How this muggle used bank card perks and different hacks to make a Common theme park journey extra inexpensive

I’ve by no means taken my household on a theme park trip as a result of they’re simply too dang costly.

Different households are going into debt to go to Disney World, however I do not just like the Mouse sufficient to jeopardize my monetary safety. And whereas I am privileged to have a trip price range, lots of our holidays contain driving to an Airbnb on a seaside or within the mountains and doing low cost actions like climbing, swimming and cooking dinners on the trip rental.

Then my daughter fell in love with Harry Potter. And I knew it will rock her world if we might go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Common Orlando Resort.

Now, if I am budget-conscious, my husband is downright frugal. We weren’t happening a theme park trip in Florida until I might considerably lower prices.

I is perhaps a muggle, however I pulled out all of the money-saving magic I do know and leaned on my data of bank card perks and factors and miles to provide you with a extra inexpensive Common theme park plan.

Here is what I did to economize — and get my husband on board — for 3 nights of Florida enjoyable with our favourite Hogwarts wannabes.

I booked our airfare with miles

Bear in mind the well-known Southwest Airways meltdown of Christmas 2022? We received caught in it and our flights to Savannah received canceled on the final minute. We managed to save lots of our trip with a protracted highway journey to Georgia, however Southwest nonetheless apologized with 25,000 Speedy Rewards miles for every of us.

One canceled flight deserves to be redeemed for one more, so I used 82,000 miles to fly my household of 4 from Washington, D.C., to Orlando. The one catch was that Southwest let me put the youngsters’ miles into my account, however my husband’s had to enter his. So we needed to e book our flights after which verify in individually for the journey, which wasn’t an issue till in some way he ended up within the B boarding group and we have been within the C group on the flight house.

I get that most individuals don’t get windfalls of apology miles from airways, however you might have loads of methods to earn factors and miles for a free flight. Past saving the miles you earn from different flights, you possibly can apply for an airline-affiliated bank card when it has a major sign-up bonus that may fast-track your mileage incomes.

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Equally, a card that earns transferable factors will allow you to switch factors to quite a few totally different airways. Ensure you’re incomes additional miles to your purchases by utilizing purchasing portals or signing up for applications that earn you miles for consuming out.

If you happen to can, e book your flights early to get one of the best availability for award seats or search for switch bonuses and award flight reductions to stretch your factors and miles additional.

I used bank card perks to chop resort prices

I most likely might have transferred Chase Final Rewards factors to a resort associate like Marriott or Hyatt to get resort nights at no cost. However after researching space accommodations, I used to be satisfied that we’d have a significantly better expertise if we might keep on-site at a Common resort and get early admission to the park. A keep on the Loews Royal Pacific Resort would additionally give us a free Specific Limitless Go and free transportation to the park, saving us cash on the dear passes and a automotive rental or Ubers.

Since I wasn’t going to earn miles on a Loews resort, I booked the keep by means of the Chase Journey℠ portal, which meant that I might use my Chase Sapphire Most popular® Card‘s $50 resort credit score to save lots of a bit on the keep and earn 5 factors per greenback on the remaining quantity (for a complete of over 6,000 factors) that I can use towards free journey on our subsequent journey.

We booked two nights on the Royal Pacific, however to economize on our closing evening (once we would not be going to the park the next day), I used the $300 journey credit score out there on my Capital One Enterprise X Rewards Credit score Card to e book an evening on the Homewood Suites by Hilton Orlando-Nearest to Univ Studios by means of the Capital One Journey portal. We received a two-room suite that included breakfast and did not even max out my journey credit score.

I saved with a army park cross

My husband is a civilian worker of the U.S. Navy, and his Division of Protection ID provides us entry to quite a lot of journey reductions. It additionally makes him eligible for Common’s Navy Freedom Go.

Lively-duty members of the army, veterans and different DOD staff should buy a particular cross that provides them limitless entry to the parks from January by means of mid-December — for roughly the price of sooner or later on the parks. The extra you employ this cross, the extra you save. We’ll solely go to Common as soon as this yr, however we went to the park on three days throughout our journey, saving a whole bunch.

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Common recurrently releases particular provides which might be out there to all friends, together with resort and ticket reductions and packages that embrace eating playing cards that you need to use to cowl meals prices throughout your keep.

I had groceries delivered to save lots of on meals prices

Everybody is aware of that theme park meals is overpriced, and resort breakfasts do not come low cost, both. I wasn’t going to disclaim my kids Butterbeer and pub meals on the Leaky Cauldron or ice cream at Florean Fortescue’s Ice-Cream Parlour in Diagon Alley, however we could not eat out for each meal and snack.

I at all times journey with snacks from house, however this example required next-level grocery purchasing.

That is when my theme park knowledgeable colleague Tarah Chieffi pointed me towards a Shipt supply out there to Visa cardholders. If I signed up with an eligible card, I might get a free three-month membership and free supply on orders over $35.

My Chase Sapphire Most popular Card was certainly eligible, so I signed up (making a calendar reminder instantly to cancel earlier than Shipt began to cost). I downloaded the app, and whereas we awaited our flight on the airport, I positioned an order at Publix grocery store for breakfast staples like Cheerios, pastries and milk and lunch fixings like bread, jam and apples. I set the supply time for after I knew we would be on the resort and left a be aware for my shopper that we have been flying.

The app was straightforward to make use of; when it occurred to me that I might want some utensils, I used to be capable of simply replace the order. My shopper was communicative over textual content; when she could not discover the scones I had ordered, I used to be capable of swap for muffins. When she completed at Publix, I met her on the entrance drive of the resort, and the handoff was seamless.

In the long run, we ate out 3 times (dinner on the resort, lunch on the Leaky Cauldron and dinner at Finnegan’s Bar & Grill at Common Studios) and purchased a couple of snacks and a few additional Butterbeer. However we managed to get two breakfasts and three extra meals out of our $60 grocery haul. We might simply have spent the identical sum of money on one breakfast for the 4 of us contained in the park.

I borrowed wands from one other mother

Once we journey someplace particular with our youngsters, we regularly give them a memento price range (typically round $20 or $25) for them to spend nevertheless they need. This works surprisingly effectively, and my youngsters accepted that they might not be shopping for the $60 animatronic owls we noticed on so many youngsters’ shoulders.

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Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade each have designated “wand spots” the place, in case you wave the best wand in the best means, you may make one thing magical occur. I knew my youngsters would love this, however the interactive wands value $65. That is rather a lot for a toy we would not use after this park go to. (If you happen to simply need a costume accent, you should purchase noninteractive wands for lots much less cash.)

So I put out a name on my native Purchase Nothing group, and a mother I do know from our faculty responded. We borrowed a Harry Potter and a Hermione wand from her so every child might have their very own to make use of. The magic was a bit finicky in one of many wands, so we took it to Ollivanders Wand Store (there’s one in every park), the place they’ll “re-magick” wands at no cost.