Save Money to Travel from Canada by doing these 3 things
I am a Canadian and British Citizen (living in Canada right now) and I love to travel. I recently sold my real estate business, and even with the unknown financial circumstances looming ahead (a change in career path), I know my family will still be able to live out our travel goals with the guide that we have created to save money in our lives.
Travel from Canada can be EXPENSIVE! (Think $1000/pp for flights alone!) I have picked up plenty of tips and tricks over the years, and I’d like nothing more than to share them with you. You don’t have to be rich to travel, really you don’t! My husband and I are everyday people, not millionaires.
How to Save Money to Travel
These are just 3 of the easiest things you can implement at home to save specifically for travelling, but with the high cost of living these days – budgeting is a top priority for most people. I LOVE to save money to travel; my husband, son, and I typically travel every 3-6 months. I’ll teach you how to do it yourself below.
1.) Sign up or Subscribe to Travel deals
These money saving tips are from a Canadian perspective, but you could apply this information to anywhere you are in the world. Every country has it’s own banks and credit cards with perks and benefits.
Firstly, I spend a lot of time online researching new destinations or browsing travel deals. I’m signed up for A LOT of email and travel alerts, and continue to add more.
My favorite is Travelzoo. I get no compensation from promoting this company, but I want to tell you that I get a TON of inspiration and save a lot of money from their weekly postings and top 20 deals. This company has been so successful over the years that it is now a paid subscription service and is being publicly traded on the stock market. Sign up for weekly email alerts here.
Travelzoo® provides its 30 million members with exclusive offers and one-of-a-kind experiences personally reviewed by our deal experts around the globe. We have our finger on the pulse of outstanding travel, entertainment, and lifestyle experiences. We work in partnership with more than 5,000 top travel suppliers—our long-standing relationships give Travelzoo members access to irresistible deals.
-Travelzoo Website
I also watch Secret Flying for the best flight deals around the world. This service allows you to choose a couple of “home” airports that you regularly fly out from, and sends you destinations from there.
The Daily Drop is a great subscription service. Not only sending updates on great deals, but how to maximize rewards cards.
2.) Plan and Budget
A key part of saving money to travel is setting out a timeline, and discussing your budget. My husband and I start to get an idea of how much accommodations are on average, flights, car rentals and local attractions. We typically look at this stuff about 12 months in advance.
You can check out flight patterns on google, and figure out when the best time to book is. The more time you give yourself in doing this, the better. I compare prices on flights, flight paths, the cost of Airbnbs vs hotels, price of car rentals via different agencies etc.
We then start the process of booking. Accommodation gets booked between 9-12 months in advance, flights and car 3-6 months in advance.
As I mentioned in another post, we are self employed people. We have flexibility in our schedule to some extent, although summers have always been very busy for us, so we tend to shy away from peak summer vacations, and instead travel the cheaper shoulder seasons.
When we go away, not only are we not being paid “vacation time” but we actually lose money because we’re not at home actively working. So BUDGETING is very important to us. We cannot afford to drop thousands of dollars all at once, nor does our schedules really allow for us to leave at the drop of a hat. Saving money for us is at the top of our priority list.
3.) Use Credit Cards Points
Finally we utilize credit card points and offers to save money. Our current credit cards are the Westjet World Elite Mastercard, and the RBC Avion card. With the Westjet card, we are allotted 1 companion voucher every year meaning that for a overseas trip we pay $399 + tax, or $119 + tax for anywhere in Canada or the US through Westjet or it’s partners. We typically save the companion voucher for our European flights.
Using the Westjet credit card on our every day purchases means that we accumulate ‘Westjet dollars’, which we also put towards paying for our flights. Some flights can be paid for 100% this way.
There are many benefits to utilizing both the World Elite Mastercard and the Avion Visa. Did you know that you can convert your Avion Points to Westjet dollars?
Another benefit are the tiered status lifts. Tier qualifying spend tracks your progress towards achieving Silver, Gold or Platinum status in the WestJet Rewards program each qualifying year (January 1 to December 31). Just this year we reached ‘Silver’ status up from the base ‘Teal’ level.
For every $1500 you spend on your credit card, you accumulate $500 in your tier. With the new status level we enjoy a 3% earn rate on WestJet flights, a 1% earn rate on WestJet Vacations packages, two free checked bags, priority check-in, Zone 2 boarding.
No more waiting in the LONG lines at the check-in counter, and we’ll be offered upgrades online when we check in, before other teal or unranked travelers do. We also we received 6 airport lounge vouchers and 4 advanced seat selection free of charge! BONUS!
Some people don’t think these cards are very good, but so far they’re working well for us! There are other credit card options out there, some have a higher annual fee than the WS or Avion. (World Elite is $119, Avion $120). A nice comparison of the best credit cards in Canada for 2024 can be found here.
Learn How We Booked FREE Flights to Disneyland this year!
Summary – the 3 key things I do to save money to travel are:
- Sign up or Subscribe to travel sites
- Budget and plan accordingly
- Use credit cards to buy everyday items and then book travel with points
In Conclusion, One last piece of advice…
Canadians have some of the highest costs of living anywhere in the world right now. It might feel like a really daunting task to try and save money for what one might assume is a luxury at the moment. I’m here to tell you that it’s possible!
Might I also suggest taking a look at your personal life and expenditures? Where can you cut back and trim some unnecessary expenses out? Do you need that $6 Starbucks coffee everyday? A new Stanley mug every month? I bet if you thought about it, you could find a million ways to cut back in your daily/weekly/monthly spending habits. Travel doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg, promise!
The trick is to live below your means, and save everything else! Life is not getting any cheaper, and I promise the memories you’ll make with family on trips will last a lifetime! Nobody’s going to remember that you had the very latest version of Stanley. They will remember how you made them feel when you were around though.
These types of things guide my family in our daily lives, and it has allowed to us to purchase flights to Anaheim for free this year! We also plan on touring the European Christmas Markets in December and will use points + a companion voucher to buy our plane tickets. There really is no magic involved, just a set of goals and a way to achieve those goals!
Thanks for stopping by and happy travels,
xoxo Tanya
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