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?

We've just booked our holiday for 2019.... £2k all inclusive, Costa Almeria in the whit holidays. 2 adults, 2 kids. It's got slides in the complex & looks amazing!

Booked with Thomas Cook and they offer a direct debit, which payable over 13 months is £155 a month, so much easier to do than a lump sum.

We can't afford an abroad holiday this year, but are managing to get away in this country.

I know there's plenty of people who earn more than you, Bells but £5,800 p/m is rich, and I'm quite surprised that you don't think so!

Our holiday in June is £5k for two adults.

We've just spent £6.5k on a summer holiday. To be honest we splashed out a bit as it's our first holiday abroad with DD who will be 2 and we wanted to make it as comfortable as possible so we've upgraded our flights (9.5 hours flying time so comfort definitely needed.) Hotel is £350 per night but that's because we upgraded to a suite (so we can relax and have a chat/watch tv etc when DD naps in the other room) we've tried all being stuck together in one hotel room before and it was miserable. Our income is £100k joint so not loaded or anything but we budget £150 each month to put away for holida

No idea. We don't spend much on holidays. I like to have some savings as a safety net.

Our budget is up to £600 on a week for a self catering cottage. Spending money is whatever we need to enjoy ourselves. Could be anything from £200 to £400.

We then usually have at least 1 short break with friends. The friends we holiday are more frugal than us, so it never costs more than £300.

I'd like the children to have the experience of holidays abroad, but will be leaving it till they are 5 and 10 years old. By this point childcare costs will be less.

"we net 5800 a month... we are not rich"

Only on MN

"Our income is £100k joint so not loaded or anything"

And people say this thread hasn't turned into a boast fest?

Creambun2

"we net 5800 a month... we are not rich"**

Only on MN hmm

Nope, and around where I live. Large very affluent town in Kent. This will be replicated in swathes of bucks, Surrey, London etc

Household salary £80k, 2 DCs, house in greater London. We usually do a week in UK near beach (youth hostelling, camping or house swap), maybe a long weekend also in UK, and holiday in France/Spain for around 10 days with mixture of hotel/friends- hotels generally somewhere around £80-150 a night mark for all 4 depending on location. Our budget this year is £1.5k for foreign holiday which includes all accommodation, flights, car hire but not spending money. About half that again for UK part. We are fairly well off but housing costs and childcare costs are high- so we shop around quite a bit and I usually book all the different components separately and using cash back sites. Prechildren we travelled quite a bit and did city breaks, thing is I do love the odd night of more luxurious accommodation but I don't mind mixing it up with camping/glamping/house swap/youth hostel breaks as well. We've also done the odd centerparcs and Clubmed all inclusive, but that was before we were confined to school holidays so no more now!

Wow, these are insane amounts of money. I'm breaking out a sweat at spending £600 on our first family holiday in five years (UK).

Both work in financial services - not at the top end when all the bankers bonuses are but we have around a household income of 150k plus bonuses - the bonuses tend to pay for the main holiday each year. We like to spoil ourselves and for us and DD (although counts as adult now) if we go long haul it's around 12-15k all in. Having said that we shop a lot at Lidl and I drive around in a 10 year old car that I have no intention of replacing anytime soon, I'd rather the spend the money on travel.

We are high income and would never pay £400 a night for a hotel. We go back to Denmark every year and stay with family. It's a very expensive place and we end up 'spending' about $10k which is about £6k between the car rental, excursions, food, boat rental and other shopping. Of course we put as much as we can on points. The car rental is paid for with points as well as most of the excursions. I found a way to buy train tickets with points too. Our actual cash spend ends up being about £1k.

I would not be able to relax paying £400 a night. It would be constantly playing in a loop in my head. Something along the lines of 'How much? Just think what I could do with that money? Hmmm that industrial printer is £35k. Two weeks here is £5,600 which is a good chunk towards that printer. Hmmmm. May be we are in the wrong business and should open a hotel. Hmmmmm.'

We don’t go away every year. We’ve had two really pricey holidays, both between £20,000 and £25,000, one was a California road trip, and the other a Japan tour, for about 16 nights. DH, myself and three teen DC. We won’t be spending so much again for a while, although they were fantastic holidays. The cost tends to rocket because we have two rooms in quite decent hotels.

We usually spend around £400 a night but we prefer shorter high quality breaks than longer ones at cheaper places. What’s the point in staying in a hotel that’s not any better than your own home?

I'm not fussed if where I stay isn't better than my home - but that's because I'm not really into sitting by the pool holidays. I see where I stay as a base to explore locally, go out etc. So I will happily rent a plain small cottage as long as it's clean!

We spend around £8 -£10k a year on travel. But that's for four (two teens so charged as adults now), in half terms. We are lucky to have no mortgage and DH earns well, so we prioritise pensions and holidays. No way would I ever spend £400 a night though, I don't like to feel I'm being ripped off. We went to Iceland recently and took a case full of food to self cater as eating out was extortionate.
DH and I (health permitting) plan to spend our retirement holidaying regularly. Just the two of us in term time will cost far less than we spend now.

We've spent around £9k on a summer holiday before (for 2 adults and a teen - charged as 3 adults), travelling in August so peak time. Usually the accommodation isn't all that luxurious but it's involved a lot of escorted tours/activities which is expensive bit. We're not that interested in posh hotels as we tend to just use it as a base for travelling. Some years we spend much less, staying in 3 star hotels and going short haul on easyjet - it just depends what we've decided to do that summer and what is available. We've also done UK breaks in caravans and youth hostels in the past, though we prefer to go abroad these days.

Joint income is around £300k and we're almost mortgage-free, so we can comfortably afford it.

We've had a couple of short breaks with nice hotel rooms - one was £400/night (and it was worth it - super king bed, mattress topper, spacious room, great view) but only stayed 3 nights. That was our main holiday that year.

Max annual spend on holidays in last 15 years has been £4-5K. Some years been much less/had no holiday. Last year I think it was £2-2.5K.
This is pretty low compared to our household income. Prefer camping/UK cottages/short breaks with DC. Mood has shifted with them now though, and mortgage is paid, so things are about to change.

We spent around £4k for one holiday in Italy for a week last year, spending around that for a couple of weeks in Germany this year.
Tend to spend a few weeks away in UK during the year, like to have at least 4-5 holidays a year. Cottages are around £1000-1500 a week depending where we go.
I think holidays are an important part of family life so spend the money on them.

What’s the point in staying in a hotel that’s not any better than your own home

Well we generally stay in self catering apartments, and as long as they are clean and the bed is comfortable, I am happy. Some of these 'attractive' hotel features like a turndown services sound quite offputting to me really. I already find the housekeeping service unnecessary and intrustive so definitely wouldn't want them coming in to fiddle with the bed twice a day. You'd never be able to relax knowing they could turn up any minute.

Even when we spend just about all day out and about, you know that they'll be in cleaning the room during the 10 minutes we pop back to get changed or drop shopping off.

Our house is quite basic anyway, all our furnishings are Ikea and it is well overdue a declutter and redecorate and deepclean so holiday accomodation would have to be pretty crappy to be unsatisfactory.

We go on holiday to relax in the sun, dive, eat nice food, see cultural and historical sites and just generally wander about, read and swim. The accomodation is just somewhere to sleep and have breakfast really.

While luxury hotels sound amazing I can't afford that, so am more than happy with clean accomodation in a good central location.

We went to LA last year and spent 350/ 400 a night on hotels
The first hotel was actually quite disappointing but the location was fabulous and couldn't be beaten right on Hollywood walk of fame
We then stayed at the lowes hotel in Santa Monica and had a beach front room with a balcony which was worth every penny very luxurious
I had other holidays last year as well but that was the most expensive I think hotel wise

We have just had a 3 week holiday in Jamaica which was around £5000
and will probably do 2 more holidays this year one for two weeks and one for three weeks
I reckon we spend a min of between 10- 12 k a year on holidays & sometimes more but our kids are grown up and we have no mortgage and a very profitable business so pretty well off
Holidays would be the very last thing that we would cut out if I have my way
We normally have 3- 4 holidays every year of 2-3 weeks at a time and I go away with my friend as well for a week -10days as well

Not point of thread, but £5800 a month isn't 'rich' it's comfortable. But even that would depend on where you live because it might feel 'stretched' in some places or 'very very rich' in others.

Where we are, it's comfortable.

Having admitted to generally wanting to do everything on a budget, I did discover that a safari seems to be the thing worth splashing out on. I went on two in short succession due to work sending me abroad, and the idiotically expensive, ‘I will do this only once’, one was worth it in a way that the ‘tacked onto another trip’ one was not.

As millionaires living in Switzerland, we spend roughly 400k per year on travel and holidays. Travel is a passion of ours and we like to spend plenty as we are considerably richer than yaaawww