Our members can be a super savvy lot, here Rachel Fairhurst of www.rachelstoyshop.co.uk gives us her money saving ideas for the holidays.

Train travel ideas for the holidays

Family railcards can be held in two adult names but they don’t need to be relatives or in the same household, so a mum could share one with a friend so it only costs £15 each for a year.

In addition if you are travelling to London on Virgin trains with children and a family railcard you can get a discounted off peak return on ANY train e.g. I could get peak trains with my daughter that would normally cost £378 (7am down, 5.30pm back) for a total off peak fare of £69.40.  Its a special that Virgin don’t particularly advertise.  Almost worth taking my daughter to work with me!

Also if you have a look on www.daysoutguide.co.uk you can get into many regional attractions 2 for 1 (particularly good for London), e.g. Tower of London

Reduced Hotel Rooms

I like to stay in decent hotels when I am travelling alone for business, particularly in London, so I use a website called www.Priceline.com

Here you can bid for unnamed hotels, in specific zones they have created for most big cities in the world, by star rating.  I have not paid more than £85 for a 4 star hotel room in London, and have stayed in Hiltons, Marriotts and Park Plaza Hotels.  You have to give your credit card details to bid though, so there is no backing out if you don’t like the result!  I haven’t found that I am treated any differently for having used this type of booking site.

I have also used this for leisure travel, and got brand hotels in Bruges and Amsterdam, plus the 5 star Metropolitan on Park Lane for my husband’s birthday for just £125 (which incidentally is cheaper than the Premier Inn at Euston!)

Rachel Fairhurst