Money-saving tips for travel tightwads

Harriet Baskas Travel writer

One summer, early in my traveling career, I took my mother with me on my work-related road trips. Not because she was great company, but because with her in tow I could get a senior discount on motel rooms. As you can imagine, there were some serious downsides to that scheme, but at the time it seemed to make sense.

I’ve wised up over the years and found other ways to cut costs when out on the road. I scour Web sites and tourism brochures for hotel and meal coupons. I take advantage of discounts available to card-carrying members of Costco and AAA. I stick to hotels that offer complimentary breakfast and free Wi-Fi. And while I have no qualms about taking an extra apple or banana from a hotel breakfast bar and saving it for lunch, I stop short at pocketing those tiny unopened jam jars on room-service trays other travelers leave outside their doors — although I’ll admit I’ve sometimes been tempted.

Perhaps you have, too. Or perhaps, like the tightwad travelers below, you’ve found other creative ways to conserve cash when you travel.

Eating on the cheap
Many tightwad travelers tell me they’ll only stay at hotels where rooms come equipped with kitchenettes or, at the very least, microwaves and coffeemakers. And plenty of travelers say they never leave home without some dried fruit, energy bars and packets of instant soup tucked into their suitcases.

Ohio-based writer Noah St. John swears by Balance Bars and cashews. For Katie Coakley, a PR professional from Vail, Colo., it’s packets of oatmeal. “They’re healthy, travel well and most rooms have a coffee maker. Heat up the water in the coffee maker, dump the oatmeal into a coffee mug and you have a healthy, economical breakfast that doesn’t involve pastries.”

Crave something more filling? Phil Johnson, a “comedy and music artist” from Milpitas, Calif., says he once got free hamburgers on the road simply by reading his receipts.

“Burger King gives you a free Whopper if you complete their phone survey after a visit,” he says. “I bought the first one, got my freebie in the second town with a new receipt and survey opportunity. I got another freebie in the next town, and so on. I ate Whoppers for a week. Not exactly the healthiest tip, but I did save a lot on food.”

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And after getting charged $26 at a hotel for a room-service-delivered personal pizza, Giti Saini, co-founder of a social and parenting network with an Indian cultural twist, figured out that at most hotels, getting pizza delivered from an outside restaurant is no problem — and much cheaper.

Many travelers have surefire methods for saving on water and coffee. Web strategist Ed Kohler says he looks for bottled water in his hotel fitness center, where it usually costs less than the bottled water sold in the lobby or in the room.

And when on a road trip with her boyfriend, writer Elisa Cundiff of Las Cruces, N.M., stays awake and caffeinated, for cheap, thanks to a giant thermos. 

“This small purchase has saved us hundreds of dollars on our road trips,” she says. “We take our thermos into gas stations, filling it to the brim. Every single gas station that I have been to charges less than a dollar to do this. They’re used to people doing it. It’s an old trucker trick!”

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