Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought a European vacation was cheaper than Disney, no?

This is what is snidely said on here ALLLLL the time.

At 1,000 a ticket, at least, it would cost us 5k to fly to London and back.

We'll definitely do it but maybe now people will understand why I'm waiting until my kids are older and can actually appreciate it vs. wanting to spend every day at a park. Which we could do here for free

Can we please retire the old trope that a playground in Paris is worlds better than taking your young kids (under 8) to Disney World? Or somewhere else age appropriate to their interests?

Unless you are very picky about dates/flights/seats, it doesn't need to cost $1000/ticket for London!
My two sons and I are flying to London for Spring break (week before Easter for their school) for $412/person each.

True, they aren't "perfect" flights.
-They aren't direct, we are changing planes (with approx. 4 hour layover) in Ottawa each way
-they are "basic economy", so we don't get to pick our seats. As of right now, they have our seats assigned and we are all together--but I know that could change and we might be separated/middle seats
-because they are basic economy, we can't check a full size suitcase. Domestic basic economy doesn't even allow you a carry on, but international basic economy does. We are light packers so a carry on each is plenty.

I get that if your kids are very young, the "not sitting together" aspect of my tickets wouldn't work--but if I remember correct, we could have chosen the "regular" economy, where we could pick our seats and check a full size bag, and it would have been somewhere around $600/person. Far less than $1000.

You just need to know how to budget travel. Do some online searching to figure out how to find cheaper flights. There are lots of sites that track and send you notifications. There are also sites that notify you of sales when there is a cheaper flight. It is cheaper to book on certain days than others. There are all kinds of ways to fly on a tight budget but you have to do more leg work up front.

Currently there are flights in May from Washington DC to London in May for less than $500. With tax it comes to $487 on the one I checked.

You can get cheap flights, you just have to be prepared to be a little more flexible with dates and times sometimes.

Anonymous wrote:I thought a European vacation was cheaper than Disney, no?

This is what is snidely said on here ALLLLL the time.

At 1,000 a ticket, at least, it would cost us 5k to fly to London and back.

We'll definitely do it but maybe now people will understand why I'm waiting until my kids are older and can actually appreciate it vs. wanting to spend every day at a park. Which we could do here for free

Can we please retire the old trope that a playground in Paris is worlds better than taking your young kids (under 8) to Disney World? Or somewhere else age appropriate to their interests?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How? Well, my neighbors who routinely go to Europe and then go to Costa Rica/Turks/St. Kitts over Christmas break all bring in $500,000 to $900,000 a year. Because Dad is partner at a top 10 firm and mom is another kind of lawyer or a "consultant."

Yes, it's depressing being their neighbor and wanting to like my Staycations

Yes, they make money, but their employer suck up every minute of their time. Do not begrudge them this vacation. You have to ALWAYS pay the piper, one way or the other.

lol this is NOT true

My DH makes that kind of money and only works ~50/55 hour weeks with minimal travel. I'm a SAHM. That is the norm in my circle. Work to live, not live to work.

I haven't read through all of the posts but I'll tell you what we have done:

--Grab good deals, which often isn't an ideal time to visit a country. We flew our family of 4 to London in October (so it was pretty chilly and gray) for $1320 total on Iceland Air. I know this doesn't work well when you are traveling specific dates, but if you can be flexible you can find good rates.

--Build up FF miles by opening new credit cards with great offers. In the last 5 years my husband and I have flown to Spain and to Austria, we have flown the 4 of us to Switzerland, and next year we are flying to Italy, all on points. And we don't fly a lot for work so we don't build up airline points on our own. It is all credit card intro deals and then putting all of our expenses on credit cards. Check out thepointsguy.com to get notices of special offers.

I work from home and own an apartment in Europe. the tickets are expensive but we get to spend 2 months during the summer.

If you plan to go during school breaks, especially summer, be ready to pay more. This is when everyone else wants to go.

Kayak.com has lots of flights. WOW Air is another option. When your kids get older and are both in elementary, it will be easier. More discretionary income and more vacation time. In addition, when your kids are older, they can handle getting up at 3:00 am to make that 6:00 am ultracheap flight.

The little kid stage is hard with respect to travel, but it will be over before you know it.

Anonymous wrote:I used to live in England and some of my friends are planning a mini-reunion in May. Kids are invited but looking at tickets, I'm just depressed about how much air fare is. Even without kids, it seems very expensive.

How do people afford it? We'd been planning on a 10th anniversary trip, but between not having enough vacation time (thanks to snow days and other assorted days off of school) and money, I don't think the trip will happen, though we've been saving for awhile.

After the cost of the flight, traveling doesn’t have to be expensive. There are cheap hotels and food everywhere.

Anonymous wrote:How? Well, my neighbors who routinely go to Europe and then go to Costa Rica/Turks/St. Kitts over Christmas break all bring in $500,000 to $900,000 a year. Because Dad is partner at a top 10 firm and mom is another kind of lawyer or a "consultant."

Yes, it's depressing being their neighbor and wanting to like my Staycations

We usually take 2 international trips per year and usually 2-3 trips in the U.S. each year. I am a single mom with two kids (and no child support) and don't make anywhere near what your neighbors are making. I do live in a house that is way more modest than I could have afforded. I drove modest cars. No private schools. I use FF miles and hotel points to support a lot of these trips and maximize miles charging everything-- including utilities! I consolidate hotel points with Marriott and try to ensure I have highest status every year which gives the best points bonus. The other perk is that we get free breakfast and happy hour when we stay at a lot of properties abroad. (In the US, we usually stay at the lower end ones that have free breakfast for all.). We stay in cheap airbnbs where it makes sense. Just different priorities.

I guess air tickets are the biggest expenses in the trips, but what if trying to catch cheap flights beforehand? I usually monitor discounts 3-6 month before a possible trip, and the prices fall crazily sometimes, one can save up to 80% due to special offers.

We rent a 1br, have one cheap car, don't have any retirement or college savings, sadly. Our savings are about $17k. We traveled to Europe last spring, for 3 weeks- H worked remotely for 2 weeks, I SAH, we had our 3 yo with us. We stayed with family all of the time there. We paid about $3300 total for airfare.
I am not saying that's the way to go, just sharing.

We use FF miles. I take my kids to Europe every other year, if it were not for FF miles we would not be able to afford it.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. After seeing people talk about using credit cards to get miles, I checked out our main credit card, which is a hotel chain's card. I thought you could only use points for hotels, but when I looked into it more, I found that you can use points for tickets too with no blackout dates. I tried the England trip I'd hoped to go on this spring and was able to find tickets easily. Unfortunately, it doesn't help with the school/time off problem, but it's good to know that we can use our hotel credit card for tickets.

Nice!