With over 75 agents and many years of travel planning among us, we’ve learned a thing or two about saving money and maximizing your vacation experience, so it’s hard to narrow down our favorite tips, but here are our top five (at the moment!) travel secrets:
1. ALWAYS check to see if bundling your air with your hotel/resort will save you money. Companies often buy “bulk” air from airlines that’s available to you if you book a package with them. Often, you’ll find the same flights are several hundred dollars cheaper this way than buying direct. As always, compare first.
2. If the destination you’re booking with has flexible cancellation policies, don’t add insurance until the final payment. Say for example you book a Disney vacation. You pay your $200 deposit and cancel prior to the final payment (30 days prior to travel). In this case, you get 100% of your deposit and anything else you’ve paid back. Now if you added insurance and cancel prior to that date, you’ll still get that $200 back, but you do not get the money you paid for the insurance back. Just make sure you completely understand your hotel or cruise’s cancellation policies before you make the decision.
Obviously, if you’re adding flights to a package, you may want to insure it prior to final payment since flights are non-refundable in most cases. It goes without saying that we believe in insuring your trip, it’s just a matter when to add it.
3. Buying Disney tickets, either in a package or separately? Don’t add the hopper unless you are 100% sure you’ll need it. Most first-timers or guests traveling with little ones do not use the hopper enough to justify the $80 per person price. Instead, if you’re on the fence, wait until you get on property to make the decision. Disney will allow you to upgrade your ticket (even to an annual pass) as long as you have one full day remaining on the ticket (obviously, we recommend upgrading earlier in your trip to maximize your use of the hopper). You can even add just for certain individuals in your party after you’ve checked into your resort, that way mom can hop all she wants while dad enjoys relaxing with the kids at the resort.
As for water parks, you can add that later as well. It’s a good option to wait to add the water park option during the cooler months in particular, when temperatures can dip down into the 40s or even lower. No one wants to go down a water slide in that kind of weather!
4. While we aren’t big fans of going into debt for a vacation, it’s important to maximize your time as much as your savings. It’s up to the guest to decide if saving a few dollars is worth staying off property or if that earlier flight that saves $100 overall is worth waking up at 4:00 am (and being too tired to enjoy your entire first day of vacation).
5. Finally, and this is going to come off as self-serving but hear me out, use a travel agent. Most agents (that would be us) don’t charge a fee for their services. They’re paid by the destination. And you pay that fee even if you don’t use an agent. You’re still in control—an agent can do as little or as much as you like. The booking ultimately belongs to you and you can even take the booking back if you and the agent don’t mesh.
What are you favorite tips you’ve learned over the years?
