Traveling Discounts for Seniors

I am a senior—or whatever the politically correct wording is today. The name changes daily, and I just can’t keep up with all of the strange

Youth May be Fun, But it Doesn’t Get you a Discount!

I am a senior—or whatever the politically correct wording is today. The name changes daily, and I just can’t keep up with all of the strange categorizations any more. I was also a travel agent for many years and knwo there are many tricks to getting discounts, many that are not publicized. A lot are for seniors (but not all, always ask!).

I started out ‘old’. I’m not sure when that change came about. Sometimes I remember feeling ‘old’ at 17.

The next thing I knew I was ‘elderly’. ‘Elderly’ is nice—it implies wisdom and experience. I would like to be thought of as wise—maybe not experienced, but wise.

Then, when my back was turned, I became a ‘senior’ member of the ‘baby boomer’ generation, otherwise known as a member of the ‘graying of America’.

The travel gurus have discovered that those of us who are retired have the time to travel—for example, we are the majority of folks filling the cruise ships. We are not restricted to a vacation once a year when the kids are out of school for the summer. We’ve been there and done that, thank you. We can go when we want, where we want, alone or together. If we find a deal, we can be on the train or ship headed wherever it goes tomorrow. We can take our grandchildren, or we can leave them with the parents who can only travel when the kids are out of school for the summer. We can live life to the fullest and partake of adventure travel, educational travel, foreign and domestic travel, whatever our hearts desire—as long as the money holds out. And because a lot of cruise lines and tour packages make more money from us while we are on board or on tour, they have, intelligently, cut the prices so that we can get on board or take that tour.

I recently went on a 3-day cruise for $112 per person—all port charges, fees, taxes, etc. included. (It was actually $137, but I received a $25 debit card in the mail three weeks after my cruise ended). I wasn’t planning on doing anything but sitting around the house that weekend, yet--lo and behold, instead of reading a good book in my easy chair at home, I found myself sipping a Mai Tai with one of those cute little umbrella-thingys sticking out of it. I was reading a good book, but it was while I was sitting on a deck chair in between slipping in and out of the Jacuzzi. I love cruising—especially when it’s cheap.

Because this article deals with travel secrets, I will give you some. Remember, I said that the cruises and tours are cheap because the companies make their money from you in other ways. It’s just like going to Las Vegas and getting a room for $30 per night and full meals for $1.99—and then spending $200 in the casino. It’s easy to have a wonderful and cheap mini-vacation if you decide in advance how much you are going to give the company, and then stick to it. They would love to have you spending your money in the ship’s casino or at the souvenir shops the tours stop at, but that may not be your smartest move. Instead, try tucking the money away that you were going to spend for the souvenir and use it as a down-payment for the next cruise or tour you run into.

I have always said that if I can vacation for $100 a day or less, I’m doing well. Try to stick fairly close to that if you are on a budget. I recently went to Spain for a little over two weeks and I paid about $900 for everything. Before I even left the States I was happy, because I knew that I was well within range of my $100 per day budget. Believe me, you can have a lot of fun even on a tight budget.

Look for all-inclusive tours (cruises are pretty much all-inclusive anyway—except for the tips at the end of the cruise). If you can’t find all-inclusive tours, try to find the next best thing—the almost all-inclusive. Maybe 6 of 7 dinners are included, or 7 breakfasts are included, something like that. If you are traveling outside of the U.S., a breakfast is usually big enough to keep your stomach full through most of the day—it’s not like our Continental breakfasts at our hotels or motels. See if you can get by with eating only twice a day on your vacation—breakfast and dinner. That leaves a little extra money for the really important things, like that Prince Charles bobble-head for Aunt Gladys.

Ask for discounts, ask for lowest rates at hotels, ask, ask, ask. People who just take the stated price are the losers. The worst that can happen when you ask, is that there is no better deal available. And even then, if you aren’t pushy or you don’t have an attitude, you can sometimes get that discount by looking very sad and saying something like “Oh, I did so want to do this", or "I had my heart set on staying here, I've heard such wonderful things...". I’ve even cried to get a discount I want. That probably won’t work well for an ex-football player-type, but for me, it was fine. Whatever works.

The companies that you are dealing with want your money. Hotel managers hate empty rooms, rental cars that sit in the lot are costing money and making none, so take advantage of that. I have to admit, airlines have cut back on their flights so drastically that most planes are full—if you’ve been scrunched into the middle seat in coach recently, you know what I mean. (I'll give you secrets later on how to get away from the middle-seat-syndrome). Cruise ships are, also, fairly full nowadays. But, you know what? Airline tickets are, on a par, lower than they were years ago, and you can find a cruise for a beautiful price. (Check out the links on our Travel Deals section for rock-bottom priced cruises, cars, hotels and flights). Ask for senior rates everywhere! They’re out there. We'll help you find them athttp://www.mytravelsecrets.com!

Kate - Travel Advisor http://www.mytravelsecrets.com