To wonder who can afford this? What do you spend on your holidays?

[Bridgeofpies]

I was flicking through a travel magazine and having the usual envy of the people enjoying sun drenched beaches, bustling exotic markets and artistic sunsets etc. So I had a look through at all the places to stay.

Almost all the hotels and accommodation (or a large proportion) were from £400 per night for a double room! Some were up to £700. It got me wondering - who actually stays in these hotels? They look amazing and I can imagine doing it for a one- off special occasion like a big anniversary or birthday but are there people who spend this on their “normal” holidays?

We are definitely well-off by most standards but wouldn’t consider this for a holiday! (Especially with 2 kids, it would be insanely expensive). Our last big blow out holiday was around £3500 but that was 2 weeks, all-inclusive, with flights and for all 4 of us!

So, just got me wondering, is it just billionaires and business travellers on expenses who stay in these places?

I feel really sad now because I just realised I only went on holiday in 2013 and before then it was 2007.

It's been five years

Stayed for one night in London last year :) it was £90.

Maybe should make it goal to go away this year.
Honestly reading all of this seems like another world :(

I used to work in travel

YY to what Barbara said about rack rates

Most hotels have numerous rates for any given type of room dependent on when/how you book

Lots of people prioritise travel and that’s what they spend their money on. The people that booked the most expensive holidays were rarely the ones that lived in the most prestigious houses.

I prioritise travel above fancy clothes, cars etc but baulk at paying full price and will spend weeks researching each element of a trip to make sure I’m getting the best deal

We have a healthy travel budget, but it is a priority for us over and above many things that others would value more (having a large house, for example).

We've stayed in top range hotels in Prague and Krakow. In both cases we went in the winter an got them stupidly cheap, in summer we wouldn't have been able to afford them

We prioritize travel and spend our money on it. But I am not spending it on an over-priced fruit basket and some flowers that will probably make me wheeze.

I'd rather save the money on the room, go on more holidays and have more cash for things that are tangible to us eg tickets to concerts, massive amounts of sight-seeing. In Rome I spent a fortune on tickets to early opening of the Sistine Chapel so we were there with only 10 other people. Meant a huge amount to us.

We were happy with our cut price AirBnB in exchange for the Sistine Chapel.

Also worth remembering that private schools have longer holidays so families can go on holiday in cheaper weeks before the state school kids have finished the term.

Oh, and I'd far rather pack my own lightweight bathrobe and slippers than pay ££££s for the privilege of having them provided for me in a hotel room!

doingthingsdifferently, we did Sani for 4 for about £3.5k a couple of years ago - it's much better value in April and October.

Parker, we're a company director and consultant in property.

And we own our own property already

Sashkin

I can imagine £400 is ok if it is a US-style room with two double beds, and there are four of you sharing. But it’s way too much for two people.

Arbitrary figure and ridiculous.
£400 to some is unreachable. £400 to others is a drop in the ocean.

For us it depends on the holiday. We don't do beach holidays, cruises or long haul because my husband hates them all. We love a good hotel for a week or ten days and would be prepared to spend a lot of money for it. For a short break - where it's essentially somewhere to sleep and shower - we're much less bothered. We also like a really nice UK cottage for a week.

I guess we spend about £7k in a year for two separate weeks, one in the UK and one in Europe, and a couple of weekends away. We never go in school holidays and there are two of us. The days of the palazzo in Tuscany are well behind us!

£400 to some is unreachable. £400 to others is a drop in the ocean.

Actually, I'd say the variance in hotel room pricing is actually less than many other consumer purchases. It's trivially easy to pay ten times more for one car than another car, and many people do: a solid ten year old hatchback is a couple of grand, perfectly mundane cars are twenty grand new. Ditto restaurants (you can eat for a tenner in a fast food place, a hundred quid a head is hardly exotic luxury beyond the ken of man), an evening's culture (a tenner for a cheap cinema, hundred plus for a popular show) and so on.

Whereas if you assume the floor below which you're staying in a hostel is about sixty quid in a city, people are apparently shocked and stunned at the mere idea of spending six hundred quid.

Different incomes, different tastes, different priorities.

“can't help wondering if all these expensive holidays are the reason so many people can't afford to buy a house these days?”

Your 50s is a VERY late stage to buy your first house. A lot of people will be paying their mortgage off at that age and so will be having more disposable income to go in fancy holidays. kids grown too.

I can't help wondering if all these expensive holidays are the reason so many people can't afford to buy a house these days?

No. Avocado on toast is the reason.

can't help wondering if all these expensive holidays are the reason so many people can't afford to buy a house these days

That's right. The target audience for business class plane travel and expensive hotels is twenty-somethings living in rented houses while saving for a deposit. How could I not have realised that?

We're fairly modest earners but holidays are important to us. Therefore, we try to get away at least twice a year.

Typically, we'll do a cheap UK caravan break booked through a newspaper promotion at Easter. We use the park as a base and go out and about exploring the local area. With food, petrol and spending money the 4 nights costs around £6-700.

In the summer, we'll go abroad spending between 3-5k. Luckily, DH works for an airline and gets a huge discount on flights which means we can get to destinations we couldn't afford otherwise, such as Mexico or the states. We're not using our concession this year as we're going with family to an AI in Spain at a cost of 6k - that hurts!

You don't have to spend a lot of money to have a good holiday, we've actually enjoyed some of the caravan holidays at least as much as some of the long hauls if I'm honest!

I'm late 50s, retired, own my house and so can afford to go on nice holidays. I don't do beaches or sun and as I have a lovely home , will not compromise on poor accommodation.
I had my first holiday abroad when I was 22.

When our 3 dcs were small , we couldn't afford expensive holidays , and usually hired a cottage to spend our 1 week summer break visiting my elderly dm in a popular but expensive part of Scotland (her flat wasn't large enough for us all)...
Sadly she died 9 yrs ago but we decided to use some of the proceeds of the sale of her flat to be able to go on foreign holidays as the dcs were now old enough to appreciate them and I'd been fortunate to have been on some great holidays with my parents when I was younger
We've had some amazing holidays since then and people have said how jealous they are of us....although I've loved these holidays I'd rather still have my dm around, but know she would have been happy that we've now made these memories with my dcs...we've been to Antigua, Cuba, Thailand , Algarve Brittany and Kephalonia ....varying from 6k to 15k
I'm a HCP and dh is self employed ( legal)

We have a high income by general standards.
Reading this thread I have concluded I am just tight.

We net £5800 a month, I'm a SAHM, partner has his own electrical contracting company. We have 4 children. I do my main shop in Lidl, Sainsbury's for the items I can't get in Lidl and our local butcher. We have a 190k mortgage and we have 5 holidays a year plus a touring caravan for weekend breaks. Feb half term a lodge at a holiday park with a hot tub £350 for 3 days. Easter Finlake , center parcs or Forest holidays with a hot tub anything between £600-£1800 depending on when our schools break up. One week AI in the med £6-7000 , luxury house hire with my parents and siblings our share is normally £600 and a holiday for just my partner and I. Normally Portugal for 5 days £1500-2000 depending on hotel. This year we are going to Dubai as my partner is 50. Flights upper class but I had lots of air miles as I used to do my main shop in Tesco and we exchanged our rewards for air miles. Taxes £1100 and £1300 for 5 nights hotel with club lounge access but will prob spend another £2000 whilst there. I booked the hotel through booking.com last year and it's gone up nearly £500 since. Every other year my partners parents take us all away October half term to Tenerife. We are not rich but comfortable , our children go to a state school and there are some parents who spend double or triple what we do.

We spent about £16,000 last year trip to Asia, skiing in France, week with family in France and week in the highlands. This year annual trip to family in France, skiing in Scotland, surf school in Devon so probably about £3,000 to balance out last year. Two teenagers that very soon will be off doing their own thing so I’d rather make great family memories than get a new kitchen fitted or spend money on expensive clothes. We have spent loads on adventures with our kids it’s money well spent, but those adventures could be rock pooling on the coast of Britain, wild camping in Scotland (still allowed) or exciting days at free museums. You will find as your kids grow up hopefully your income will increase and you won’t be so shocked at the price of term time holidays. Saying all that sometimes because we now pay adult prices for our kids I feel like I’m paying for people who would rather be slumming it with their friends but that’s ok as it means that they are ready to go on those cheap and cheerful trips that we did in our youth when all you needed was 2 weeks and teletext for last minute deals, cost us more to put our 2 dogs into kennels than the guess where you are staying hold, happy days.

Name change as this could be outing

We just got back from a two week long haul family holiday, DH had a holiday with friends in January, we're due to go away as a family over EAster, have a family summer holiday booked for July, DH and I will have a weekend away sans kids in September and I take a holiday with friends every October.

All in all we will spend approx £40K on holidays this year.

Our income is £300k.

My total income is £20k. Single parent of one.

I spend about £5k a year on travel. 2 separate weeks abroad for DS and I and a few weekends away.

Sounds a lot based on my small income but I have little in the way of other outgoings - my total utility bills are only £60 a month for example and as I'm a single parent nights out etc are rare. Travel is my main priority after essentials.

We have an income similar to yours but don't spend loads on holidays. I find holidays more stressful than they are worth to be honest. Ds with autism makes things hard. We've recently been to New York which cost £7k and a year before that we went to Rhodes for £3.4k. Apart from that we've just done camping and caravvaning holidays with friends which the kids enjoy just as much as holidays abroad to be honest. So I resent paying thousands on a week away. Maybe when the kids have grown up it'll be better!

A new luxury hotel at Carbis Bay, Cornwall is currently bemusing me. Family room rates varying between £420 and £620 per night, double rooms up to £440 per night. I mean, Carbis Bay is very nice and all, but ultimately it's subject to English weather and the lovely beach view is going to look very different on a rainy day. Carbis Bay itself isn't that exciting and the area gets ridiculously overcrowded in the summer. Although the hotel it boasts a private beach, it's only part of a public beach so patrons will still have to share with the rest of us oiks. Given that you can very easily spend less than that to go somewhere of an equivalent standard overseas with guaranteed sun, why would you bother?

I am lucky that I can holiday out of season
I budget £500 max per person flights and accommodation and it’s amazing where you can go for that!
DP and adult DC/their partners pay for themselves if we go away together
For example hired a luxury 5 bedroom (slept 12) private villa with huge pool in Turkey early September last year for £800
Split 4 ways plus flights and transfers came to approx £400 per person
I budget £50-£75 a day for eating out, drinks, days out etc dependent on exchange rate and local prices