Do a quick search of trips to Orlando, a popular vacation destination for Connecticut residents, and it will cost you a pretty penny.
Caitlin Burchill of NBC Connecticut compared the cost of a four-day trip.
A flight for two, a rental car, and a decent hotel would have cost around $ 1,700, not including money for food, drink, and fun.
How much could you save by skipping the flight and driving instead? She found a rental car for about $ 300 but had to factor in gasoline and wear and tear. Not to mention that driving a car would cut your time on the beach.
When the travel restrictions for the pandemic were lifted, Manchester-based Jennifer Pineros decided to essentially indulge in the lost trips of just over a year on one trip. Your destination: Greece.
“I was gone for two full weeks. It was wonderful, but it was very expensive, ”said Pineros.
But when she got back to the US, the sticker shock struck. The current shortage of rental cars has driven prices much higher than she expected.
She booked a $ 140 rental car to drive back to Connecticut from JFK. When she made the reservation, Pineros wasn’t sure where she would return the car. She found that parking the car at Bradley International Airport would cost an additional $ 260.
She called other potential dispensaries in Connecticut and found that prices were different.
“I stopped thinking of just legitimately bringing it back [to JFK]”Said Pineros. “I would literally have saved $ 100 if I brought the car back and got an Uber.”
In the end, despite the cost, she returned the car to Bradley.
She used a third-party travel website to book the rental car, which she thought added to the confusion.
“I wish the trip ended better. It was a wonderful trip, but again I didn’t expect to spend $ 400 on the last day of the trip that I never planned on, ”she said.
Because rental cars are currently hard to come by, some vacationers think outside the box … like in box vans.
Caitlin’s girlfriend Jackie recently got married after postponing the ceremony during COVID. For their honeymoon in Hawaii, Jackie and her new husband saved a lot of money by renting a pickup truck from a moving company instead of a conventional rental car.
Joining a travel club can also help you save. AAA says enrollments for new memberships have increased by 30%. A spokesperson tells us that travelers are specifically looking for discounts on hotel and theme tickets.
Certain credit cards also offer travel incentives and other perks.
“Credit card companies are really aggressively pushing your business right now,” said Ted Rossman, a senior industry analyst at Bankrate.com.
Make sure to use your rewards before they depreciate in value. And Rossman advises consumers to splurge on their savings rather than add to their debts. And he says being flexible is another way to save.
“If you haven’t planned anything but want to get something, you might be looking for the offers rather than the destination,” he said.