An amazing holiday is not just a dream. YOU can do this too. This is how we booked our San Francisco trip saving us over £5,000. The Mind Over Money Matters way.
So we decided we have to go to San Francisco. We want to visit Alcatraz, see the sea lions sunbathing on the bay, walk the Golden Gate Bridge. This is something we are only going to do once so we knew exactly how to maximise our joy.
Firstly we wanted 5 nights in August for two. To start each flight in a lounge – good food, comfy seats, charger, Wi-Fi. Direct Business Class or Premium Economy Flight (12 hrs flight in economy – no way). And a minimum 4 star hotel, good location, room with a sofa and a view, with breakfast included.
Our initial searches found for next summer (August) for 5 nights.
Virgin holidays – Premium Economy, 4 star hotel, great location, no breakfast, £6,600 for 2.
BA holidays –Business Class flights, 4 star hotel, preferred location, again no breakfast, £7,300 for 2.
Now an anchor price has been set subconsciously in your mind – this may be £6,600 or £7,300, different people, different mindsets. Why is this important? Well this means that if your final price is under that anchor price – You are ‘making a saving’ – increasing the Joy and anything over that is decreasing the Joy. Check out the blog on Anchor pricing for a quick explanation.
Anyway when you add lounge passes, breakfast, airport parking and insurance, we were looking at between £6,800 and £7,500.
You could bring that price down by changing to Economy fights, maybe with a stopover, compromise on the hotel, decide you don’t need the lounge passes and you can sort out breakfast when you get there. Indeed on BA holidays this will reduce the price by a few thousand. But you would be SACRIFICING JOY and you don’t need to.
By planning, using research, tips and tricks – Maximising air miles with credit and charge cards, THIS IS WHAT WE PAID for 5 nights in August.
FLIGHT– 2x BRITISH AIRWAYS BUSINESS CLASS RETURN £860 total (yes £430 each)
HOTEL – 4 star hotel (Hotel Spero) 5 nights including breakfast £1514
LOUNGE PASSES – Free £0
PARKING – Meet and Greet £56
TRAVEL INSURANCE – Free £0
TOTAL £2,430
AND THIS IS HOW WE DID IT
So this took some planning and patience, have a look at the AIR MILES and CREDIT/CHARGE CARD explainers for more detail, but in a nutshell.
FLIGHT – We hadn’t decided between BA Business or Virgin Premium Economy so were earning points on everyday normal spending on the AMEX travel rewards card – these points can be converted to BA or Virgin miles (and many other airlines).
With the BA Amex card, you get a 2 for 1 voucher, for any flight, in any class, when you hit the spend target (doable with everyday spending). So Business Class return to San Francisco is 125,000 miles each. Sounds a lot but we focused on maximising those miles. Once we had the miles, and the voucher, we were ready to book.
Now timing is key here – BA releases reward seats 355 days before flight dates, so you need to be ready or flexible on dates.
You pay taxes on the flights £430 per person so total cost here £860 (update April 2019, taxes have increased so factor another couple of hundred in)
Virgin also offers a similar voucher but only for Economy or an upgrade so we focused on BA.
HOTEL – Once we had the flights booked we had to choose the hotel and room.
Looking on Trip Advisor, Hotels.com, Booking.com, ebookers.com and TravelSupermarket.com. We narrowed it down to two hotels we liked, both 4 star, both included breakfast, both room with a view and a sofa. Initial price for Hotel Spero was £1,870, so we waited.
Now, when you search for a hotel, things happen in the background (algorithms and other clever stuff) to try and get you to buy there and then. First the price may go up when you look again on a different site (Hotels.com and Expedia are the same ). So you think that the cheaper one is a bargain and go back and book that quickly. Or you’ll see a message like ‘hurry only 1 left at this price’ again to make you think you have to book it there and then. Now if you don’t book it, you will likely get an email with a discount code or offer probably by the next day, then another, then another. Our final price was £1,514.
We had time to watch the prices and wait. We booked through (free to join cashback website) Quidco when they did a travel weekend cashback special, after checking it was still the best price of course – sometimes the prices when you click through cashback websites are higher than if you don’t so you need to double check. We could have waited until nearer the time and used a voucher but that’s risky – prices could go up nearer the travel date. Hotels.com have a price guarantee which if you can get the same booking cheaper they give you vouchers for the difference, so you’re covered if they go down, and it’s fun to keep checking – especially watching prices go up. Now the same hotel room is £3,172 – Apparently booking early and saving 51%, and there’s only 4 left lol. Don’t fall for the Price Anchoring trick, it’s just a number.
Car parking – Now, research shows that the way you end an experience impacts the overall feeling of enjoyment ( Look out for a post soon on the Importance of a Happy Ending). So, we don’t want to arrive back at the airport after an 11 hour flight, wait for a bus, drag our cases to the car (probably in the rain and dark). So we book the car in for Meet and Greet parking. Normal price £87, with discount codes and cashback through Quidco of course for £56.
Lounge passes are free with BA Business Class but anyway we could have used our free ones that come with the Amex card. Same with insurance – Free as we paid on the right card.
On top of this, paying on the right card gave us double air miles, which we can use to get to our next big destination. Mr D wants Tokyo. Will keep you posted.
Have a look at our explainers for Air miles and credit / charge cards to see how to maximise the miles with your everyday spending. And see the Stockholm with really cheap flights blog to see how this works however you book.
When you book flights and hotels separately, you need to think differently than if you booked a package holiday. Check out your need to knows here.
We are just going to show you this for comparison. We love travelsupermarket.com. It’s our first stop when looking for any holiday, takes a lot of the work out of searching and often comes up with the best deals. The best deal through them (without Air Miles) for a 4* hotel with breakfast is £3,754, that’s at the Hilton, in a deluxe room (no sofa!) and economy flights. With no cancellations allowed. Book with Airmiles and you can cancel for a very small charge. And with Hotels.com we chose the refundable price which was only £30 more than non-refundable.
Will update you on how the trip was. We also saved a ton of money booking our Tokyo trip with Air Miles and often pop over to Cyprus for £35 each (that’s return by the way.) Let us know in the comments if you have any San Francisco tips, or any successful Air Miles wins you’ve had. Do subscribe for more ideas from us.
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