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Saving money at the airport

09/08/2014 10:52

As my granddad used to say, your holiday begins as soon as you close the front door, and it doesn't end until you open your front door again. With that in mind, it's worth remembering that your airport experience is actually part of your overall holiday experience, so it's a good idea to try and make this a memorable one for all of the right reasons. One of the best ways to do that is to not treat it as the money pit that it actually can be. Here are some ways to stop you from wasting all of your spending money at the London Gatwick North Terminal.

The first thing you need to take on board to get you into the right mindset for saving money, is to remember that once you have checked your bags in and passed airport security, you are in effect trapped until your flight and therefore at the mercy of the over inflated prices of pretty much everything that is available to buy. Therefore in order to succeed you need to keep your airport purchases to a minimum. The airport knows that you have holiday spending money burning a hole in your pocket and it will try it's best to lure you in and part with it. And you used to think it was cool that there was a Porsche 911 Turbo being raffled for just £10 per ticket in the terminal building…

Due to recent airport regulations you have to be careful with the amount of liquid that you take with you onto an airplane. Therefore the likelihood is that you will have to buy something to drink at the airport. All drinks - including bottled water - will be expensive here, but remember that they will be twice as expensive still when you board the plane (not to mention about half of the size as well). So buy an overpriced bottle of water from WHSmiths as this is a bit of a necessity. With regards to food, there is no limit on what you can bring to the airport. Therefore make your sandwiches at home, or even buy them from your local supermarket if you prefer. Either way, it will be cheaper to do that than to buy anything from the airport. If you have to buy food at the airport, then avoid the trendy airport bars and clubs, and head to somewhere like McDonald's or Burger King where the prices are the same nationwide. Admittedly it's not the healthiest food available, but neither are the fish and chips that you would have bought from Yates'. Plus it's only once and after all - you are on holiday.

So after having something to eat and a drink for the plane, if you are really savvy with regards to not wasting money then you should not spend any more money at the airport. Magazines, refreshments, sweets and books should have been purchased elsewhere for half the price. If you did forget and you have to buy something like that, then remember how much it costs and you won't forget next time you go on holiday. If you only remember one thing from reading this, remember the following paragraph.

Never under any circumstances waste your money on luggage padlocks, insect repellent, travel adaptors or sun cream by purchasing it at an airport. All of these are available considerable cheaper pretty much anywhere else on the planet. Even though sun cream can be expensive on holiday if you buy the UK versions of it, it'll still be cheaper at your destination than it will in the airport. Everything else can be bought from pound shops before you go to the airport. If you get to the airport without a luggage padlock, then don't bother purchasing one as any of these can be easily opened for inspection anyway, and due to the advice given by airports about not letting your bags out of your sight until they are checked in, it's unlikely that any strangers are going to be rummaging through your bags.

What you should know about getting your Summer holiday cheap

29/07/2014 16:22

With the travel and tourism industry booming, it is literally becoming more and more competitive on a daily basis. This means that as companies fight each other for our custom, they resort to using tactics that save us money in a bid to try and win our business. Over the past few years since the beginning of the recession in the UK the travel and leisure industry has been a cut-throat one with some very large high street names being forced to close their doors as they could not adapt to the modern ways of booking a holiday.

More than 2/3rds of holidays are now booked online which is good news for everyone. It's good news for travel agents as running a websites requires considerably less financial outlay than operating physical stores. It's also good news for us as it means we can shop around and check the prices of multiple holidays in a huge range of destinations from the comfort of our favourite armchair.

High street travel agents

A good tip to get your holiday cheaper than the list price is to do your homework online first. So check all of the latest deals for your holiday destination as well as the time of year that you want to go. Try and get the absolute lowest price you possibly can online. Once you have done this you can then take a printout to your nearest travel agent and ask them if they can match the price. If the travel agent themselves cannot match the price or at least offer you something better for the same price, then don't waste any more time. Simply say you're not interested, walk away and find another travel agent until you find one who is willing to offer you a good deal. You have nothing to lose. After all you always have the cheapest deal that you found online on the printout in your hand to fall back on.

 

The secrets of saving money on your holiday

14/07/2014 15:08

Money for holidaySince the credit crunch hit the UK a few years back, people have had no real option other than to tighten their belts and be more financially savvy in order to make their money stretch further. Just because the UK is now officially out of recession it doesn't mean that we are all ready to go out and spend like there is no tomorrow. We have all learned from our - and other people's - mistakes, and are still looking after the pounds and trying to get the most we can out of our ever-decreasing pay cheques. With that said it doesn't mean that a luxury holiday is completely out of the question. Here are some ways to get the most holiday for your money:

Doing your homework really will pay dividends when it comes to how much money you can save. Unless you are super rich then  may as well save a few hundred pounds on your holiday by dedicating some of your time. Even if you spent a whole day researching holidays and saved £200 that's still a lot more money than most would earn in a day at work, so it's very good going. Research the best deals online and even when you know you've found the best deal, find out how far the airport is from your final destination and how much public transport costs in the area. It may be cheaper to make your own way there than to pay the expensive transfers that some travel agents sell you.

Book early or book late - but not too early or too late! Research has shown that the best time to book a holiday is around 6 to 8 weeks before. Anything earlier than that and the travel agents are not yet panicking that they might not sell the holiday, and anything later will lead to a lot less choice as well as the possibility that you might not be able to get a good deal at all.

Prepare yourself for your holiday. Buy all of your sun cream and anti-bite medication before you go on holiday as it will be a lot cheaper in the UK. Sun cream can cost as much as the equivalent of £20 in some destinations - particularly if there's only a handful of shops in the area. For travel adaptors and other plane accessories look in pound shops and discount shops as opposed to buying them at the airport, as you will find far more choice and for a lot less money as well.

Here's a quick way to save money on a luxury holiday

03/07/2014 13:55

With European and worldwide travel becoming increasing popular over the last 20 to 30 years, only the cost of flights has really had a negative impact on the number of people in the UK who jet off on holiday every year. Due to rising fuel costs, which unfortunately are never likely to fall any time soon, air fares and plane tickets are getting more and more expensive every year. As a result the problem has filtered to the travel agents and other holiday companies to lower their prices and ensure that holidays remain affordable for the majority of people so that the foreign travel industry can remain as big as it has been for the last 2 to 3 decades.

This means great savings on holidays for us

The aforementioned factors now mean that the cost of flying to a particular destination is now a large proportion of the total cost of the average holiday.  Unfortunately it is unlikely that travelling by plane will not ever become much cheaper than it now is, however it does now mean that if you can afford the flight for a particular holiday then the chances are you can easily afford the rest of the holiday, such as the accommodation.

For those who are fortunate enough to have been able to afford foreign holidays after the last 5 to 10 years, they can now benefit from the decrease in prices which has meant that luxury holidays are now being sold at an all time low price. Companies such as letsgo2.com who specialise in luxury package and all-inclusive holidays really have managed to bring down the cost so that we can have a week or two of luxury for a much more affordable price. There are also voucher codes for letsgo2 that can be entered to allow an immediate saving on any booking that you make.

Sans Souci, Jamaica]

Holiday destinations don't get much more luxurious than in Sans Souci, Jamaica