How to save money on a family vacation this summer, according to The Points Guy
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Brian Kelly, founder of The Points Guy and father of two, on how to make vacation work when everything costs more than it used to.
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I don’t know if you’ve bought groceries lately, paid a utility bill, or tried to book anything with an airplane involved, but it’s wildly expensive out here. If you’re doing the mental math on whether a vacation is a thing you can actually justify right now, you’re far from alone.
And yet. A new survey from The Points Guy and YouGov found that 63% of parents with kids under 18 already have a summer trip locked in. Only 6% canceled outright, even with airfare running about 14% higher than last year. Families are not giving up. They’re just making different choices, doing more research, and squeezing every possible drop of value out of what they’ve got.
Brian Kelly — founder of The Points Guy, frequent traveler, and solo dad of two — has made a career out of knowing how to travel smarter than the average person. His whole thing is that most of us are leaving significant money on the table without realizing it, and though it can feel like even more work to track down the deals, it doesn’t have to. Here is what he says families should be doing right now to make trips affordable.
Where families are going, and why Disney is quietly losing
Beach trips are winning this summer, followed by camping and national parks. According to the survey, 26% of kids requested camping and 22% asked for national parks — which puts outdoor trips roughly on par with Disney, a real shift from where things were a few years ago.
“Families are trading an $8,000 theme park trip for a $500 campsite without sacrificing the experience,” Kelly says. As someone who’d rather gargle thumbtacks than drag a kid through Disney in 100 degree heat, where a bottle of water costs eleventy billion dollars, roughtly, I’ve been on this team since forever. To anyone just discovering the glory of our national parks, I say welcome and please leave things better than you found them. It’s the cardinal rule. Also, these views are incredible.
Only 11% of families in the survey are even considering international travel this summer. Cost is the top factor for 63% of parents, followed by kid-friendly activities at 48%. People are being practical because they’ve no choice.
On airfare, the actual strategy
Higher fares are stressing everyone out, but Kelly says the fundamentals of saving on flights haven’t changed as much as people think. Flexibility is still your biggest lever. Midweek travel and shoulder-season timing still deliver real savings when your dates aren’t locked in.
The thing that jumped out to him in the data was that only 21% of families said they’re using points and miles for summer trips. Which means the vast majority of people are paying for flights they could at least partially cover for free.
Start with the budget, not the destination
This is the advice Kelly keeps coming back to, and it’s the one most of us do backwards. We pick where we want to go, then we figure out how to afford it. He says flip it.
“Set your budget, then use tools like Google Flights’ Explore feature to see where you can get the most bang for your buck,” he says. “You’ll end up somewhere amazing, often somewhere you wouldn’t have considered, for a fraction of the stress.”
The survey illustrates the problem pretty well. Only 5% of families said award availability with points or miles factored into choosing a destination. Everyone else picked first and scrambled later. Letting flexible points enter the decision earlier — even just as one factor — can meaningfully change what a summer budget makes possible.
Where budgets quietly blow up
Flights and hotels get all the stress, but 41% of parents surveyed flagged overpriced airport and attraction food as their top complaint. Which, yes. The $24 mediocre-at-best sandwich situation in most terminals is unconscionable.
Kelly’s move is to skip the restaurants right at the airport or the theme park entrance. A lot of credit cards include lounge access, where you can eat real food at no additional cost. Once you’re at your destination, walking a few blocks past the obvious tourist cluster almost always means better food at lower prices. Not a secret — just easy to forget when everyone is hungry and the path of least resistance is right in front of you.
On the hotel-versus-vacation-rental question, he thinks about it in terms of what you’re actually getting for the money. For a family of four, a vacation rental with a kitchen can save hundreds on food alone. A hotel makes sense when you specifically want the service layer — housekeeping, a pool, someone to call when the AC breaks. And if you’ve got points sitting around, using them to cover the room keeps cash in your pocket for the actual trip.
The fastest way into the points world (and it is not complicated)
For anyone who has vaguely thought about getting into the points-and-miles world but found it overwhelming, Kelly’s advice is to not overthink it. Get one flexible, transferable rewards card and put everyday spending on it.
“I always recommend the Chase Sapphire Preferred for those just getting started,” he says. “You want points that can move across transfer partners, so you’re never boxed in.” The non-negotiable part is paying the balance in full every month. Carrying a balance wipes out any value the points give you, so this only works if you’re treating it like a debit card with benefits.
He also mentions Bilt Rewards for anyone paying rent. There’s no fee on rent payments, so you’re earning points on a bill you were going to pay anyway. About as close to free money as it gets.
What he would skip is chasing single-airline elite status. “It takes a lot of spend to get there, and flexible points almost always deliver more value with less effort.” Good to know, because that particular rabbit hole can get deep.
Traveling with his actual kids
Kelly solo-parents two kids and travels constantly, which means he has strong opinions about what is and isn’t worth it when children are part of the equation.
For international trips, he now books VIP services — expedited security, meet-and-assist through the airport. “As a single dad of two, these services are worth every penny,” he says. When you’re managing kids and luggage and logistics on your own, anything that removes friction is worth running the numbers on.
His hard-won gear lesson is that he used to overpack. Pack-and-plays, bottle warmers, the backup of the backup. Most hotels have quality cribs, and for everything else, services like BabyQuip let you rent locally instead of hauling things across time zones. “Less is more when traveling with kids” — advice that sounds obvious and yet seems to require at least one terrible overpacked trip to actually stick.
None of this requires becoming a points guru or spending hours on travel forums. It’s mostly a few deliberate decisions before you book — what card you’re putting spending on, whether to let the deal lead the destination, where to actually eat lunch. The summer trip is happening for most families. It just looks a little different than it used to, and some of those differences are turning out to be upgrades.
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