You may have noticed, we travel quite a bit.
My mom encouraged this sense of adventure when I was a kid, and my husband put on his share of cross-country miles as well. And when we had kids of our own, we decided we didn’t want to travel away from them.
We always take them along.
But you may wonder how we’ve managed to afford this kind of travel. I recently went back to work half-time, but we were basically a single-income family during most of the trips.
For us, the key for many years has been flexibility and creativity. Without exaggerating, I can tell you that during the past seven years, we’ve traveled nine times without paying for flights. All it took was airline and credit card loyalty, Atlanta layovers, the willingness to camp out in the airport if given the opportunity, and a whole lotta luck.
What follows is an outline of where we’ve traveled as a family in the past seven years, and how we’ve paid for the flights.
February 2002 — DisneyWorld (free flights)
We’d traveled once to St. Petersburg, FL, prior to this, but this was our first free flight. Earned by my long-time loyalty to a single credit card, we paid for all four flights with miles we’d saved since our wedding day.
December 2003 — Marco Island, Florida (paid for cheap AIRTRAN flights to Orlando and drove rental car to Marco)
This was a ridiculous drive, but staying on the beach in Marco was so worth it. The temperature continues to climb every mile you drive south in Florida, and we needed every degree of warmth in December!
Summer 2004 — Europe (paid for flights)
This splurge was a roundtrip flight to Paris (that’s where the deal was) and a cross-continent drive to our foreign exchange student’s home in Austria.
December 2004 — North Redington Beach, Florida (paid for flights — $89 RT with AIRTRAN to Atlanta and drove rental car to FL)
This was another ridiculously long drive, but the incredible deal on flight (and condo – only $450 for a week on the beach) made us pull the trigger on this last-minute travel plan.
June 2005 — Maryland (free AIRTRAN flights – from points)
Airtran points earned from previous paid flights, including some I’d earned on business trips. Only Darla and I traveled to Maryland, while the boys were fishing in Canada. But on our way home, we each got bumped twice, earning a total of four free flights for our family’s next vacation. (Airtran’s rules no longer allow you to designate a different passenger for the free flight when you get bumped.)
December 2005 — Fort Lauderdale/Caribbean Cruise (free AIRTRAN flights)
We’d booked flights and a condo on Marco Island, but a hurricane struck and we were able to switch our flights to Fort Lauderdale and book a last-minute cruise. We were bumped twice on the way home, and knew we’d have to use the free travel vouchers within a year. This meant two trips in the next 12 months…
April, 2006 — Tybee Island, Georgia (free AIRTRAN flights)
This fun little island just south of Hilton Head made for a great Easter vacation this year.
Summer, 2006 — Mackinac Island, Michigan (drove there from home in Northern Wisconsin)
Another mother/daughter trip. Beautiful! And very girly;) The fishermen were roughing in it Ontario instead.
January, 2007 — Fort Myers Beach, Florida (free AIRTRAN flights)
This was our homeschooling year, and we spent two glorious weeks learning on the beach. On the way home, flights were overbooked, so once again we earned free flights for the next Christmas…
May, 2007 — Chicago (drove from our home in Northern Wisconsin)
Awesome! And my son’s first big-city stay.
Summer, 2007 — Boston (free AIRTRAN flights)
My daughter and I visited Boston using two of the free flights we’d earned in January. The boys went to Canada again, fishing instead. We were bumped off a flight on the way home, so in December, we joined the boys again — each of us with our own free flights.
December, 2007– Sanibel Island, Florida (free AIRTRAN flights)
They messed up our reservations for our departure. Luckily I’d called the airlines when I wasn’t able to check in online, so we hadn’t left our house yet when we found out the bad news. We weren’t able to leave until a day and a half later. Airtran gave us each two free roundtrip flights for our inconvenience, which meant both trips in 2008 would be free too.
May, 2008 — Washington DC (free AIRTRAN flights)
Even my husband enjoyed this very busy, educational, car-less adventure.
November, 2008 — Orlando/Cocoa Beach (free AIRTRAN flights)
Although we’ve always been prepared to do so, we haven’t been bumped since January 2007, and when I look at the price of flights, I wonder how we’ll ever travel again! We may need to focus on driving vacations for a while, but I’ve been saving up my credit card miles for seven years.
So in 2010 we’ve set our sights on Alaska…
I know in this economy, a lot of travel systems may be changing, but a willingness to be flexible may work for you, like it did for us. What are your keys to affordable travel? For more great tips, please visit Rocks in my Dryer.
Stay tuned for part two of Affordable Family Travel.
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10:25 pm
Free flights – that’s not my problem! I can’t get my hubby to go anywhere. How do you manage that? I tried to get him to go with me to the high school basketball game tonight but he thought it was too cold! I told him the game was indoors and that we only lived 1.7 miles away for the trip home! But no luck.
Seriously, very cool travel ideas. I’ll have to file those away for someday when Mickey and I can hit the road (or the air).
12:49 am
That’s a lot of free miles. We tried this — and it was so hard to match the ‘available’ flights with our schedule. Maybe we weren’t patient enough.
10:26 am
Love it! My only problem is that I don’t like to fly, actually I basically hate it. Anxiety gets the best of me and I make the flight uncomfortable for Hubby too.
Glad you get so much travel time in… I would love to, but Hubby’s job isn’t as flexible.
We are going to Disney soon with their buy 4 get 3 free nights promo right now.
11:37 am
We travel a lot too, because of our work, and we take our kids with us too. We do our homework and find the cheap hotels; we don’t order Happy Meals–the whole family can survive quite happily on baguettes, fruit, cold cuts and yogurts. Also children can drink water and will survive even if you don’t purchase the overpriced airline sandwich. Nothing too earth-shaking.
12:38 pm
Cool share, traveling is so fun. My horizons are set on that private jet and traveling abroad! That would be SO SO cool.
Hugs,
Holly
1:03 pm
Airtran? Is that like Travelocity? We get a lot of free points since we travel to the US a lot. However, we have the opportunity to fly without horrible layovers. Since we are traveling with a toddler, the faster the better!
We have cut costs by visiting people we know, are going with family friends splitting costs and renting a house. This is pretty common in Europe, there are a plethora of vacation homes you can rent. That way you can cook at home like a home away from home. Plus it is fun to see how the natives shop, learn the language and all.
2:59 pm
Two words: House swap. If you cut accommodation from the equation, it reduces costs considerably. Sites like Homelink and Diggsville offer members a way to do this.
3:08 pm
Whadda ya mean blaming me for your “itchy foot”? Crikey, I only drove you to 47 states…….we had to fly to Hawaii and Alaska however. Remember to always leave ‘em some place to find on their own though. How long did it take you to get to the 50th state??? We made up for travel time in the air on the way to Australia.
Gee, I bet Shadow still has the record for getting her feet wet. Remember how she “used the potty” in 47 states as well? Her record for getting her paws wet in both oceans, the Gulf of Mexico, and all 5 Great Lakes was quite a feet (pun)too……..and she crossed the Mississippi in 8 different places.
Goodness, I guess I might have to admit to a bit of your wanderlust……or we could blame the DOG!
10:13 am
Thanks for your helpful hints! Traveling is a wonderful gift to give our kids!
8:43 am
great ideas!
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