on specific days of the week. For e.g. akbaronline.com has domestic flight deals on Tuesdays and international flight deals on Thursdays. Makemytrip has deals on Tuesdays and Saturdays.So its best to check all the travel sites before booking.

If you book 1 ticket in 1 PNR you get a discount by using the promo code which the travel portal will offer. If you book 2 tickets in 1 PNR then also you will get the same discount hence split the booking into 2 PNR's to get discounts for both passengers. Of course use of the Promo Code is limited to 3-5 bookings in a month hence check the T&C's before booking.

Always check for the fares directly with the airline website as they do not charge convenience fees on the ticket which the travel portals charges. Though these travel portals offer promo codes at the time of making the final payment the convenience fees are added up which will be more than what the fare is offered by the airline in their own website.

[livetodrive]

Did anyone mention drinking water ? Earlier when we used to hire a Qualis/Sumo, we used to take a 20 litre jar with tap. Used to save a lot.

[selfdrive]

There are a few frugalities we try to follow some of the times. On other occasions, we have ended up spending more, but we also have better memories of places where we have not skimped on things.
For example, if we feel like having dinner at a beach facing table, so be it. Or if we need to book a room with a view of the mountains; we do it for the day that we will be in the hotel/ resort, but switch for other days of the trip.

Some other tips which most of us may already be using:
- For flights, book way in advance if holidays are approved. Book refundable tickets if there is any chance you may have to change your travel plans. Try to avoid the times when children have school vacations. Exam time is the best time for others to travel.
- We do not normally go for any group tours due to the rigidity of their schedule. However, their schedules are usually a good starting point for us to plan our trip.
- For any road trip, I try to keep all possible denominations easily accessible to the driver. I also end up checking for the toll receipt amount before leaving the booth. There have been a couple of occasions where we received a toll receipt with lower amount; we have been asked to pay again later in the journey
- Preventive maintenance of the car before the journey. Any maintenance issues during the trip, you may have to end up paying more to local mechanics for what may not be genuine parts.
- Filling up fuel at trusted (or what looks like trusted) fuel stations.
- Driving defensively and following the letter of the law. This allows us a less stressful drive (it does not take much longer than if we drove like maniacs) and gives us better fuel mileage.
- This reduces the risk of getting into accidents somewhere away from home or hitting someone that you may end up paying for (in terms of time/ money/ blood pressure etc)
- Increase/ reduce the number of days based on how expensive the place is (in case of a multi city tour). For example, we did not stay overnight in Monte Carlo, but extended our stay in Nice and did a day trip instead.
- For train journeys, try finding a good departure/ arrival time to save on hotel nights. In Europe, we found that at times the first class tickets were cheaper than second class tickets. More value for money, I would say!
- Buy from stores to avoid restaurant prices for sandwiches/ water/ coffee/ croissants
- Avoid tourist traps (in terms of souvenirs and monuments). There are many places that are advertised as 'must see' but they may not appeal to you. Read up on reviews and decide beforehand if you really need to see that museum/ monument or you could reduce a day to use elsewhere.
- buy/ eat/ enjoy local food. It is made better, you will have more memories of the place/ people. Of course, if it is a compromise with hygiene do reconsider.
- Minibar? Put all what they provide at the back. Buy your own stuff and use their fridge; not their stuff. Instead of room service, eat at the restaurant. Or even better, find some local places to eat.
- Travel insurance. Do ensure you are insured as well as you would be if you were at home. Include riders for luggage, if you are carrying anything expensive.
- Luggage: Travel as light as possible. Easier said than done. You could use a checklist for basic things needed and only carry as much. You dont need to carry a bag of toiletries or towels if your hotel provides this anyway. If you carry too much stuff, you may want to consider packing appropriately. Based on the season/ location where you are going, you may need jackets. In flights, if you are really short on your luggage allowance, wear your heaviest clothes during checkin. Keep a foldable bag in your packet to store your jacket in the flight.
- Segregate the bags. You can have 1 bag for both of you for the first couple of days and another for the next section. So you do not end up opening and repacking all bags on all days. If this happens you are wasting your time instead of using it to explore your destination.
- Basic medicines/ first aid kit: Always carry what you need as daily medicines and any spares for emergency. It is possible that you will end up spending time/ money in finding medicines in an unknown place.
- Phone/ sim cards: try using free wifi for data. If you dont need a phone, avoid spending on roaming charges. It will help you focus on your vacation
- Location/ timing: If you know you will be at a beach in the evening, you might as well conserve your energy in the afternoon by staying in. You don't want to be over exhausted by heading out in the sun. if you are in the mountains, try to leave as early as possible to get better views (especially the Alps). Earlier trains (say, to Jungfrau) are also cheaper!
- Do not travel ticketless or try to bend any rules. Fines can be really high, and you end up spoiling the entire holiday. If you are driving, check if your car needs a vignette for where you are headed. Keep all relevant documentation handy to save time. On holidays, time is money!
- In India, if you are going to tip someone, do so partially in advance. It usually gets you better service for the rest of the stay. No point in deciding later subjectively. If you are not going to tip someone for whatever reasons, this is also fine. And will save you money.
- 1 camera; no other devices. You may need an ipad to keep kids busy, but dont bring your work laptop along. You are just wasting your holiday time if you do that. Also make emotional memories. We do not anyway see much later most of the gazillion pics we take. Else you just make memories of clicking pics in places, but no real experience of the holiday by itself. It is like being employed as paparazzi without any pay. Of course, if this is what rocks your boat... All I am saying is strike a right balance; so you use your holiday as a holiday.
- Smile and talk to people: It may get you a better deal wherever you are; or a free dessert/ coffee or nice service. if nothing else, it will get you some nice memories and will continue to keep the rest of your trip positive.

I could keep typing; maybe I will just make another post later with whatever I missed (and there is still a lot!)

[autorahul]

Travel during the night.

Skip the evening flight and travel during the night on Train/Bus. You not only save on travel cost, but also on a night stay (or 2 if you return the same way).

When traveling abroad, especially applicable for Europe, instead of setting your final destination as one of the famous hubs, set it to a city nearby which you might be planning to visit. Combine this with open jaw flights and you could save considerably.

For eg. you are planning a trip to Munich, Vienna and Berlin, many would be tempted to buy tickets to Munich, and travel from there, most likely by train. Instead, you can book a multi city flight to Berlin and Vienna and travel on overnight busses between Berlin, Munich and Vienna. This way you also avoid/minimise any loops in your trip save on some hotel nights.

The idea is to avoid hubs, and also make your travel more efficient both in terms of money and time. Avoid round trip between cities whenever you can.

For busses, Flixbus can be checked in Europe. They have a pass for Interflix which allows you 5 direct trips from anywhere to anywhere for just 100 EUR. This includes night trips. When I went on a backpacking trip last year, I spent 4 out of 12 nights on Flixbus.

Few websites which can be used

1. Kayak.com- Use this for multicity search, and flexible date search (round trips)
2. Google My Maps An excellent trip planning too. Plot your itinerary on the map. You find if you are doing any avoidable loop. Mobile app is available too and helps you be on track easily.

[streetfighter]

Few more tips:

• If you are researching on flight or hotel rates before booking, do the search in the browser in "private" or "incognito" mode. When you use the normal mode in your browser, the websites track you, and tend to increase price when you do the actual booking. They know you have been eying that route/hotel for quite some time.

• Booking from an iPhone/Mac would result in a higher pricing than booking on Windows/cheap Android phone. Yes, some companies are tracking this too and adjusting prices as they see you are using a premium device, hence can pay more.

• In addition to looking at multiple sites, do look for cash back offers on specific credit cards on specific sites. Eventually, the rates work out better.

• Subscribe to newsletters, great deals are sent out over email. Enable silent notifications for your travel apps.

• Some airlines are not tied up with travel websites, do check them independently. E.g. in the USA, Southwest.com is great for internal travel, they fly from smaller airports too, & they allow 2 free baggages.

• Try flying out from nearby airports, if the rates are drastically lower.

• Loyalty: Do ask for freebies and discounts citing loyalty. I've got room upgrades, free meal/drink voucher few times.

[ARAY]

My duster has clocked 57k in 2 years and that car is specifically for long trips. For past 6 years all our vacations have become road trips.

-1 week after the last trip , start planning for next road trip, it can be hypothetical but the research will yield lots of new information.
-keep the vehicle light weight, not always possible but helps
-book hotels atleast 5 months before. Most hotel these days have 100% refund.
-target offseason or just a week before the season, you get everything fresh.
-if the holiday schedule has 1 night , 1 day , we can target home stays , if its > 1 night check how much time you would need to spend and decide accordingly.
-for hills check with hotel for parking spots and confirm a day before
- subscribing to news letter of Makemy trip, goibibo, cleartrip amd several others is a good option.
- using travel miles or reward points help a lot
- using patym or icici fastag at tolls has some minor returns buts saves time.
-try filling up in COCO pumps.
-some states have lower fuel charges than its neighbours and sometimes the numbers are astonishingly far apart, although its not feasable but try to fill in states where rates are cheaper.
-getting permits done by oneself saves a lot of time amd money
-special treatment for car like snowchain , AT tyre , winch , etc..and all if planned throughout the year gets you to a comfortable zone.
-keeping the vehicle at sweet spot RPM helps although almost impossible on a beautiful tarmac .
-driving own vehicle definitely saves a lot of money but the breakeven in my case is > 500kms trip. It will vary for everyone.
-Try to have food at bigger non branded dhabas and far away from approaching or departing city , food price is relatively reasonable
-make a note of hospitals in affinity to the destination hotel and make sure its covered under your medical provider, although not always possible.
-1.5 /1.6 l diesel is a sweet spot for me in terms of mileage and maintenance , ealier it was 1.2l ... Maybe this is also a consideration while counting in road trips.
-carry spare kit and see if self help is an option
-i heard for few faculties of CGE toll tax is exempted, make one a co passenger if possible

[am1m]

Am not really sure the title of this thread is appropriate. I mean 'frugal' implies a shoe-string budget, while most of the posts talk about saving a couple of hundreds on things like highway toll while spending thousands on hotel rooms and petrol. That's like me booking a flight, booking a 3-star hotel, using a backpack and calling it 'my backpacking holiday'. (the correct term is 'flashpacking')

Anyway, not deriding anyone's choice of type of holiday (i'm a flashpacker myself!), to each their own- just an observation, the title of the thread is misleading. Perhaps 'money saving tips on holidays' would be appropriate.

One thing I'd really plead for is carrying re-usable water bottles and filling up wherever you can instead of buying bottled water. Not to save money, but the plastic bottle waste issue is really out of control, especially in tourist spots all over India. And you can get clean, safe, drinking water almost anywhere. Any hotel you eat at will let you fill your bottles. Railway stations and airports always have good water refills. My wife and I travelled all over India in 2016 and maybe bought water just once or at most twice when we really had no other option. And we never fell ill even once drinking from refilled water sources.

[mpksuhas]

Originally Posted by am1m

One thing I'd really plead for is carrying re-usable water bottles and filling up wherever you can instead of buying bottled water. Not to save money, but the plastic bottle waste issue is really out of control, especially in tourist spots all over India.

On a related note, we have 3 Bisleri cans at home, the 5 litre ones which we get at supermarkets. Based on trip duration, we fill the cans with filtered water from home and carry in car.

Use it to refill smaller 1 liter bottles based on need along with refiling big cans when you are confident about water quality means you can avoid buying water bottles to huge extent.

[Paragkash]

My tips
1. Travel in shoulder season
2. Leave very early in the morning every day. This saves you a lot of fuel and time. This is also a safe habit, as you reach your destination in daylight.
3. Fill fuel early in the morning. One gets more density due to less temperature in the morning.


4. Carry Ready to eat Vegetable packets. One has to just put the sachet in boiling water. Buy bread locally. If one can manage to do this for at least 1 meal a day, one can save a lot of money.
5. Carry Tea or coffee in an insulated flask. Carry sandwiches or similar food during the day trip. One can have a nice picnic lunch in a scenic location.

[naren_gs1]

While on road trips - I do hotel bookings most of the times on the fly after reaching the destination. Thought I do this for having flexibility in the plan - I have found most of the sites offer good discounts for same day bookings. Of course this may be the case during peak season and country side locations.