Millennials don’t always want the lowest cost option, they want value. They want to be able to participate in luxury without NEEDING luxury all the time, or just taking it for granted.

Here some ways to get luxury using savvy methods to pay less.

1. Use Priceline.

Priceline allows you to bid for a hotel room of your specified star level. You can expect to get a 4* hotel for $80-110 in most cases. It works for US and international. I’ve used it for Europe as well as the US.

You can bid again after 24 hours so if you have a bit of time you can start low and bid up in $5 increments. There are also great tricks that allow you to submit multiple bids on the same day. Mastering these might seem complicated at first but in fact it isn’t. Once you have it down, you’ll be a ninja and will save hundreds of dollars a year on hotel rooms, even if you travel infrequently. You can basically get a 4* hotel for a Motel 6 prices in many cases. Airport hotels are an especially good bargain.

The main trick involves being able to rebid by adding a zone. If you are bidding 4* and add a zone that only has 3* or less hotels in it, you are in no danger of getting a hotel in the unwanted zone. You can rebid twice on the same day for free. Many cities offer the opportunities to multiple free rebids through this method of adding zones. Read the instructions here.

Watch out for getting carried away. If you want practice at participating in bidding, Priceline also allows the opportunity to rack up some experience with this. You can learn to discipline yourself for future bidding/auction situations.

2. Use daily deals sites for cities you’re traveling to.

Instead of using Groupon, Living Social etc for your own city, use them for a city you plan to vacation in. This can be time consuming but if you have a significant other that likes shopping daily deals, you can potentially outsource this task to your loved one.

3. Buy a day pass.

You can often buy a day pass for luxury services. For example, pay $20 for a day pass to a fancy hotel pool rather than paying $250 a night to stay there. Airport lounges often have a day pass rate. It can be good value if you have a long layover and partake in the free wifi, food, drinks, and showers, especially when compared to airport prices for food and beverages.

Luxury gyms will often have free 1 or 3 day pass available for printing on their website. This can be an alternative to staying somewhere with a fancy pool. Some gyms have nice steam room, hot tubs, and lap pools.

photo credit: Shannon Hurst Lane via photopin CC

Jeff

Latest posts by Jeff (see all)