Mike and I travel much more frequently than our friends and family do, but certainly not as much as we’d like to do. Of course, jobs and other commitments sometimes keep us at home when we’d rather be globetrotting, but such is life. And neither of us has any interest in quitting our jobs and travelling full-time, which seems to be what many travel bloggers do. I’m not knocking it, it’s just not realistic for us or what we want to do.

In any event, I’ve been asked the same question a few times lately (How do you afford travel, and to travel frequently?), and thought I’d put together a post that answers that question. Hopefully this will help point you in the direction of more frequent travel, if that’s where your heart’s desire is, or just saving a bit of money when you do travel.

Travel for work.

Mike and I both have the opportunity to go to a few conferences each year for our work. This usually means that the airfare, ground transfers, hotels, meals, and conference fees are reimbursed. As such, there is very little of these trips that are paid for out-of-pocket. Or in the case of my law practice, the costs can at least be deducted for tax purposes.  I’ve visited Coronado Island, Chicago, Louisville, Atlanta, Miami, and Las Vegas for conferences. Mike has visited Dallas and Austin for conferences. And we both plan to continue this in the future.

Travel on points and miles.

I’ve gotten into the points and miles game (travel hacking) since I started blogging as a way to stretch our travel dollars. There are a ton of websites that you can visit to learn about points and miles in greater detail, as I’m no expert and won’t be spending the time to post about all of the deals out there. A few that I read regularly are: Million Mile Secrets, The Points Guy, and Frugal Travel Guy.

What I can tell you is that credit card sign-up bonuses are the easiest way to get a ton of points/miles, and really don’t hurt your credit score (so long as you spread out your credit card sign-ups, pay balances in full each month, and keep your oldest accounts open). I have the United Mileage Plus Explorer Business Visa card by Chase. I also have the IHG Rewards Club Mastercard by Chase. These are two that I’ll be keeping, as the low annual fees are outweighed by the benefits that I receive each year (2 United Club passes each year, early boarding, free checked bags on United, keeping my United miles from expiring, 1 free hotel night each year). From the sign-up bonuses on the United card plus switching my normal spending over from my debit card to a credit card, we’ve also gotten 2 round-trip tickets to Jacksonville, FL, as well as 2 one-way tickets to Boston (and I almost have enough miles for 2 one-way return tickets from Boston from my monthly spending). From the sign-up bonus on the IHG card, we’ve gotten 1 night in Sioux Falls, SD (Holiday Inn), 1 night in Brandon, SD (Holiday Inn Express), 2 nights in Omaha, NE (Candlewood Suites), 1 night in Lincoln, NE (Candlewood Suites), and 1 night in Jacksonville, FL (Holiday Inn Express)–so 6 free nights of hotel…not too shabby. And because my IHG card anniversary just passed, I now have another free night to book, which I’ll probably use in Boston.

I also have a Delta Gold Skymiles card by American Express. I picked this one up for free checked bags on our trip to Cayman Brac (which saved us probably $300 or so, plus saved a bunch of others traveling in our group a bit in baggage fees as well). I also booked a free roundtrip ticket to northern Michigan for this summer as well with it. I don’t plan to keep this card after the trip to Michigan, as it doesn’t seem to have benefits worth paying an annual fee for. Plus Skymiles don’t expire, so I don’t need to keep the card open to avoid that. But if we later have another Delta trip planned where we’ll need to check bags, we may open one for Mike at some point.

I’m interested in the Southwest cards, and will probably pick them up at some point. But I’m waiting for a time when I know that we’ll be traveling Southwest frequently, to make the most use out of the Companion pass (which you can get with two credit card sign-up bonuses, plus a bit more in spending). And I’ll probably need to pick up a new hotel branded card soon, since I’ve pretty nearly used up all of my IHG points.

Many of the travel bloggers also recommend cards like Chase Sapphire, or Chase Ink. I’ve toyed with the idea of them, because of the points being transferable with other partners, but haven’t really looked into them much. So I’m undecided at present. The bloggers that I linked to above can give you more details about these types of cards if you’re interested.

Book hotels using Hotels.com. 

Sometimes I can’t find hotels available for a reasonable cost using points or cash, or there aren’t hotels even available in any of the major rewards programs (Marriott, Hyatt, IHG, Starwood) meaning that I can’t even earn rewards on the room. I personally really like using Hotels.com for these types of situations, as they have a ton of hotel options, have extensive reviews (including TripAdvisor reviews), have photos, and usually great prices. Plus, after you book 10 nights with them, you get a free night. I know that it’s not as lucrative as the major rewards programs, but it works well when they’re not available, or are priced outrageously.

But one cautionary note, make sure that you’re checking the cancellation policy for the hotel that you’re booking, as they differ depending on the hotel, and sometimes even on the particular rate that you get. I ran into this when hoping to cancel a couple of rooms in Iowa City recently, in that I just can’t cancel the booking. But I also have had some rooms where there were not prohibitions on cancellation, so just be aware of the policy before you book.

Book travel on a discount airline, a fare sale, or a mistake fare. 

There are quite a few discount carriers out there now, where you can find cheap airfare so long as you don’t care about first class seating or perks. Examples include Allegiant, Frontier, WOW, and Norwegian. With these carriers, you typically have to pay extra for things like seat selection and checked bags. And they tend to be no-frills, so don’t expect much in the way of service during the flight, extra leg room, or first/business class. But you can get cheap airfare, which often is more important to me anyway. Mike and I have a trip planned to Guadeloupe this fall because Norwegian started running routes between the US and Guadeloupe, and the US and Martinique. We couldn’t pass up the inexpensive opportunity to go dive and visit a new island. But we did have to pay extra for our checked bags, and we’ll have to be extra careful when packing because of the weight restrictions. But considering the price, it will be worth it.

Sometimes the legacy carriers (American Airlines, United, Delta) and even Southwest will run fare sales where you can score cheap tickets too. You can find out about fare sales if you’re on their e-mail mailing lists sometimes. But following a blog like the three that I linked to above is the easiest way to find out about really excellent fare sales, or even mistake fares. Things have changed rather dramatically in the past year or so when it comes to mistake fares, and when/whether they will be honored. But if you are lucky enough to score a mistake fare, and the airline does honor it, you can really score an excellent deal.

Stay with friends or family.

Sometimes we opt to visit or stay with friends or family while travelling, rather than booking hotels or travelling to other locations. The Black Hills, SD is a prime example (although I’ve also stayed with family/friends in Washington DC and in Chicago). We go there frequently because we have a lot of family in the area. And when we visit, we stay with family, rather than booking hotels. This saves us money, and also means that we get to have more time with the folks that we love. And it also means that we get to explore the area with someone else that we already know.

Save for travel.

I couldn’t leave this off the list, because it’s reality. We save money and pay for travel with cash out-of-pocket. I think it’s impossible, or at least extremely unlikely that a trip will be completely free. So saving money in advance is what we do because it’s the responsible way to travel. And we really like that when we come home from a trip, we aren’t paying for it in the months following.

Plus the trips that we go on with Heartland Scuba are paid for this way. Their trips (probably like any type of group travel) are reasonable, but not the smoking cheap trips that you can get by watching deals and booking on your own. But we really like the group of divers that typically goes on their trips, and that airfare, hotels, dive packages, and sometimes even food, are already booked for us. So on these trips especially, we get to pack our bags and show up at the airport, which makes it worth paying a bit more.

Do you use any of these methods to pay for travel? Have you found any other ways to save money while travelling?