What are you best/silly $ saving tips for upcoming trip?

[BelleEileen1113]

So you can relate to this long drive! We'd prefer to fly to save some time. The thing with Allegiant (never tried it, we've been here less than a yr.) is that it flies in to Sanford, and we'd have to rent a car or uber back and forth (had some bad hacking experiences with Uber... think dozens of bills from someone using your acct in Canada), the flights are Wed or Sat only with poor times, and they just made the news for failing several safety maintenance on their planes. We've found $900 flights out of Peoria (not great times = later first day, early departure, connections) or facing the 3.5 hr. ea. way drive to St. Louis or Indy for a $400-450 direct SWA flight (plus a late night hotel to make the early am boarding and long term parking). I've looked at Chicago, Bloomington, Champaign... wish Peoria had SWA or at least better options. Need to figure out the long term game plan for getting to FL.

So your red card/Disney savings acct gets 7% total. That's pretty cool, and I never looked into the savings acct. The 10% off Target GC's on Black Fri is limited to $300, which you can buy with a credit card that has rewards (my BOA Travel card gets 2.65% on all), and then you'd buy Disney cards with the target cards. You'd have to use friends and fam to buy more than the $300, but that's enough per yr. for me.

There are some good hotel rates near Atlanta? The fam in TN is close enough to I-75 (Lebanon, east of Nashville), but still not as convenient as being right by I 75 of a little further south so you have less to drive in the am. ATL traffic is awful, so we try to either go through it late at night or super early.

Your reasons against Allegiant are exactly mine. We are blessed to live about 30 minutes from Lambert Airport, but it's hard to get a good enough deal for me to justify flying, with a family of 4.

Re: Hotels in Atlanta...we normally spend around $70-80/night when staying at the Atlanta Airport Drury location. You'd have to do the math, but for our family, it totally makes sense to stay there and pay that amount, avoid some traffic, and have two meals included in the rate. Like I said, cleanliness matters to me (even more so than saving money), so I find that it is the best of both worlds.

 

[Nick6300]

Nick3600

Did you look into flying Allegiant from Peoria to Clearwater airport? I just did a quick search and roundtrip tickets August 24-31 appear to cost $158 each. And I can do a priceline search and find a rental car for around $250.

Appreciate you looking, and I will look into it tonight. Wife heard there's a ton of extra fees on Allegiant and also sort of spooked with that recent safety failure on the news. Would you do the Clearwater and rent a car over the Midway direct flights as it is the same price range at $405ish? We are familiar with that I-4 drive from Clearwater, having lived in Tampa 2015/2016.

 

[familyman123]

Appreciate you looking, and I will look into it tonight. Wife heard there's a ton of extra fees on Allegiant and also sort of spooked with that recent safety failure on the news. Would you do the Clearwater and rent a car over the Midway direct flights as it is the same price range at $405ish? We are familiar with that I-4 drive from Clearwater, having lived in Tampa 2015/2016.

Looking at the website it looks like Allegiant charges you for choosing your seat, carry-ons, checked bags, and so forth. A carry-on is $16 per flight per person. So that would be a $32 addition. But that still might be a good price for you.

As far as Allegiant's safety record, it would not stop me from flying via Allegiant. Even if the odds of a plane accident are higher on Allegiant vs American or United, the total probably of actually crashing a plane are really low, and probably way lower than the odds of you crashing your car on the way to Florida.

As far as what my family and I do - that may not apply as well to your case. I have four kids, so six tickets and six carryons on even Allegiant's lower fares would be $1200. And then when I arrived in Florida I would need a large vehicle further driving up the price. Additionally, I like road trips. My parents always road tripped our vacations and they are among my fondest memories of childhood. Even with small children, I enjoy the journey. The last reason I like to drive to Florida is that I get 4 weeks of vacation time a year. So another couple days of traveling time doesn't reduce really reduce my park time, I just take another couple days off work.

Now, there are times when I travel with just my wife for a getaway while we drop the kids off with grandparents. In that case, yes we will fly to somewhere like Florida. And that is because we are time limited because we need to rescue the grandparents from our kids. So our general philosophy on traveling is a balance between being time limited and money limited. If more time limited than money limited - we will fly.

If I was in your situation, I would probably would fly Allegiant to Clearwater as opposed to driving (assuming my numbers are correct). I estimate its about $650 for two round trip tickets and a rental car. To drive would be about $160 for fuel. I think you could trade two days on the road for two days at WDW for about $400. I would probably take that offer. But I don't know your budget constraints.

In your position, I don't think I would drive to Midway to fly to Florida. Unless your going to stay in a hotel the night before, you have to leave for Midway airport 5-6 hours before your flight, fight Chicago traffic, and then spend a few hours on the plane. I would sooner take Allegiant.

 

[Nick6300]

Looking at the website it looks like Allegiant charges you for choosing your seat, carry-ons, checked bags, and so forth. A carry-on is $16 per flight per person. So that would be a $32 addition. But that still might be a good price for you.

As far as Allegiant's safety record, it would not stop me from flying via Allegiant. Even if the odds of a plane accident are higher on Allegiant vs American or United, the total probably of actually crashing a plane are really low, and probably way lower than the odds of you crashing your car on the way to Florida.

As far as what my family and I do - that may not apply as well to your case. I have four kids, so six tickets and six carryons on even Allegiant's lower fares would be $1200. And then when I arrived in Florida I would need a large vehicle further driving up the price. Additionally, I like road trips. My parents always road tripped our vacations and they are among my fondest memories of childhood. Even with small children, I enjoy the journey. The last reason I like to drive to Florida is that I get 4 weeks of vacation time a year. So another couple days of traveling time doesn't reduce really reduce my park time, I just take another couple days off work.

Now, there are times when I travel with just my wife for a getaway while we drop the kids off with grandparents. In that case, yes we will fly to somewhere like Florida. And that is because we are time limited because we need to rescue the grandparents from our kids. So our general philosophy on traveling is a balance between being time limited and money limited. If more time limited than money limited - we will fly.

If I was in your situation, I would probably would fly Allegiant to Clearwater as opposed to driving (assuming my numbers are correct). I estimate its about $650 for two round trip tickets and a rental car. To drive would be about $160 for fuel. I think you could trade two days on the road for two days at WDW for about $400. I would probably take that offer. But I don't know your budget constraints.

In your position, I don't think I would drive to Midway to fly to Florida. Unless your going to stay in a hotel the night before, you have to leave for Midway airport 5-6 hours before your flight, fight Chicago traffic, and then spend a few hours on the plane. I would sooner take Allegiant.

Thank you. I'll look into that with wife. It would be nice to someday have a travel trailer and camp in Ft. Wilderness like we did as a kid (although have stayed in cabins recently). I remember my focus back then was my laser focus on catching those lightening quick geckos (not easy!) vs. micro managing my trip for FP's and such. Speaking of accidents... if you google it, you can probably find the lady who rolled her car crashing into a gator on the hwy. in Tampa.

 

[familyman123]

We just stayed in the cabins at Fort Wilderness. We really liked FW. If we had a camper, we would totally love to stay there for a couple weeks at a time.

 

[Nick6300]

We just stayed in the cabins at Fort Wilderness. We really liked FW. If we had a camper, we would totally love to stay there for a couple weeks at a time.

Be grateful for you vacation time allotment. FW brings tons of fond memories, the campfire sing a longs, the sporting/games, river country, hoop dee doo review, etc. The remodeled cabins are great. And sleeps 6. Parents stay at Wilderness Lodge (was impressed) when not getting a cabin, now that we don't take a travel trailer. The downside is how long it takes to get to non MK parks. So many connecting buses. Waited hours before. But, you're taking it in slower anyhow there. Think I heard they're restricting campfires, hopefully temporarily with that dry/fire issue there. We're talking to in laws about a 5 years from now camping trip. We'd have to purchase a used trailing by then or rent.

 

[familyman123]

I am very grateful for my vacation time. I am spoiled in that regard.

The travel time from Fort Wilderness could have been a down side for us - but we drove! So it was like 10 minutes from our cabin door to Epcot/HS parking. Honestly, we disliked the transportation to MK in comparison. We did the cabin-bus-boat-MK journey three times and it took much longer than driving to the other parks. One time we arrived just a minute after the boat left and had to wait 20 minutes for the next boat. All told it was close to an hour to get to the park.

 

[Monykalyn]

A airline ratings site has Southwest and Allegiant as 5/7 for safety (although product on SW is 7/7) while other airlines have 7/7 for safety. Does anyone think SW is any less safe? And Allegiant is now buying new planes vs old planes for a discount. Not trying to get anyone to think Allegiant is Top Shelf but there is always always more to the story than a splashy clickbait headline. We've flown Allegiant multiple times with no issues-I actually felt less safe on Frontier (7/7 rating for safety) than Allegiant due to way staff conducted themselves. SW is and always be my favorite though.

 

[LovesTimone]

I was just reading through everything, and have some thoughts on a couple of things.

1st your on vacation, so be on Vacation.... if flying is doable and using ME seems to work out best, less stress, there and back would be the way to go for me.

I completely understand wanting to get the best deal, but if you spend all that time renting cars, driving around, gassing up the car, lugging your own luggage around, nothing worse than having a great vacation then driving to the airport and car rental and all the other stuff gets in your way ... Stress start to seep back in... I say no thank you... stress free for me...

From Clearwater to Orlando is not a quick drive, about 3 hours if not more, due to construction, and just the amount of traffic that is on the road from there to here, (I'm a local) and with all the construction on I-4... its not a pretty drive.

I was thinking you could order water from staples to deliver to the resort, pack your shelf stable snack into your bags, and for perishable you could Uber over to Publix, one on Palm Parkway, and a couple of other Publix's if you go out the back gate, or over to the Wal-Mart. Also Garden grocer is a deliver service.

I think you said you have work on the day your heading out, what about leaving right after work, suitcases in the car sort of thing. If that won't work have everything at the door, travel clothes laid out, cooler in front of the frig ready to load. Car gassed up and ready to roll. When we lived out of state this is what we would do we had it down to a precision maneuver, even with 2 teenage DD's they would be very co-operative and helpful to get us on the road. While this does take more planning once DH got home we could be in the car in about 45 minutes. I really suggest stopping at some place inexpensive to sleep, it's really not worth you endangering yourselves or someone else. You could figure out honestly how far you think you can drive safely and check out what's in that area. Also you can go the route with a room for tonight, my friends had to stop for the night when one of the kiddo's started not feeling so good, they scored a holiday inn express in a small town for 55 for the night and the guy did not even charge them for the kiddo's, plus they had free breakfast the next morning. They stop at the same hotel on the way home, now this is there stopping point on each trip.

 

[BarbMike821]

There's an app called TIP Yourself which essentially acts as a personal tip jar. It's pretty highly rated and recommended by a lot of notable companies. I haven't started using it, but plan to start with the release of my next book, putting a % of earnings each month into it no fees and you have access to your money whenever you want.

 

[Simba's Mom]

Has anyone here saved money on beverages by doing this: Before you go, buy a flavor enhancer-lemonade, iced tea, whatever flavor you like. Then when at WDW, just ask for ice water, then when you get to your table, add a few drops of the flavor enhancer, and now you have lemonade (or whatever flavor) without paying for it.

 

[kathy884]

I'm sure some people would not be thrilled with this idea at all, but for some trips I've been flying out on a Monday and flying home on a Friday which ends up being just a four night / three day trip, but it feels like a great get-a-way. Plus we have the weekend to get ready before the trip and the weekend to recoup after the trip before going back to work. It feel like a whole week get-a-way, but is very budget friendly due to the shorter duration.

I have a Southwest credit card, and that gives me a few freebie flights a year. I stay offsite as I think it's a better value (Many though prefer the onsite experience). For large groups, I like the offsite condo or home rental option (the more people the bigger the savings of doing condo or home vs. hotel and the bigger advantage it can be to have a kitchen).

I don't buy the expensive extras and feel the theme parks are special enough in the experience they provide. I go for moderate food vs. what I think of as fun but way to overpriced dining experiences Disney and others offer. If I do one of these I limit it to one experience per trip. I limit souvenirs to one refrigerator magnet.

With our small family and short trips, budget has not been much of an issue. With a big extended family group trying to save money, we make tons of sandwiches (like 15 or so) that we bring into the park in soft sided coolers and cooler back packs. We bring juice boxes, fresh fruit, and cracker snacks too.

 

[hsmamato2]

So you can relate to this long drive! We'd prefer to fly to save some time. The thing with Allegiant (never tried it, we've been here less than a yr.) is that it flies in to Sanford, and we'd have to rent a car or uber back and forth (had some bad hacking experiences with Uber... think dozens of bills from someone using your acct in Canada), the flights are Wed or Sat only with poor times, and they just made the news for failing several safety maintenance on their planes. We've found $900 flights out of Peoria (not great times = later first day, early departure, connections) or facing the 3.5 hr. ea. way drive to St. Louis or Indy for a $400-450 direct SWA flight (plus a late night hotel to make the early am boarding and long term parking). I've looked at Chicago, Bloomington, Champaign... wish Peoria had SWA or at least better options. Need to figure out the long term game plan for getting to FL.

So your red card/Disney savings acct gets 7% total. That's pretty cool, and I never looked into the savings acct. The 10% off Target GC's on Black Fri is limited to $300, which you can buy with a credit card that has rewards (my BOA Travel card gets 2.65% on all), and then you'd buy Disney cards with the target cards. You'd have to use friends and fam to buy more than the $300, but that's enough per yr. for me.

There are some good hotel rates near Atlanta? The fam in TN is close enough to I-75 (Lebanon, east of Nashville), but still not as convenient as being right by I 75 of a little further south so you have less to drive in the am. ATL traffic is awful, so we try to either go through it late at night or super early.

years back,we flew allegiant into sanford- it was only maybe 40 minutes farther from disney than Orlando airport, renting a car was cheap-I'd do it again to save money! (fares were $38 one way at that time) don't discount a small drive to save some $$$ - you can either keep your car the whole trip,or do two one way car rentals to get there and back

 

[hsmamato2]

also to OP, don't be discouraged by using different airports, it's a time tested way to possibly save on flight! (I've driven 1.5 hours to another airport to save $ also lol) whatever got us on vacation within our budget,we did it!

 

[mommajo143]

However-the biggest money saver (if you can-not everyone is able to but you asked LOL) is garden and bulk buying. Friend recently was offering pasture finished, no hormones side of beef for ~$3.5/pound (after processing fee)-steaks, roasts, hamburger etc. Plus I have fruit trees, backyard chickens(this particular project is not a money saver though LOLOL), and 5 large garden beds. I still budget same amount of $ towards groceries and put rest away into vacay account!

Mae have chickens & fruit trees too - I barter eggs, fruit & jelly for fresh produce year round... I didn't to even think of that I've done it for so long...I make homemade breads (I use pumpkins & squash bought on clearance super cheap!) during the fall/winter holidays too that I trade for pecans pies

 

[Nick6300]

also to OP, don't be discouraged by using different airports, it's a time tested way to possibly save on flight! (I've driven 1.5 hours to another airport to save $ also lol) whatever got us on vacation within our budget,we did it!

Thank you. It was a tough decision but we broke down and added flights SWA out of Chicago Midway: 3 hr drive Ea way for about $450 less than locally but also much better times... getting there 9am and leaving late 745pm. Used SWA giftcards that were combined 7% off via Sams Club and credit card rewards. Added 2 seperate 1 day stays to Sports via Travelocity for only $78, $98 with online code (Disney would have been $250). Will be the longest stay I've ever had there... the first Halloween nights and F&W (we u tubed our rumored concert musicians last night), lighter crowds, seasonally cheaper Disney dining, hitting long Labor weekend to recover. Thank you all again! I will be revisiting this thread for more savings strategies on future trips... so many great ideas.

 

[Shelly F - Ohio]

Have to looked into flying into Tampa? It takes 1 hr 20 minutes to drive to WDW. Yet it takes 30-35 minutes to drive from MCO to WDW so it really only take about 35-40 more to drive from Tampa to WDW

 

[Nick6300]

Have to looked into flying into Tampa? It takes 1 hr 20 minutes to drive to WDW. Yet it takes 30-35 minutes to drive from MCO to WDW so it really only take about 35-40 more to drive from Tampa to WDW

If you drive from Tampa on a Sat am esp early, it can take a little over an hr. Plus allow 15 min to park and walk to gate. But if leaving during or near rush hours (early is better than 5pm) it can take a while. We lived near I-4, left on Sat am around 615and would be at gate around 730. If we left 4-5 on Fri it could take up to 3 hrs.

 

[familyman123]

Thank you. It was a tough decision but we broke down and added flights SWA out of Chicago Midway: 3 hr drive Ea way for about $450 less than locally but also much better times... getting there 9am and leaving late 745pm.

That's great. Sounds like a good trip plan.

 

[stazmatic]

You mentioned you are from Central Il. How far away are you from Midway Airport? Last August our family flew out of Midway and back for less than $100 round trip. If you keep checking flights and can fly on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, you can find great deals.