We recently came home from a week-long trip to Walt Disney World and while we like to have a great time and do things up as much as possible, we also like to stay within a reasonable budget so that we don’t mess up any other goals we may have.

This time when we decided to go, we gave some serious thought to flying so we wouldn’t have to take as many days off of work. However, when we started to price out the tickets, it was really hard to justify spending about $1100 versus the approximate $300 to $400 we spent last time on gas, hotels, and food.

In order to keep the trip down and back at a reasonable cost, we had to stay in hotels as cheaply as possible. I’m the type of person who would prefer to stay at a slightly nicer hotel, but I also don’t want to blow our entire vacation budget on a temporary place to sleep.

The answer is to use hotel discount guides. You can find these at welcome centers and rest stops on the highway. They are free and are usually sitting outside in newspaper stands. The guides are arranged by highway and exits in that state so you can find the discounts for all the hotels at one exit in one place.

The discounts are really good and are lower than what you would get with a AAA card. As an example, we stayed at a Comfort Suites on the way down. I just checked their website and if we were to book it through there, we would have paid about $110 a night (AAA rate is $99) with taxes and everything. With the discount guide, we paid a total of $66.

There are usually some stipulations with the discounts, but they aren’t usually deal-breakers. Some examples are that the discount can only be used for a one night stay or that it only applies to certain room types or for a certain number of people. They may let the last one slide though if you ask nicely.

You can use the discount guides for more than just a road trip. Maybe you can impress a family member by paying for their hotel stay overnight as they’re visiting. (They don’t need to know how much you spend.)

Potential Savings: You can probably expect to save 30-40% off of the normal rate.

Let me know when you might use hotel discount guides to save money on a hotel stay in the comments below. If you’ve got any creative ways to save money on vacation leave those below as well.

Featured Image courtesy of sixninepixels / FreeDigitalPhotos.net