As a student myself, I understand the total struggle when you want to go travelling for the summer, or book some time away in the sun but worry about the mounting cost that comes with booking a holiday. Flights, hotel, transfers and things to do all mount up, as well as spending money.
However, if you look in the right places you can save yourself a WHOPPER load of money. Just yesterday I booked a city break away in Berlin, Germany, for 4 days with flights and hotel for just £100 total.
Again, Spain in September for 4 days for £140.
Look at my essential tips below to get the best bang for your buck, no strings attached or funny business!
Airport
First tip, consider the airport you’re flying from! Using the same dates, flights come in a massive £600 cheaper to fly to Greece from Stansted than it does Heathrow Airport. Try the airports closest to you. If you live in Chester, Liverpool or Manchester Airport is your closest option, and isn’t pricey to travel to via the coach or train. Look on Go Euro for cheap travel!
Flights
Go Euro – This was the first website I came across that proved useful in not just finding cheap flights, but trains both nationally and internationally too that I couldn’t find on popular websites such as Trainline and National Express. Chester – London £32 return, buses to Manchester return for £13 and Liverpool – Paris for £38! Have a play around with dates that are good for you and see what you can find. By filtering the results from cheapest to most expensive you can see what’s affordable for you quickly and hassle free.
Skyscanner – Skyscanner is probably my no.1 go to when searching for anything holiday based. Forget Tui, Easyjet or Ryanair. Skyscanner searches these plus hundreds more outlets to find you the cheapest deals available for your selected dates (This is where I got my flights to Berlin for £40).
Jacks Flight Club – ”We let you know when flights to amazing destinations go really, reaaally cheap!” And this aint wrong, Jacks’ Flight Club is a really great website to subscribe to for free. By providing your e-mail address, Jack sends you 3 alerts a week with super cheap flights from the UK to destinations across the globe. For example, this week I received an alert for return flights from Manchester & London – Cuba for £250. It’s crazy cheap. Below in the e-mail there’s instructions on where and how to book, and that’s it!
If you’re a CSL premium tenant you can also get £10 off a premium annual subscription, where you’re sent more alerts first before anyone else for a higher change of bagging them before they sell out. Give us a call or pop in to the hub for more info on how to redeem this deal!
Accomodation
Air bnb – For a little bit of background, Air bnb is an American company which operates an online marketplace and hospitality service for people to lease or rent short-term lodging including holiday cottages, apartments, home stays, hostel beds and more depending on what you’re looking for! Due to the amount of options and landlords available on the website, renting a bedroom can start at as little as £14 a night.
Easy Hotel – Easy Hotel is part of the Easy Jet franchise and is a really affordable option if you’re looking for a clean and basic room. It’s nothing fancy, but provides all the essentials if you’re just looking for a place to lie your head after a long day out sightseeing. They’re currently expanding their amount of hotels and are working on some in Spain. Check out Belgium for £50 per night, Bulgaria from £23 and the Netherlands for £41. (I booked Easy Hotels for Berlin, and the price for two of us worked out at £60 each for 3 nights and 4 days! Steal!)
Trivago – You’ve probably heard of this one. Again, it’s a comparison website that bundles together accommodation prices from different online outlets and gives you the cheapest price available. The difference with this one compared to air bnb is that it’s purely hotel based- not including apartments, hostels etc. This a good place to look if you’re wanting some luxury at the best price on the market.
Transfers
Looking on official airport websites for parking and transfers to your accommodation won’t go a miss to see what general price you’re looking at, but chances are by using some suggested websites below, you’ll find the same service for less money.
Sun Transfers – This site is great for reliable car transfers or coach shares. There’s a lot of different options available to suit a tight budget, with an express shuttle starting at just £3.50!
A lot of transfer websites offer very similar prices like Holiday Taxis, but Skyscanner again is my personal go to. For example, airport transfers via other websites from Berlin – my hotel were around £90, whereas on Skyscanner I found a private car for £58. It really is the best out there in my opinion!
Exchange Rates
Websites like compareholidaymoney.com and travelmoney.moneysavingexpert.com are a good place to start when looking for the best conversion rates.
Equally, Revolut is my highly recommended site to look at. By ordering a Revolut card for free it allows you to make instant transfers from your bank account. For example, I could convert £40 gbp to euros on to the card, equating to €45.62. What’s good about this? Having the card means you’re at less risk of losing your spending money as it’s all safely stored on a ‘international debit card’ instead of carrying it around in cash. Also, if you were to use your British debit card in Rome for example, it could lead to charges for using it overseas where as the Revolut card eliminates this possibility. Win, win in my opinion (And yes, I have one!)
Always better to be safe than sorry.
I hope this helps and saves you a lot of money when booking your next trip away!
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