Elevate your family travel without emptying your wallet: using points, miles, and the right credit cards to hack your family trip

My wife and I traveled the world together over the course of about a dozen years before we decided to start a family. Someone in this space once described to me the transition to family travel this way: “We went from being a Four Seasons couple to being an Embassy Suites family”. There’s no doubt that family travel is different than solo or couple travel, but there are plenty of ways to leverage points, miles, and credit card perks to level up your family travel. We talked about many of these ways on a podcast episode a few years ago, but we have added some more to this post. Here are some of the many ways to enhance your family travel with points, miles, and credit card benefits, and a few additional tips to make things easier and/or save you money.

Flight deals for family travel

Award tickets are certainly one way to get more family travel for less. A good place to start in figuring out the best deals in award travel is by reading our Best ways to get to series. This post isn’t meant to cover the nuances of how to find and book award flights and nights, but rather to highlight some related tips for saving on family travel. This section highlights related ways to save on flights, from lap infant award tickets to vacation packages and more.

Discounted child award tickets

With most airline programs, an award ticket costs the same number of miles for a child as it does for an adult. In other words, you’ll pay the adult price for a child’s award ticket.

However, two notable exceptions include Air France KLM Flying Blue and SAS EuroBonus.

Air France KLM Flying Blue: 25% discount on long-haul award tickets for kids

Air France KLM Flying Blue offers a 25% discount on long-haul award tickets for kids ages 2-11. This discount only applies to Air France, KLM, or Air Europa-operated flights, not to partner awards.

This means that if you book a business class award ticket between the US and Europe for 60,000 Flying Blue miles one-way, a child on the same itinerary would pay 45,000 miles. Note that taxes & fees will be almost the same (the discount does not apply to the cash component), but the mileage savings can add up for a family with multiple kids. This discount applies across cabins and even to the monthly Flying Blue Promo Rewards. The example below shows the cost breakdown for an award trip where I booked 2 adults at 56,500 miles each in business class and 2 children at 42.375 miles each on Air Europa.

Keep in mind that Air France-KLM Flying Blue partners with almost all of the major transferable rewards currencies, which makes it very easy to accumulate the miles for an award.

SAS EuroBonus: 50% discount on long-haul award tickets for kids

SAS EuroBonus one-ups Flying Blue by offering a 50% discount on the award ticket price for children ages 2-11. Again, as with Flying Blue, the discount only applies to the mileage rate for a child’s ticket, not to the taxes & fees. Still, the savings can be significant.

As with Flying Blue, this discount only applies to travel on SAS, not on partners. With SAS charging 60,000 miles one-way for a business class award to Europe, the discount means that a child pays only 30,000 miles one way. A family of 4 could fly to Europe in business class for just 180,000 total miles, which is a great deal.

As with Flying Blue, the child discount applies even when SAS offers an award sale. For instance, when they offered a sale with business class awards to Europe for 48,000 miles one-way, the 50% discount meant that a child’s ticket only cost 24,000 miles one-way. The screenshot below shows the total price of 72,000 miles for 1 adult and 1 child in business class.

Unfortunately, SAS miles are challenging for most Americans to accumulate. However, SAS is a Rove Miles transfer partner, which makes their miles accessible to those using the Rove platform.

Lap infant-friendly airlines

If you’re traveling with a lap infant, you’ll need to consider what it’s going to cost you. A lap infant is free within the United States, even if you’ve booked an award ticket through a partner program (while that partner program might want to charge you to add a lap infant to your reservation, based on my experience, you can show up at the airport and add a lap infant at the check-in counter for free on a domestic US itinerary, even if you booked through a foreign partner program).

However, if you’re going to travel internationally, you’ll want to consider the best airline programs for lap infant travel before you book your ticket. Most frequent flyer programs charge 10% of the adult revenue fare for a lap infant. If you’re traveling on a one-way international business class ticket, a lap infant could easily cost you hundreds of dollars. If you’re traveling in international first class, a lap infant could cost you in excess of $1,000 one-way — for the honor of sitting for hours with an infant on your lap.

On the flip side, some airline programs offer standout value for lap infant award tickets. Keep in mind that on international award tickets, you almost always need to book the lap infant through the program from which you bought your ticket(known as the “ticketing carrier”), not the operating carrier. In other words, if you book a Delta flight through Air France / KLM Flying Blue, you’ll pay Flying Blue’s lap infant price (10% of the adult revenue fare). If you book that same Delta flight through Virgin Atlantic, you’ll pay Virgin Atlantic’s lap infant price (2,500 miles in economy / 5,000 miles in business class). In rare instances, you may be able to book your lap infant ticket through the operating carrier even when you’ve ticketed through a different airline, but it’s not common.

Here are the best programs for booking lap infant travel:

• Air Canada Aeroplan (2,500 miles or $25 CAD one-way): This is the gold standard for lap infant awards: pay just 2,500 miles or $25 CAD one-way for a lap infant award ticket in any class of service. Given that Air Canada also has more partner airlines than any other program, you’ll have plenty of options to get your family where they need to be for the best deal in lap infant travel.
• Virgin Atlantic Flying Club (2,500 mi economy / 5,000 mi business / 7,000 mi first class). This pricing can be downright amazing if you’re able to add a lap infant to something like an ANA first-class award for just 7,000 miles. Just keep in mind that agents won’t always quote you the right price, so you may need to call back if you don’t get an accurate price on the first call.
• ANA Mileage Club (10% of either the adult award fare on ANA-operated flights or 10% of the adult revenue fare on partner-operated flights). The notable deal is for ANA-operated flights at 10% of the adult mileage fare. That can be a fantastic deal because ANA’s award chart has some great sweet spots for adult revenue fares.
• British Airways Executive Club (10% of the adult mileage fare; free seat for those who turn 2 during the trip): British Airways is another program that charges 10% of the adult mileage fare for a lap infant award ticket (including for partner award travel). That’s certainly a good deal if booking via British Airways makes sense. But British Airways also has an interesting quirk that they share with Virgin Atlantic with regard to lap infant ticketing for a child who turns 2 years old during your trip. If you book an itinerary where your child will turn 2 years old during the trip, most airlines require that you buy a seat for the child for the entire itinerary (i.e. you can’t book them as a lap infant). However, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic will allow you to book your child as a lap infant, and they will give the child a free seat for segments after they turn 2 years old. In other words, if you booked a round-trip flight on British Airways and your child is under 2 before the outbound, but they turn 2 before the return, you will pay for them as though they are a lap infant (10% of the adult award fare), but the child will get their own seat for the return flight. That can mean a business class seat one-way for the lap infant price.
• United Mileage Plus (10% of the adult revenue fare up to a cap of $250). While paying 10% of the adult revenue fare isn’t ideal in situations where the fare is expensive, the $250 cap on the lap infant fee can make it significantly less painful than 10% of the full fare in some instances. In most cases, you’ll probably do better ticketing a Star Alliance award through Air Canada Aeroplan, but United’s limit on the fee makes Mileage Plus a reasonable option compared to those that charge 10% of the revenue fare without a cap.

The worst lap infant award ticket policies

Some programs don’t allow lap infants at all in premium cabins, and others make it difficult, expensive, or impossible to book lap infant award tickets. Here are some of the worst programs for lap infant award tickets:

• Emirates does not allow members to redeem miles for first-class award tickets for children under 8 years old.
• Alaska Atmos typically can not book lap infant tickets on partner awards. Instead, you need to book a seat at the full adult award fare (even if the child won’t ultimately use the seat)
• Cathay Pacific Asia Miles charges up to 25% of the adult revenue fare for a lap infant award ticket, which can be very expensive

Be flexible with destinations

I’ve mentioned before that one of the keys to booking award travel is being destination-flexible. As you add additional passengers, that only becomes more important. Getting multiple seats in a premium cabin can be a challenge. Being flexible with where you are willing to go can make a big difference in terms of finding options. Looking broadly at different gateways on either end of the trip, rather than a narrow point-to-point search between just two airports, will likely broaden your options.

See Business class for 4 or more: finding multiple seats for family award travel for tips about how flexibility can open possibilities.

Consider splitting up ticket purchases

Airlines usually price tickets in buckets. That is to say, if there are a hundred seats for sale on a plane, they may (for example) price the first 10 seats at $100 each. Then, after those first 10 seats sell, they price the next 15 seats at $150 and the next 25 seats after that at $250, and so on, with the prices inevitably rising as the plane fills up. That’s a simplification, but it’s the general idea. Unfortunately, fare bucketing can really work against you as a family traveler.

Let’s say that there are 2 seats left for sale in the cheapest fare bucket, but you want to buy 3 tickets. When you search for 3 passengers, most airlines will price your reservation based on the lowest fare bucket with enough seats for all of your passengers. In the example above, let’s imagine that there are only 2 seats left in the $150 fare bucket. If you search for 3 passengers, in most cases the airline will sell you 3 seats at $250 each (the lowest fare bucket with 3 available seats) for a total of $750. However, if you bought your tickets separately, you could potentially buy two at $150 each plus one at $250 and spend a total of $550 — saving $200 by splitting up the purchase.

As a real-world example of this happening with award tickets, I helped a group of three family members book a trip. Tickets for their outbound would have been ~$400 per passenger on the outbound. In this case, that price was the same whether I searched for two passengers or three passengers, so there were clearly enough seats in this fare bucket for all 3 people.

However, award tickets were a different story.

When I searched for awards for three passengers, the award prices were exorbitant. For instance, Delta wanted 132,500 miles per passenger (in economy class!) — but I realized that when I searched for 3 passengers, the itinerary above didn’t show up as an option at all. When I searched instead for two passengers, I found that there were two award seats available on that same itinerary above for 15K SkyMiles each. That made for a total of 30,000 miles and $11.20 rather than almost $800 for those two seats.

We immediately booked a cash ticket for the third passenger for $397. At the end of the day, paying about $408 and 30,000 miles for 3 seats ($397 for the third passenger plus $11.20 and 30,000 miles for the two award tickets) was a much better deal than paying almost $1,200 for the same seats.

In that case, there were only 2 award seats left on that itinerary, but I have also run into this functioning as explained with fare buckets above. For example, three award seats might price at 45K miles each, but two award seats are 15K each. In those cases, I’ll book two at 15K each and expect to pay 45K just for the third seat (for a total of 15K + 15K + 45K = 75K miles) rather than paying 45K x 3 = 135K miles.

There are some complications with this strategy. First of all, you often can’t easily book children separately from adults (if that’s possible to do, it will likely require a phone call). In my example above, if we had been booking that trip for 2 adults and 1 child, I would have booked the first two seats as 1 adult and 1 child, and the additional separate revenue fare would have been 1 adult. In some cases, the price change could be drastic from one fare bucket to the next. Many airline tickets can be cancelled for free within 24 hours of booking, so I could usually cancel the first couple of tickets in that scenario.

Perhaps more importantly, booking tickets separately means being under separate confirmation numbers / PNRs. That has some downsides. If one of the members of your party has elite status benefits or a credit card benefit like free checked bags that would apply for all members on his or her reservation, the people booked under a separate PNR may not receive those benefits. In the case of irregular operations, there is some risk of your family being reaccommodated differently if the passengers are booked separately. It is sometimes possible to call and get PNRs linked, but the bottom line is that this adds a layer of potential complexity.

Still, it can be worth it for the savings, assuming that nothing goes wrong and/or you are prepared to handle the situation or advocate for the solution you want if things go sideways with your trip.

Flexible stopover

Not only can a stopover be a great way to sneak in an extra destination, but it can also increase the odds of finding award availability.

While you may have a hard time finding award availability for a nonstop flight directly from the US to Australia, you may find it much easier to find a flight from the US to Japan, Hong Kong, or elsewhere in Asia and then find a second flight from Asia to Australia. In some cases, you can book this type of trip as a stopover and take advantage of the chance to visit an extra destination and easier award availability. I often find that while awards to a destination like Australia can be nearly impossible to find from the US, they can be much easier to find from Asia, so building in that stopover can make a big difference. See How to piece together an impossible award for more on this.

Some airline award programs allow a free stopover. We have often found that stopping over on the way to a far-flung destination gives the kids time to adjust and get a full night’s sleep and/or run around and burn off some pent-up energy in between trip segments, and that can be huge for everyone’s sanity.

Note the difference between a layover (a connection of less than 24 hours) and a stopover (a connection time of 24 hours or more). Most programs allow a layover of up to 24 hours on an international award ticket (and potentially several of them).

Programs that allow a stopover include:

• Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan: Book a free stopover on a one-way award. For example, fly from Los Angeles to Fiji, stop for a day or two, then continue to Australia on Fiji Airways or fly from Chicago to Tokyo, stopover, and then continue on Japan Airlines to your final destination in Asia for the same cost as flying straight through.
• Air Canada Aeroplan: Book a stopover on a one-way award for 5,000 additional miles (limit of 1 stopover in each direction).
• ANA Mileage Club: Book a free stopover on a round-trip award.
• Air France / KLM Flying Blue: Book a free stopover on a one-way award on Air France or KLM metal. You must call to book an award with a stopover.

Companion Tickets can help a family save on flights

Companion tickets can reduce the cost of your travel by allowing a companion to fly for free. This can be really useful for family travel. For example, if you have two parents and two kids, each adult could get some form of companion ticket and book a ticket with one of the children joining as a companion.

Programs with notable companion ticket benefits:

• Southwest Companion Pass: Arguably the best deal in domestic travel, the Southwest Companion Pass allows the pass holder to bring a companion for free an unlimited number of times during the validity of the pass. If you play your (credit) cards right, that can mean nearly two full years of a companion traveling for free — whether the pass holder books their ticket with miles or money (the companion only pays taxes, currently $5.60 one-way on domestic flights). For more on this valuable program, see our Southwest Companion Pass Complete Guide.
• Alaska Airlines Atmos Ascent Companion Fare: The Atmos Rewards Ascent Visa Signature card comes with an annual code good for a $99 + tax companion fare. While this companion fare can only be used once each year, it is notoriously flexible (now even usable with Hawaiian Airlines flights), and with a little strategy, it can turn into more than meets the eye. See more details in this post: Alaska Airlines Companion Fare Complete Guide.
• Both the Platinum Delta SkyMiles credit card and the Delta Reserve Credit Card offer annual companion certificates. See our Delta Companion Certificates Quick Guide for more info.
• There are a number of other credit cards that offer paths to a companion fare of some sort. See our Guide to Companion Fares for more info.

Vacation Packages for flight savings

Many airlines sell vacation packages. While these are not always great deals, there are times when you can save a significant amount over the cost of airfare alone by booking airfare and a hotel or rental car — even if you don’t intend to actually use the hotel or rental car.

See Build your own business class fare sale with vacation packages for more info.

Don’t forget premium economy

Blogs often cover sweet spots with regard to either economy class or business class awards, but don’t forget about premium economy. On many airlines, the premium economy experience on international itineraries roughly resembles domestic “first class”, which can make it a comfortable option, and it may be easier to find multiple award seats.

Furthermore, it might actually be available for a better price than economy class.

As you can see in the example below, under the date Sun, 8/20, the lowest price for economy class was 37,500 miles per passenger. However, if you then look at the search results below the weekly calendar, you’ll see that Premium Economy was 30K per passenger.

In that specific instance, the fact that it is a “mixed cabin” award stands out. That award was 3 segments; two of those segments were only available in regular economy class. However, the segment that really mattered was the overnight segment from San Francisco to Newark — and that segment was in United’s Premium Plus cabin. I recently got to fly in that cabin and it was quite nice.

Had I only looked at the numbers on the weekly calendar and not sorted the results by each cabin type on the search results page (sorting them by lowest price for both premium economy and then business to double-check prices), I may not have even known that was an option. That isn’t necessarily an isolated incident. I have also seen instances with other airlines where premium economy awards cost fewer miles than economy class awards.

Again, premium economy doesn’t get tons of blog coverage. That is at least in part because many airline programs do not have an award chart for premium economy, so you may only be able to find these awards by searching directly through the operating airline’s program (though, notably, some airlines do have premium economy award charts for partner flights). It’s worth keeping your eye out for those situations where it might make sense.

Lodging

Obviously, using hotel points is a great way to save on the cost of lodging, whether you’re a solo traveler or a family traveler. However, there are several specific strategies worth mentioning from a family travel perspective.

Do you have to pay extra to have kids in your hotel room? Do you need to book two rooms?

Most hotels in the United States charge the same amount whether you have 1, 2, 3, or 4 guests in the same room.

However, internationally, it is not uncommon for hotels to have occupancy limits like 2 or 3 people in a room or to charge more for additional guests. I have sometimes taken a chance and booked for 2 adults, but shown up with the kids and have not been charged, but that often isn’t advisable in places like Europe and Asia, where occupancy limits are often more strictly enforced. I have sometimes booked a room for 2 and then reached out to the hotel directly to ask about upgrade options for a room that accommodates my family (and have sometimes even received excellent complimentary upgrades). However, other times, you’ll need two rooms.

The good news is that some chains offer a break on a second room.

Hyatt Family Rate (50% off second room)

Some Hyatt hotels offer a Hyatt Family Rate plan that offers 50% off a second room for children under 18 years old. When this rate plan is available, it is possible to add a second room for 50% off of the standard room rate. Both cash stays and award stays are eligible to take advantage of the Hyatt Family Rate for 50% off the standard rate for the second room, but the second room must be a “cash” (paid) rate, even if the primary room is an award stay.

Not all Hyatt hotels participate in this program, and it can not be booked online. You’ll need to call World of Hyatt to find out whether a property participates and to make a reservation. See more detail in this post.

ALL Accor Family Offer

ALL Accor also offers 50% off a second room for the kids at brands including bis budget, ibis, ibis Styles, Greet, Mercure, Novotel, Tribe, Mama Shelter, Mövenpick, Pullman, MGallery, Sofitel, Swissôtel, Fairmont and more.

I recently stumbled on this offer by simply searching for a party size big enough to need two rooms (3 adults and 2 children in my case). Not all hotels seem to make this rate available, but when they do it can be a solid deal. Keep in mind that ALL Accor points are redeemed at a fixed value against cash rates and can be used to pay for your room at checkout, so it should be possible to cover the family rate using points. See more detail about the family rate here at the ALL Accor website and more detail about the ALL Accor program in our complete guide.

As an example, see the following Paris properties searched for a single room for 2 adults on a random summertime date:

Two of the above properties have family rates available for 2 adults + 2 children (the Novotel Paris Les Halles actually has a single room that accommodates 4 people).

The savings can be substantial over a multi-night stay.

Airbnb

While there is no hotel partnership with Airbnb, you can at least earn miles on your stay.

Both British Airways Executive Club and Delta SkyMiles offer links to book Airbnb and earn airline miles (e.g. 3 miles per dollar spent). While not a huge rebate, it beats not earning miles on your booking.

One annoying thing about searching for Airbnbs is seeing prices that don’t reflect the true cost since Airbnb notoriously adds cleaning and other fees and taxes later in the process, which can significantly affect the total price. Thankfully, there is a way to get Airbnb to show the full price of a stay in search results. See this post for more detail: How to see the full cost of Airbnb bookings on the search results page.

Hyatt Suites can be booked with points

There is no doubt that I did not fully understand or appreciate the value of a hotel suite until I had children. Without a suite, everyone is stuck taking a nap at nap time and/or going to sleep for the night at 7:30pm. Having a bedroom door that can shut can mean lights out for the kids without the parents also needing to go to sleep before dark.

When it comes to booking suites, Hyatt is my go-to program. That’s because not only does Hyatt offer a milestone benefit that makes it possible to lock in a suite at the time of booking, but also because Hyatt is the only hotel program to have an award chart for suites, making it very easy to lock in a suite at the time of booking for a reasonable number of points.

If you stay a lot of nights at Hyatt, you can earn 2 suite upgrades at 50 nights stayed in a calendar year and another 2 suite upgrades at 60 nights. Those suite upgrade awards can be used to confirm a suite at the time of booking (or any time you wish before your stay) for a stay of up to 7 nights.

Even if you haven’t yet spent a single night at one of their hotels, Hyatt offers the chance to book standard or even premium suites using points or a combination of points and money in several different ways. Which way is best will depend on some variables. This post has more information on the many ways to book Hyatt Premium Suite awards, and the same general concepts also apply to standard suite awards (but those will require even fewer points!).

Keep in mind that you can transfer 1:1 to Hyatt from Chase Ultimate Rewards and Bilt Rewards.

All-suites properties are a family travel goldmine

It is worth a mention that the reference at the top of the post to Embassy Suites is because numerous long-term-stay all-suites brands — like Residence Inn, Embassy Suites, TownePlace Suites, Candlewood Suites — can be awesome for family travelers. Before kids, I could probably count the number of times I had stayed at a Residence Inn on one hand; these days it is a go-to brand.

Keep in mind that many “suites” properties primarily have “studio” suites, which don’t actually feature a bedroom with a door. They can still be quite spacious and a good option for a family with older children. But also keep in mind that it’s worth checking the available room types using awards, because you can sometimes book a suite as a standard room. For example, I sometimes find I have a choice between a “studio” and a “1-bedroom suite” when booking a standard room award at Residence Inn properties. I have frequently used free night certificates to book a suite at a Residence Inn and been thrilled to do so, given the convenience when traveling with a family.

All-inclusive properties for an easy getaway with young kids

Before kids, my wife and I were never particularly interested in an all-inclusive resort. However, we went to an all-inclusive when our first son was about 6 months old, and I quickly understood why such properties can be so popular for family travelers.

Being able to abandon a restaurant meal if you suddenly have a cranky baby and having 24/7 access to food and drinks without additional cost can make a vacation far more relaxing. Furthermore, many all-inclusive properties feature a kids club with staff that lead them in activities and give parents a break. Kids clubs are not exclusive to all-inclusive properties, but you’ll often find one at an all-inclusive resort.

Hyatt, Choice Privileges, and Wyndham Rewards all have extensive partnerships with all-inclusive brands that can make it possible to snag a good deal on points if you’re looking for an all-inclusive stay.

Choice Privileges for suites (sometimes)

One award program that family travelers may want to keep in mind is Choice Privileges. Choice is the loyalty program of chains like Clarion, Comfort Inn, Cambria Suites, etc. That is because Choice has an interesting program quirk: At many (though not all) Choice properties, you can book a suite for the same number of points as a standard room.

This really varies by property, but some properties make all or many room types available using points. When they do, the same award price often applies to any room type. I took advantage of this for a two-bedroom suite in Napa Valley a couple of years ago, and Greg has written about the penthouse suite at a lovely-looking property in Princeton.

Choice won’t always be the program of, ahem, choice, for family travelers, but there are times when it can work out great. As a reminder, you can transfer 1:1 to Choice Privileges from Amex Membership Rewards or Capital One miles. Better yet, Citi ThankYou points or Wells Fargo rewards transfer from 1 Citi point to 2 Choice Privileges points.

Rental Cars

Rental cars have become increasingly expensive over the past several years. However, I often leverage rental car elite status (which I get from credit cards) to save significantly on family travel rental cars.

National or Hertz elite members: Pay for a mid-size car, get a larger vehicle

National Rental Car allows those with Executive status, which you can get from the American Express Platinum Card® or Chase Sapphire Reserve or Ritz-Carlton cards, to book and pay for a mid-size vehicle and then choose whichever vehicle they like from the “Executive” aisle upon arrival at the airport (at most locations). Hertz offers a similar program for Gold members and those with President’s Circle status.

I frequently take advantage of this status perk to reserve a mid-size vehicle, really counting on choosing something from the dedicated area that more easily accommodates my family. At the least, it is usually easy to get a large sedan or small SUV for the mid-size price.

Note that some small airports do not have areas where elite members can select a vehicle. I always find it helpful to check out this Flyertalk thread to see what kind of vehicles have been recently reported at the airport I’ll be visiting (click “show more” on the original post for the long list of airport codes).

National free days for larger car class and/or one-way rentals

National Car Rental offers the chance to earn a free day for every 5-7 rentals (depending on your elite status). Those free days can be a great value for any traveler, but they can be particularly valuable for family travelers for several reasons.

Those free days can be used for any car class (at least that is true with Executive Elite status; I’m not sure whether the same is true for members without status). I have used a National Free Day to reserve a minivan or large SUV, locking in the (more expensive) vehicle type I need while maintaining the chance to check the Executive aisle for other options.

I also find National free days particularly useful for one-way rentals. Earlier in the post, we mentioned that you sometimes need to be flexible about which airport(s) from which you depart or to which you arrive. I have often used a free day to reserve a one-way rental to fly out of an alternate airport. The advantage here is that since National bakes its one-way fees into the daily cost of the rental (rather than adding a one-way fee), you’ll be able to use your “free” day to defray the cost of a one-way rental (you’ll still need to pay some airport taxes/fees for your free day in many cases).

Company booking portal / corporate code for larger vehicles

Worth a quick mention is that many companies have rental car arrangements that allow for a standard price regardless of car class. You should check your company’s corporate codes or booking system to see whether they have a rate code that can be used for leisure travel, because those corporate codes can sometimes save you a ton of money over publicly available pricing. In many cases, you’ll find that SUVs and minivans are the same price as standard-sized vehicles when using your company’s corporate code.

Consider bringing your own car seat / booster seat

Renting car seats can get expensive quickly, easily adding $10-$25 per day per seat. While that may not be a big deal for a one or two day rental with one child, it means that the cost of renting two seats for a week could easily cover the cost of a brand new seat or two.

While I brought a full-sized car seat from home for approximately the first year of our travels with our first son, I found it quite cumbersome. If you do bring a car seat from home, I recommend getting a car seat bag — both because it will protect the seat (we lost both cup holders on our first car seat because it wasn’t in a bag) and because it gives you an extra place to stuff diapers / clothes / etc (it is usually free to check a car seat and we’ve never had a check-in agent hassle us over extra items in that bag).

Our sons now use portable inflatable booster seats that we bring with us. Domestically, I have also considered going to the store locally to buy a car seat or two (it can be cheaper to buy and donate than rent!), but that isn’t terribly convenient.

However you choose to do it, bringing something with you ensures that you get the right-size product for your child and it can save you a bundle.

Airport lounge access

Airport lounges can make the family travel experience much easier and far less expensive. Kids get hungry or thirsty? Need a moment away from the chaos of the terminal? An airport lounge can certainly help.

Priority Pass for each member of your family

Quite a few credit cards come with Priority Pass, but the best card to consider for family travelers may be the Chase Ritz-Carlton Visa Infinite.

The Ritz card is no longer available to new applicants, but it is possible to product change another Chase Marriott consumer card to the Ritz card provided that your Marriott account has been open for at least a year. What makes the Ritz card great is that authorized user cards are free and each authorized user gets his or her own Priority Pass. Each Ritz Priority Pass offers access for the member + 2 guests.

Other good options for sharing Priority Pass with family members include the Bank of America Premium Rewards Elite card and the UBS Visa Infinite. Read more in our guide to the best credit cards for Priority Pass.

Stuff: What gear do you need?

New parents (both friends and blog readers) often ask me about the must-have items for traveling with young kids. Every child and family is different; our own kids have had very different preferences when it comes to what things would keep them entertained or comforted. However, here are a few items that we have found were really helpful (I am including our Amazon affiliate links below, but none of these are sponsored by the sellers or manufacturers — these are just items I have used or think are useful):

• A very compact stroller. We use the gb pockit strollers (this is the first one we got, though I like the “all-terrain” version better). There are lots of other brands making similar stuff. We have a studier stroller for use at home; our gb pockit strollers don’t feel particularly sturdy and they aren’t made for off-roading, but the compact nature means that we never have a problem fitting them in a rental car or Uber or under the table at a restaurant or in an overhead compartment.  We have occasionally had an airline tell us that the strollers need to be in a bag to go in an overhead compartment, so I bought backpacks in which they fit and those have been useful also.
• A high chair that clips to the table. We had this one (we actually had two of that model thanks to a friend handing one down to us), but there are plenty of other more reasonably-priced models on the market these days (and we paid less for ours a few years ago). This is so convenient: not all restaurants have high chairs and when they do they aren’t always in good shape (or maybe they don’t have enough of them). Furthermore, neither of our kids liked sitting in a traditional high chair and having the child right at the table was more convenient for us. I’ll admit being a bit nervous as to whether this type of chair would be safe — I often put a chair beneath it when we first started out, but ours held up quite well until we no longer needed them.
• Child Aviation Restraint System (CARES harness). This device is meant to make flying safer for young kids. There are a lot of knock-offs on the market — I recommend paying the extra to get the real deal directly from the company.
• Silicone bibs. I’m not going to link to any specific product here because there are so many on the market. From a convenience standpoint, silicone bibs saved us so much time and hassle because they are easy to wash out in a bathroom or hotel room sink and they dry much faster and more easily than cloth (you could just dry with a towel if need be). We used plenty of cloth bibs at home also, but when traveling we found the silicone variety to be indispensable.
• Window clings. This is something I never thought to do, but on a trip last year during a delay we encountered a family at the airport that had something like this and our sons played with their kid and LOVED them. These made for an easy hour of entertainment sticking them to the window in the airport and moving them around. I’ve read about people doing the same with a cruise ship window or balcony. I’m sure there are a lot of uses (and there are many different themed sets).
• Portable booster seat. I’m not yet sure that I’m ready to recommend the inflatable Bubble Bum that we’ve been using for our 5yr old, but I recommend doing some research and figuring out a portable booster seat solution when your child is big enough. Renting car seats and boosters can get expensive quickly and rental car companies frequently don’t have the right size available. While you can usually check car seats for free and bring your own seat from home, that can be cumbersome. If you do check your car seat, I highly recommend buying a car seat bag. That’s both because it helps protect the seat from damage in transit and because it gives you some extra space to stuff diapers and other essentials (and checking a car seat is usually free).
• Inflatable bed for road trips. Once my kids were big enough to no longer want/need a pack-and-play type portable crib for road trips or trips to visit family, we got something like this. While I wouldn’t fly with the extra bulk and weight of air mattresses, these have been great for visiting family so we didn’t have to worry about kids rolling out of a full-height bed and they get excited about sleeping in it (my parents first bought one without a specific design that my son called “the raft” and then we bought one that looks like a space ship).
• Something that brings the comfort of home with you. This last piece is vague, but we found it useful to have an item that would provide the comfort of home. It might be something like Sophie the Giraffe or a cookie monster stuffed animal. It doesn’t really matter what it is that you bring, but there will be times when the stress of travel or changing time zones overwhelms and having some favorite toy from home will be all you need to calm the situation down. We usually talked with our kids about what they wanted to bring on the trip with us and let them pick what it is that they wanted. That said, my tips here are to pick something small enough to easily bring and prioritize making sure that you don’t lose this. Along those same lines, if it’s possible, I recommend something that can easily be replaced while traveling so that you’re not running from Target to Walmart to other stores at midnight looking for that one hard-to-find specific item. Ask me how I know.

I’m sure there are lots of other great products on the market — these are just the things that come to mind that we have found very useful in our travels with our own kids.

Bottom line

There are many ways that the miles, points, and credit cards game can help to save money on family travel. This post isn’t a fully exhaustive list of the ways to save, but it provides a solid starting point and reference guide to many of the easy wins you can experience that will elevate your family travel without emptying your wallet.

What are your favorite family travel hacks? Let us know in the comments.

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