Hey! With the COVID rules loosening up, many of us are looking for a chance to travel somewhere and take a much-needed break, but money-wise, this can often be much easier said than done.
I’m going to share some tips and tricks to save some money when you travel by two popular modes of transportation for travelling students: trains and flights. By the end of this blog post, you’ll be able to say YES to the next holiday your optimistic friend puts in your group chat.
Train travel
Let’s start with trains. To be clear, I’ll be talking about overground trains – not the London Underground (the Tube). First off, consider getting a railcard. Railcards offer discounts on train travel within the UK. There’s the 16-25 railcard and the 26-30 railcard, and they both give you 1/3 off on the price of your train ticket.
A one-year travelcard will cost £30, but there are other ways to get the travelcard at a reduced price. I received a 16-25 railcard when I set up my student bank account with Santander – this is a fantastic option because you can get a four-year travelcard entirely free!
Be flexible with your timings! One of the best tips I can give you is to go for off-peak times – most train operators will have both ‘off-peak’ and ‘super-off-peak’ times, and these can be real money-savers. Journeys outside of rush-hour times are cheaper, and keep in mind, most weekends and bank holidays are also classed as ‘off-peak’ travel. So, choose one of these times if you can!
Something we students are particularly good at is finding discounts on apps, and there are tons of good ones available. The one I’ve used the most is Trainline, which offers regular information about the cheapest available trains, and sends you notifications about journeys with reduced prices. Another benefit of Trainline is that it lets you book up to 180 days in advance, which is longer than any other ticket seller I’ve encountered so far.
Find where trains are cheap. Eastern and central Europe has some fantastic locations that can be accessed easily with trains and may be relatively inexpensive compared to western Europe. Some great places to go to via train, where travel is inexpensive, are Poland, Hungary and Romania.
When we think of train travel as students, interrailing is one of the first things we might think of, and it’s a great way to get around Europe. Technically, interrailing is travelling around Europe using the ‘Interrail Pass’ (or the Eurail Pass for non-European citizens) and can offer you a way to see up to 33 European countries at low prices, with the ability to change the dates of your travel quickly. If you’re under 28, you’re eligible for the even more discounted ‘Youth Fares’. Interrailing is cheap, quick, a classic student activity, and one I’d really recommend.
Shop around! This is classic Money Mentor suggestion that you’ll see on any of our blogs, and it applies to travel too! I know it can be stressful booking travel tickets, and demoralising when you’re repeatedly bombarded with extortionate prices. But don’t be tempted to always book with the most well-known train companies! An example of shopping around is when I found Lumo through social media – a new train operator that’s currently offering a cheap new route from London to Edinburgh.
Air travel
Air travel is a faster way of getting around but can often be even more expensive than trains. Despite that, there are still a bunch of things you can do to reduce your air fare and allow yourself to whizz off to wherever you want to go.
As I mentioned for train travel, there are some great apps that you can use for cheaper flights. One great one that I’ve used is ‘Skyscanner’. From what I’ve seen, it offers cheaper flights than any other app and shows you flights for entire countries rather than just specific airports. It also has a feature called ‘Mashups’ where you can mix and match different flights from different airlines, which can often work out cheaper. Apart from Skyscanner, there are many other apps/sites that you can research, like ‘Kayak’, and ‘Expedia’.
Again, shop around! Comparison sites like Momondo can be very helpful in your toolkit for hunting for the best air travel bargain. I’ve also known people to use apps like Hopper, which can tell you whether prices are likely to rise/fall for your destination over time, or websites like lastminute.com, which give you last-minute deals, and these can both be useful if your timescale for booking is more limited.
Stay incognito. This sounds like a strange one, but I can tell you from experience that if you remain as anonymous as possible when searching for flights, you’re more likely to find cheap ones. This is because airlines can use your data and quickly raise their prices when they know that you’re looking at certain flights and the demand for those flights is rising. To avoid this, delete your search cookies and use an incognito browser when searching. Looking as a guest on websites that offer flights instead of making an account can also help.
Consider booking flights and accommodation together! Not only has this helped me find great package deals, but it also saves the headache of trying to find somewhere to stay separately from your flight booking. These sorts of package deals usually include food/drinks and can be offered at affordable prices by holiday companies. According to Save the Student, with these, you can even sometimes get the whole holiday for cheaper than the cost of a single flight!
I hope this brief trip (pun intended) into the world of travel savings has helped you and made your next journey a little bit easier. Bon Voyage!
Shivam Chotai
King’s Student Money Mentor
Part of Money & Housing Advice
The King’s Student Money Mentors blog shares our students’ personal experiences and thoughts on money-related topics. Any reference, opinions or recommendations on a particular company/brand are only the views of the student(s) who wrote the blog post. King’s College London, the Money & Housing Advice service and the Money Mentor project do not share the views in the blogs nor endorse any of the companies mentioned. Readers should conduct their own research before using any companies mentioned in our blog posts.