Finding the Money for Your Next Trip

I can’t quite locate the GIF which was blowing up all over my timeline on social media, since so many of my contacts who know I’m all about travelling couldn’t help but tag me with it, but yeah, it pretty much epitomised the mentality frequent travellers have. We try to make it happen, some way or the other.

While the GIF itself was quite a literal representation of how to “make it happen” – it featured two guys somehow managing to make a boat move along the water without oars (by taking it in turns to bounce up and down) – making it happen taking into account factors such as one’s finances pretty much takes the same kind of thinking. The finances are perhaps the major factor contributing to whether or not you can go on your next trip, even if you think about it from the point of view of your full-time job perhaps trapping you for time and not allowing you to jump on a plane and fly away.

Ultimately it all comes right back down to finances. Maybe you invested in the best jse shares to buy a few years back and now it’s time to cash out. Or maybe you’ve recently got a pay rise. Or perhaps you’ve just been budgeting your spending well. It can be quite hard to know the best way to finance your travels. But fortunately, there are some hacks you can use to find the money you need for your next trip.

Look For Side Hustles

Remote work can be a great option for those looking to save money for a trip. By taking on a side hustle that can be done from home or anywhere with an internet connection, individuals can earn extra income while still maintaining their regular jobs. This can include freelance writing, graphic design, social media management, virtual assistance, and more. Make sure you have basic home office equipment like a chair and desk that can be converted into a workstation. In case, you don’t have such a setup, you can purchase them from Office Monster (https://www.officemonster.co.uk/), or a similar furniture supplier. Remote work can offer flexibility, allowing individuals to work on their own schedule and prioritize their trip savings goals. However, it’s important to make sure that the side hustle doesn’t interfere with your regular job or lead to burnout. With the right balance, remote work can be a great way to supplement your income and achieve your travel dreams.

Retro-claims on loyalty programmes

For as long as you can prove that you flew with that airline, some airlines extend the courtesy of allowing their passengers to join their loyalty programmes and claim accumulated points on some trips they’ve long since been on. The easiest way to provide this proof is perhaps simply visiting their loyalty rewards portal, which is usually brandished very visibly on the airline’s website and then just filling in your profile details, after which time you can log miles by typing in the code on your ticket stub.

Look, these airlines generally want to reward you for your loyalty to them so even if you don’t perhaps still have your ticket stub, the booking confirmation or e-ticket you were sent via email will more than likely do, but you just have to find out from the airline itself.

Pretty much the same applies to online accommodation booking platforms, which would have naturally required you to fill out some sort of profile when you searched for and booked accommodation.

If you’re a frequent traveller and/or if you’ve flown a long, long way in total up to so far, you may find that the loyalty points you’ve accumulated make you eligible to redeem for a free flight ticket, some free accommodation, or vastly reduced fares on your airfare and/or accommodation.

Flight delay claims

Now we’re bordering more on entitlement than reward, but yeah, if you’re a frequent traveller and at some stage you inevitably had to endure the effects of delayed or cancelled flights, your liaison with flight delay compensation lawyers could have you compensated by up to just over 500. For the seasoned budget traveller, that figure alone is enough to enjoy a trip in some exotic location for up to a week or a little more, including the flight itself, so this is definitely something to look into if you’ve experienced flight delays.