Tips to reduce travel expenses, maximise benefits

Context : Last month, it was my first time visiting Europe for the Berlin marathon tour with my husband. I will share on the travel tips I learnt from planning this trip that helped me to reduce my travel spendings.

Being someone who always travel around Asia, the strong SG currency allow me to have the privilege to spend without very careful budget planning since the general mindset is that “it’s still cheaper than Singapore & being less calculative will help locals to earn more given that their salary are much lower than us”.

But as travelling to Europe is much more expensive, I did some research on how I can reduce my travel expenses.

⭐️Tip 1: Compare the cost for Data Roaming across all the available service provider.

For me, I was using GOMO plan by SingTel and was already paying $20 dollars a month for 4GB without data roaming.

✅If I continue to stick to my GOMO plan, I will need to top up 4GB for 15 days at $30 or 1GB for 7 days at $12. If I choose this option, it means I am effectively paying $32 dollars for my mobile plan🫠

✅ Switch to another telco that can better cater to my travel needs. So I was recommended to use SIMBA which I will only need to pay $12/month for my monthly local roaming which comes with FREE 7GB data roaming that can be used internationally 🩷🙆🏻

Needless to say, I made the switch immediately by applying online and collected my new SIM card at a local mobile store near my 🏠

⭐️ Tip 2: Buy your air ticket from NATAS travel fair.

As I have started a new job earlier in June, I was unable to purchase my air-ticket earlier due to uncertainty on my itinerary. However, I was closely monitoring the air-ticket price and was hoping that the price will drop or perhaps some promotions by Sq will help me to save some cost. Unfortunately, when it was around late August, it does not seem that the price was coming down & we decided to try my luck to see what deals we can get from NATAS travel fair.

✅ To our surprise, even though the air-ticket pricing was similar to online purchase, we were rewarded with “Purchase with Purchase” Vouchers that can be used to offset our next airfares🩷🙆🏻

As I have burnt out all my AL for my Europe trip, I have shared the vouchers with my friends. One of my friends travelled to Seoul, which airfares starts off from $358 & another used it for her Japan trip which airfares starts off from $408. And the most shocking was the airfare to Perth which starts off only from $418. My friend who was flying to Perth during the same period told me she paid for $1K when she bought the tickets at the start of the year🫠 FYI, all the prices quoted above are BEFORE vouchers discount & you get to FLY with the best airline in Singapore - SQ 🙌

⭐️Tip 3: Apply for a credit card that is “less common” in Singapore.

✅ My recommendation is to apply for Citibank credit card, because they are the one of the banks which offer the best gifts to existing customer when they spend using Citi card. For this deal, it was to redeem a FREE LUGGAGE , brand - “New Yorker” with a minimum spending of $2k. And we managed to redeem “New York” - XL size luggage which retail price is starting around $600 SGD. This strategy is really MAXIMISING our spending since we get a brand new, good quality luggage through paying for the same airfares which we will still have to pay for regardless online or at NATAS travel fair.

I hope the above tips are useful to you & do comment below if you have more money saving tips gained from your travel planning.

#mindfulspending #traveltips #travelrecommendation