How do you pay for holidays?

[gingergingerginger]

Just wanted a bit of a straw poll, really. Being nosey. I'm not asking how do people afford holidays (obviously everyone's circumstances are different). I was just wondering how do you normally go about paying for them.

Do you have a savings pot? Put them on a credit card? Pay Tui (eg) in installments? Pay on arrival? And how does it work for those of you who are organised enough to have trips planned for 2025 and beyond? Or even just multiple trips for this year. Would be really interested to know if you are willing to share.

This years holiday (May) was booked in Feb 2023, We've just paid it off and will book Next years in a couple of weeks. If we were to book this years ow it would be £1,800 more than we've paid for it!

Usually book direct with Jet2 or Tui and pay the monthly direct debit in instalments.

We whack it on a 0% credit card and pay it off in chunks throughout the year so by the time it comes to us actually going it’s paid off and then we book again when we get back. Yeah in theory we should probably save and then do it that way but hey ho.

Pay on credit card to protect us. We usually book ourselves so separate parts of the holiday will be booked at separate times. We just pay with our bank balance. We don’t really save for holidays - but this is a very privileged position.

I have a savings pot for holidays.

Combination:
Credit card for any one off full payments like flights, apartments (Booking.com, Vrbo etc). Then pay these off asap. The protection of CC payments rather than debit is worthwhile. I would prefer to find that sum from savings and then build back up rather than fall into the trap of carrying CC debt year round.
Anything that allows instalments (Eurocamp etc), we do that. Try to book far enough in advance that we can chip away each month in amongst normal bills.

Book in advance... pay what the monthly instalments would be into a seperate account then pay when the balance is due. Might not be much, but would rather the interest was in my account than theirs!

Separate holiday pot that we feed every month with a set amount. We pay for hols purchase using our Amex or Virgin CC (for points and protection) and then pay the balance off from the holiday fund.

I arrange everything for the holiday myself. I pay flights straight away then reserve accommodation on Booking.com with a 'nothing to pay now' option months in advance so I have plenty of time to save the money to pay for it plus spending money. Then I pay for it a day or so before we go.

Any required transfers are booked and paid for in advance.

My big/main holiday I book over a year in advance then spend that time paying it off to the travel company directly

If I book a smaller holiday or more last minute it's usually because I have the funds to do so so just book it and pay it or pay 50% and save the other 50% again direct to travel company

This is just the example for last year this year next year

In past I've done CC and paid off when I could

Always CC for financial protection.
CC paid off every month.
Deposit, then balance when required.

I pay on credit card for protection but we have a separate bank account for savings and every month the disposable income goes in there so I just pay it from that

We pay for flights on a credit card for added protection, as well as anything we need to pay for in advance. We then usually pay for hotels on check in, as well as spending costs. We usually just don’t save much the months we book flights or pay for hotels (ie it just comes out of our current account/we pay the credit card from our monthly salaries). If it’s a bigger/more expensive holiday we take money out of savings.

Bit of 1 and 2 combined. We always put it on a credit card for section 75 cover and use the savings pot to pay the credit card.

I was very thankful for section 75 when covid hit as we had 1 company offering us less then half of the cost of the holiday back! Credit card company gave it to us in full then chased them.
We now won't do it any other way!

Pay it on my credit card when I book it then clear the balance from my bank account

We go on multiple trips per year. We save for them monthly, pay in full on a cashback earning credit card, and clear the card in full from our savings.

I have a holiday currently booked with TUI. I’m paying it off fortnightly - I just treat it as a bill when I get paid

I also have a savings pot marked as “holidays” on my Revolut. This will pay for a weekend away in august, and I’ll hopefully have enough to pay upfront for next year’s holiday. I’m tired of making payments now.

I put 10% of my take home (£300) in a separate savings pot every month. I find this helpful as it gives me a realistic idea of what is available for holidays and prevents me overspending.

I use a cashback credit card to pay, then straight away pay the card off from savings. We don't have a specific holiday savings pot, it comes out of a general easy access account we have for these out of the ordinary spends.

Savings from saving accounts. You know banks often do this special yearly account when you can save only 250/ 300/ 450 per month . The accounts from the last year are used towards holiday this year.

I have a spreadsheet that divides our easy access savings account into different 'pots' - one of those is holidays which we save into each month. I then pay for holidays out of that.

It is currently technically in the red as we have two holidays booked for this year that we've just paid for, but that is balanced against other savings in the account (like tax/ a new car) so we have the money and it will get paid off by the end of the year. We'll then look at what is left to decide what we are going to do next year.

jet2 only wanted a very small deposit. We booked it nearly 2 years out on a credit card and saved money monthly in a savings account before clearing the balance by the deadline. For others we’ve used an interest free credit card and then paid off regular chunks.

Usually pay flights straight away, then book on booking.com fully cancelable which is usually pay for accommodation 14 days max before arrival ( some day of). So we might pay for flights in December, and not hotel or apartment until May.

Depends. Usually pay in one go from wage/savings. This time we paid a deposit and paying the full balance 12 weeks before. Was meant to put some aside every month but that hasnt happened so it will be coming out of savings again. Isnt a huge amount, £1800 shared between me and DP

Always use a credit card. It gives you protection and I had to use it once when the airline went bust! Got my money back plus a stop off in another country for a few days as part of the trip so was a bonus!!

We tend to buy flights first if flying, then book accommodation later once we’ve had more time to look at different areas.

If going to France we book accommodation first then do the eurotunnel nearer the time.

We just pay the balance off in full each month on the credit card as it’s automatically set up to come out of our bank account.