Travelling is an expensive hobby. Travelling with kids is an even more expensive hobby and travelling with kids who are of school age is almost unaffordable. Even though this is true, we travel multiple times a year (with our kids who are of school age) during the school holidays. This has it’s price and we don’t exactly have a money tree growing in the garden. We have to make choices and a lot of our savings go into travelling, but to do this… we book smart. How do we do this you ask? Here we share some of our best tips , so you too can go on cheap holidays with kids too!
Cheap holidays with kids
“Cheap” is a dangerous word, so let me start with a disclaimer. Cheap to us may be expensive to others or the other way around. But one thing I know for sure, with these tips you’ll surely pay less than usual when you go on holiday. So here we go!
"Everywhere" on Skyscanner is your biggest friend
Huh?! “Everywhere”? Yes! When you visit Skyscanner you can fill in from what destination you want to fly, like Amsterdam. You can also choose where to go. Right there you can choose to select the option “everywhere”. When I enter the dates I put down multiple school holiday dates. When you press “search tickets” you will find yourself in a selection of the cheapest flights, ranked from country. When you click on the countries you get to see the exact destinations. It was this way we were able to book our tickets to the Seychelles in May for only € 460,- pp!
If you really want to book the best tickets through Skyscanner it is also advised to scan multiple airports for your arrival and departure. Sometimes booking two separate tickets is cheaper than 1 return ticket. Skyscanner finds these options for you automatically.
Book a hotel with free annulment
I’m a big Booking.com fan. As soon as we’ve found and booked a good flight deal, I make reservations at a hotel through Booking.com. However, I always select the ‘free annulment’ hotels. The faster you book, the lower the prices often are. Sometimes you will find an even better deal through Booking or another site. I will cancel my first booking and book the best deal. Booking has a loyalty program too: When you book a lot you get “genius” discount that’s usually 10% but may sometimes be more.
Hop Hop "Hopper"
Do you know this app? Hopper is very handy! You put in your destination, select what dates you wish to fly and… presto! Hopper tells you whether you should book now or wait for the best deal! It even shows you how much money you may or may not save if you wait. Isn’t this the best?! This way going on holiday for less is easy!
Indispensable; the American Express Flying Blue car
I didn’t know about the American Express Flying Blue card until a friend told me she had bought tickets to Barcelona through her Flying Blue miles. I thought “Huh?! You don’t even fly that much, how do you have so many miles?” The answer was because of the AMEX Flying Blue card. This is a credit card that gains you miles for every euro you spend. You hand over your miles to KLM, Air France or Transavia flights, upgrades, free luggage storage, reserved seats, meals etc. When you buy the credit card now, you receive 20.000 bonus miles. These are 2 return tickets to Barcelona! I’ve linked the card to my Bol.com, Booking.com and Paypal account and this has gained me 26.000 miles since September, olé! You can even link it to your grocery shopping at Jumbo and gain miles in no time. Not to fly cheap but for free is the best way of course!
With these tips for cheap holidays with kids, you will most definitely be saving a lot of money when booking your holiday with the kids. Read this article for even more tips about saving up hwne you book your trip. Do you have any good tips? I’d love to hear them!
