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We get asked a lot about how to travel as a family…or how to make family travel better. In today’s episode of Frequent Miler on the Air, we’ll answer the call and share our (…ok Nick’s) tips for family travel.
Watch the full episode below, or listen on your favorite podcast platform. You can click the timestamps below to navigate directly to a specific part of the episode within YouTube.
For a transcript of this episode, click “Watch on Youtube” on the video below, then click the “…more” link in the video description. This will expand full video details. Scrolling down past the timestamps and chapters, you’ll see a “Show Transcript” button. If you’re an Apple Podcast listener, you can touch and hold a podcast episode to reveal an option to view a transcript.
Main Event: Tips for Better Family Travel
Mailbag
(00:55) – Everyone wants more family travel tips!
See our Ask Us Anything episode 68, “How do you travel with young kids?” here.
Card Talk
(03:16) – Free Spirit Travel More Mastercard
Learn more about the Free Spirit Travel More Mastercard here.
Award Talk
(12:30) – Don’t forget that Qatar Avios can be used to book American Airlines flights, and can offer great prices for certain flights…
Read more about OneWorld First Class flights for surprisingly low prices here.
Main Event: Tips for Better Family Travel
(17:23) – See our “Points for family travel”, Ep174 here: https://frequentmiler.com/points-for-family-travel/
(18:04) – Plan one big activity per day
(20:30) – Find a playground
(23:26) – Get a suite
(29:41) – Lounge access is awesome
(31:32) – Get elite status with National Rental Car and/or Hertz to save
(34:01) – Easily collapsible stroller
(36:42) – Car seats: If you’re going to bring yours, get a bag for it
(38:30) – Know your lap infant ticket policies
(42:12) – Ask for a child meal
(43:05) – Consider taking a cruise
Read our post on how to get free cruises here.
(45:24) – Consider business class. More space = less disruption.
(49:35) – Travel internationally: Be prepared for the world to be more family-friendly than you expect
Question of the Week
(51:54) – How does the temporary Southwest credit card bonus impact the Southwest companion pass strategy for 2 companion passes?
Read our Southwest Airlines companion pass guide here.
Read more about the two person strategy for 2 Southwest Companion Passes here.
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Music Credit – “Ocean Deep” by Annie Yoder
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Greg mentioned contacting a hotel about the cash upgrade cost for a suite after booking a standard room. Does this usually work several months out, or do most hotels only want to offer you a (decently priced at least) cash upgrade offer closer to booking after they have a chance to sell the suites?
Is there anywhere to get current details on the vacasa bookings? It seems most info posted is outdated.
The 25% off kids redemption’s on air France would have been relevant to include as well as the the Hyatt family pricing on a second room.
Are there any tips on award redemptions for families????? While the general travel tips were fun to hear, I am very interested in how to maximize points when it comes to family travel. Hoping you might make a follow up episode on that.
Great questions!
Here are the resources you may be looking for:
Nick really appreciate all the content on this!
I’ll mention another tip on car seats – if you are worried about damage a good option is to gate check them. When we travelled with a big Diono we always checked it before security since we didn’t want to lug it through the airport, but now that we travel with a smaller booster we can carry it through security and gate check it. Much less risk of fabric getting damaged and cup holders disappearing than if it has to make it through all the baggage handling system. Plus your kids can still use it as a seat when gate areas are busy! We started doing this after we nearly lost our booster as a checked bag at Sea-Tac. It works for strollers too – as long as you can fit it through the scanners you can use it to wheel tired kids through the airport post-security and gate check before getting on the plane.
We really like the Chicco GoFit Plus as a travel booster seat. Cupholders are collapsible but built in so you can’t lose them, arm rests are padded but not overly large, pretty light to carry and has a nice plastic bar on the bottom that works great as a carrying handle or for tying to luggage. It has quick attach and release latch hooks and I’ve been able to get it down to 30 seconds or less for installation in most Ubers and rental cars. We weren’t big fans of the collapsible travel boosters as they seem to all lack much padding or don’t work as well for kids that move around a lot. I saw someone else with this same booster in Austin recently attach it to a backpack with some built in straps on their bag rather than carry it around.
Seconding the cruise and playground recommendations. We never had much interest in cruises before the Wyndham Business card but having on-board daycare so that the parents can have some time doing activities on their own is great, and our daughter was always eager to come back on the ship after an excursion and go play with other kids at the kids club. One of our highlights of our Holland America Alaska cruise was the playground in Sitka – it’s right next to the National Historic Totem Park and between that and the raptor center it was our favorite stop on our Alaska itinerary.
When I asked this question on “Ask us Anything” last month, Nick’s response really inspired us. I immediately booked something and I’m happy to report that we are currently on our first family trip as a family of four (3 year old and 3 month old) in Greg’s stomping ground of Michigan! In fact, we listened to this episode on the drive from Dearborn to Port Huron. While it has been challenging in a number of ways, we have already made so many memories and can’t wait for the next trip! Thank you, Nick, for encouraging us to just get out and travel! We are already thinking about international travel with the family in the new year.
A few quick tips from our experience:
-Try to get suites at really nice hotels. Even if things revolves around naps and snacks, staying at a really nice hotel makes it feel more like a vacation for mom and dad than a regular hotel. In our case, we managed to get upgraded to a 1 bedroom suite at a Marriott Autograph Collection hotel (The Henry) for the first two nights, and again at the Westin at DTW for the last night.
-I’m surprised this hasn’t been mentioned, but one golden rule is find a hotel with a pool. It’s a playground at your hotel!
-When possible, break up some of the travel so it’s not such a long day for the kids. In our case, we are staying at the hotel airport the night before our flight home so we can drop off the rental car in advance and walk downstairs to our terminal in the morning.
-One thing we would change next time is not moving around hotels as much. Moving, with the drive, can take most of the day and it’s a bummer when your “one big thing” is just getting to a new destination.
Those last two items definitely ring true for family trips with younger kids. While hotel hopping can be fun on solo/adult only trips and it can be a way to get great deals on stay based promos (like bouncing between FHR properties), the prospect is a lot less appealing when you are packing up bedtime items, lugging checked bags, getting in and out of car seats, and so on every other day. Sometimes it’s a better to admit “nope my sanity is worth more than saving another $100”.
Long drives followed by a flight are verrrry long days and just having an extra night at an airport hotel can keep everyone from getting cranky. It can be an excuse for another short excursion before a flight too – our daughter loved seeing “the bean” (cloudgate) in Chicago even though we only had a few hours to spend in that area before flying out.
Family travel tip: Consider skipping the airport car rental scene, get a taxi or ride-share to the hotel, and pick up the rental car (near) there. It skips the car rental shuttle experience (odors and all), which can be a hassle with kids. Also, off-airport car rental rates are typically lower than on-airport car rental rates.