As one hotel chain launches a budget holiday package for newlyweds, John Fitzsimons looks at how to cut the cost of your honeymoon.
I'm down to less than ten weeks until my wedding, and I'm looking forward to it. Pretty much everything is sorted from the flowers to the dress to the DJ. After all the build up, we are on the home straight. And as a result, I've allowed myself to begin daydreaming about the honeymoon.
A fortnight in the Caribbean, our first proper holiday in more than two years. Yes, it's costing a bit more than we'd like, but it's our honeymoon - you only get one of them, right? Which may explain why my eyes nearly shot out of my head when I saw a story last week about a hotel chain offering honeymoon packages for £58!
The £58 honeymoon
When I think of the honeymoon ahead of us, I think of the beach, of the clear blue sea, of a fortnight of luxury.
I don't imagine a room at a Premier Inn.
But in fairness to them, there is some romance in their budget package. For their cash, the newlyweds get two nights stay, with dinner, bed and breakfast, rose petals on a luxury Hypnos bed, a bottle of sparkling wine, strawberries and luxury chocolates, a spa hamper, 'Glamorous' nightwear and discounted deals on local sightseeing trips and excursions.
That's not bad for £58! However, the deal is only available in nine Premier Inn hotels across the UK - Belfast, Bodmin, Carlisle, London, Hollingbourne, Hull, Llanelli, Poole and Ross-on-Wye.
Now, that's all well and good if you really have gone broke in paying for the wedding.
But if you actually want a bit of sun, sea and sangria and you don't fancy forking out the £3,000 the 'average' honeymoon costs (according to my other half's many wedding magazines) you can still have a decent honeymoon without handing over a small fortune.
The magic of Airmiles
For my honeymoon for example, we are making use of my Dad's Airmiles. Thankfully he has been collecting them for ages, with no intention of ever using them, so they have completely covered the flights.
If you fancy collecting Airmiles, a brilliant way to do so is to sign up to the British Airways American Express credit card, which gives you one mile for every £1 you spend, as well as a bonus of 1000 miles if you spend £500 on the card in the first three months. However, as there's no 0% interest period, it's absolutely crucial that you pay off your bill in full each month.
There are a load of other ways to quickly and easily build up your Airmiles collection, from collecting Clubcard points at Tesco, shopping online at stores like Play.com or eBay, signing up to a subscription to the Times, or even trading in your old mobile phone!
Get your guests to pay for it!
This is another tactic we are employing - instead of a gift list, we are asking our guests for donations towards the cost of the honeymoon. We already live together and have everything we need - why simply upgrade our cutlery or toaster, when that money could instead be put towards getting us on a plane?
You can even do this formally by setting up an account with a travel agent - Travel Counsellors for example offers personalised guest cards which you can send alongside the invites, explaining the service, with thank yous automatically sent out when donations are made.
Use a cashback credit card
If you don't want to go down the Airmiles route when booking your honeymoon, why not use a cashback credit card instead? With the American Express Platinum Cashback Card, you get 5% cashback in the first three months (up to a maximum of £100), and then 1.25% thereafter.
You are spending that money anyway, so it makes sense to try and get some money back for your expenditure!
Travel in the off-season
This is the big one in my opinion - and an option sadly not available to us, as my other half is a teacher. If you can go on honeymoon in the off-season - essentially when the kids are back at school - you can save a small fortune.
For example, if you were to fly out to Barbados on honeymoon on 19 December - the day after most schools break up - the cheapest flight costs £1338 per person. Fly out on 17 October instead, and the cost of those flights plummets to £635 per person, a fall of over 50%. Accommodation tends to be much cheaper as well.
Get saving!
Of course, if you still cannot quite afford the trip of your dreams, just delay the honeymoon until you can. If you have your hearts set on a week in Venice, then hold off on it until you can afford to go. If that means you have to save an extra couple of hundred pounds a month, so be it!
A honeymoon is a special event, but there are plenty of ways to cut your final bill. If you have your own tips on cutting wedding costs, why not share them with your fellow readers via the comment box below, or add them to our goal, Prepare your finances for a wedding.
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