Are you planning for your next travel vacation? Well, everybody in your family would long for a vacation after a long period of hard work at school and office. But, with travel and vacation becoming more and more expensive by the day, it creates the need for travelers to cut down on their budget whilst on vacation. Explained below are 10 common (easy) tips that would help save those travel money.

1. Take your own food and drinks: This would seem a little ridiculous; however, the amount you can save could be huge. For instance, a burger prepared at home could be much tastier and cheaper compared to those offered for sale at restaurants and hotels. Likewise, a bottle or can of soft drinks would be more expensive in hotels, whereas it would be cheaper to buy it from a supermarket. This would help you avoid instances of premium pricing.

2. If the first tip seems impractical, try this one. Have breakfast where kids could eat free or split meals. Since small children eat too little but at regular intervals, going to children-friendly restaurants that accommodate special requests for extra plates could help save you a lot of money, especially if your family has over two kids.

3. Take your own refillable water bottles: A typical family spends over $20 a day buying mineral water and by taking your own water bottles, you could save on this money, especially on long-trips. Get them refilled at your hotel or water fountains at no extra cost.

4. Make use of any offers and coupons be it for food, lodging, traveling or attractions, just simply make use of them. The amount you save could be enormous. You could find offers and coupons in local newspapers, stores, motels, hotels and even online.

5. Always rent a car: This would be much cheaper compared to the (airport) shuttle service. Likewise, it would be more flexible and convenient. If you are planning to drive to your destination, rent a car because it would save those potential expenditures and costs of wear and tear (repairs).

6. Bring your own stroller since you could simply save $8 to $10 a day at some of the attractions in your visit.

7. Make use of multi-day passes at the attractions. This is very useful since those could be used at anytime of the day.

8. Enjoy the day away from the major attractions: It would be much cheaper to spend your day at the beach or at a local playground and would be as much fun as visiting those attractions. Make use of every opportunity that is provided for free, such as the hotel’s swimming pool and sports facilities.

9. Make your own reservations: By doing so, it is guaranteed that your particular needs are satisfied. Online reservations would earn you additional discounts that would help save you more.

10. Give your children a set amount to spend. This would limit unnecessary expenditures, and the children knowing about this restriction would put the money to better use. » Read more: How to Cut Down on Your Budget When You Go on Vacation

Encheres de vacances, subasta viajes, travel auctions… Call them what you will, but there’s money to be saved – and fun to be had!

Travel auctions ultimately bring all the excitement of shopping on eBay to the world of travel. You submit your bids, watch the time tick down, and finally, celebrate as you secure your holiday – frequently, for a fraction of what you might have paid.

Who to choose?

The big hitters of the travel auction world include LuxuryLink, Skyauction, and even eBay itself. LuxuyLink’s focus is, as you’d expect given the name, towards the higher end of the scale, while Skyauction and eBay are a mixed bag price-wise.

In travel auctions, the biggest savings tend to be made the further up the price scale you go, as suppliers can cut their (high) margins and still make a profit. And the result is that high-end travel packages can often be snapped up at the last minute for a decidedly more palatable price.

Go International!

The future, though, may just be international. Many of us learnt at least another language at school, and, in day-to-day life, find very little practical use for it. But for the more adventurous, some of the best savings to be had in travel auctions are through non-English sites like (for French speakers) Nouvellefrontieres.fr, or (Spanish, Italian and Portuguese speakers rejoice!) Logitravel.com.

The functionality – the way the travel auction works, essentially – of the sites is often pretty similar, so even if you can’t understand every word, there’s a good chance you can follow the procedure through familiarity.

Research, research, research

One important thing to remember is to make sure you check out the price of what an equivalent package would be if it weren’t in an auction; there’s no point paying for something, after all, on the suspicion that you’re getting a good deal – always double-check the price directly with the hotel.

It’s also never a bad idea to consider how the ‘auctioneer’ is getting their lot. Just as in an auction house, you wouldn’t pay top dollar for an expensive piece of furniture unless you were absolutely certain of its authenticity; so in online travel auctions, you should dig around into a seller’s history.

What kind of savings can you make?

While you obviously shouldn’t be fooled by the $1 starting bid (you’re really not going to get a $5 cruise, no matter where you look!), there are still some mouth-watering savings to be had.

A recent successful bidder on LuxuryLink snapped up a deliciously decadent 7-night package for two on St. Vincent for $2,229 – making a whopping saving of well over $1,000 in the process. Over at Skyauction, cruises regularly go for 100% less than standard under the hammer (so to speak!)

And the savings are no less impressive if you dip your toes in the foreign language travel auction. Nouvelles-frontieres offer a 75% discount as standard on some of their travel auction products. The difference on Logitravel, meanwhile, is frequently up towards half the market price, with a three night Nile cruise followed by four nights in Cairo recently going for EUR776 (down from EUR1200). » Read more: Travel Auctions – Big Adventure – Big Savings