How do you pay for cruises

[navybankerteacher]

 For most of us a cruise represents a major discretionary expenditure.  How do you generally budget/pay for one:

Dig into reserves,

Have a general vacation/travel account you regularly contribute to,

Start a special savings account for a particular cruise,

Pay installments to line or agent,

Put it on credit card and pay off later?

[DarrenM]

Cruising from the UK is extremely expensive so its a once a year holiday paid for during the year leading up to it. Monthly.

 

 

[George C]

We put it on credit card and luckily can pay it off when we get bill. We recently been doing a rather expensive music charter and I like what they do you can give them credit card and they charge you in four payments. 

[Nic6318]

25 minutes ago, navybankerteacher said:

 For most of us a cruise represents a major discretionary expenditure.  How do you generally budget/pay for one:

Dig into reserves,

Have a general vacation/travel account you regularly contribute to,

Start a special savings account for a particular cruise,

Pay installments to line or agent,

Put it on credit card and pay off later?

 

 

Hi

 

So, your first 3 options suggest that you spend less than you earn and actually have money to buy things that you need/want.

 

This is typically accomplished through budgeting and setting priorities.

 

The other 2 options suggest you haven't gotten your financial house in order yet. Very often employed by younger people. If you try to employ those strategies too late in life, you will find it very hard to get to a point where you don't "need" to work. If you like working that's not a problem, unless you can't or aren't able to work.

[Zach1213]

We have a specific vacation account. Roughly 20% of our take-home pay goes to this, pulled automatically from each of our paychecks when they hit our bank account. It's just a general vacation account - could be used for a weekend away or three weeks in New Zealand or anything in between...it just builds until we're ready to use it for whatever trip we feel like.

Edited July 3, 2019 by Zach1213

[c-boy]

usually book another while on board and use our travel only card to pay it then. When we get home we pay it off by the end of the month.

[ontheweb]

Charge it to the credit card, and then pay it off when the bill comes.

[Cruiser_1977]

Carnival -- I bought the gift cards with cash (debit card - which has rewards) from my "discretionary savings" and used those to get the 10% discount.

RCL cruise -- I am using a credit card with cash back but pay it off monthly. (Spend $XX = $Y in rewards. When I pay my bill I apply the $Y and only pay the difference of $XX - $Y.

 

I don't like folks having my money and earning the interest on it when I could be doing that. I wait until final payment (or within 30 days) to pay. I like the Dave Ramsey methodology when it comes to money.

Edited July 3, 2019 by JennyB1977

[clo]

8 minutes ago, ontheweb said:

Charge it to the credit card, and then pay it off when the bill comes.

And get the travel points.

[tak81288]

We have a separate bank account that we use only for travel. Every paycheck (every other week) we have a bare minimum that goes into that account. If there is money left over from other areas of our budget at the end of the month, we make another deposit. If we have extra funds due to a bonus or something, a portion of that goes into our travel account..etc...

 

As far as paying for the cruise (along with flights, hotels, activities..etc) we use a credit card, but only for the purpose of getting cash back. The credit card is paid off using funds from our travel account before the bill is due to avoid interest. All cash back we received gets deposited back into that special account.

[clo]

1 minute ago, tak81288 said:

The credit card is paid off using funds from our travel account before the bill is due to avoid interest.

No reason to pay before it's due.

[Texas Tillie]

I know that I'm old fashioned, but if I don't have 100% of the money to pay when it's due, I don't book it. Paying exorbitant interest that credit cards charge to pay for a vacation is a good way to guarantee you'll never really be out of debt.

[mom says]

Travel/vacation is a line item in our annual budget. We don't feel the need for a separate vacation account. A more expensive cruise just means there may be less in the budget for additional trips that year. Or an unexpected windfall may mean we can splurge a bit on another trip. We pay for everything on our rewards card and pay the card off when the bill arrives. We would never carry any kind of debt in order to vacation.

[clo]

7 minutes ago, Texas Tillie said:

I know that I'm old fashioned, but if I don't have 100% of the money to pay when it's due, I don't book it. Paying exorbitant interest that credit cards charge to pay for a vacation is a good way to guarantee you'll never really be out of debt.

Did you also used to watch Suze Orman?!?!?  

[clo]

4 minutes ago, mom says said:

We pay for everything on our rewards card

And, boy, are you screwed if you carry a balance on those cards.  We just got the Chase Sapphire Reserve card and the interest rate on that is almost 25%.  Like you, we pay it off every month.

[tak81288]

19 minutes ago, clo said:

No reason to pay before it's due.

I pay all my bills off a few days before they are actually due date. Different stokes for different folks.

[clo]

13 minutes ago, tak81288 said:

I pay all my bills off a few days before they are actually due date. Different stokes for different folks.

Oh a few days is smart.  I've heard of people that pay their credit card balance several time a month!

[George C]

We charge everything and always pay off bill when it’s due, get lots of perks in free hotel rooms and more. 

[Luckiestmanonearth]

Put a little away with each paycheck to build up the cruise account (pay it off at the last possible minute)

 

Try to use air miles or credit card points for the flight

 

PS - my adult kids answer would be “wait till mom and dad organize and pay for a family cruise”

[Bizmark'sMom]

I have a travel account that I contribute to regularly.

 

For actually paying for the trip; I use a credit card for the transaction, and then pay it off in full.  I never carry balances on credit cards.

 

[Schoifmom]

I have a side-gig that I use to fund our cruising habit.  Cash is king!!

[yorkshirephil]

We have a cruise/holiday budget, we pay each deposit on my credit card, purely for the insurance then pay the balance on a debit card. Not all cruise lines would (or still may not?) let you use a debit card to pay the onboard account so just put it on the credit card which is automatically debited each month to avoid interest payments.

[c-boy]

7 minutes ago, Schoifmom said:

I have a side-gig that I use to fund our cruising habit.  Cash is king!!

hawt damn now we're talkin' !

[Warm Breezes]

My bonuses are used to cover all vacations and larger infrequent household purchases with the balance going into savings accounts.  My bonuses have grown significantly over the years and now cover a few good trips, land and sea, a year often with quite a bit left over.  Having said that, the majority of our spending money for our vacations comes from cash back rewards on my credit cards.  We use our credit cards for as much of our daily/monthly/miscellaneous expenditures as we can, including college tuition, and pay in full at the end of every month.  I love spending free money on our vacations.  I also purchase discounted cruise gift cards to pay for our cruise so we get a discount there plus cash back for using my credit card to purchase the gift cards.

Edited July 3, 2019 by Warm Breezes

[Warm Breezes]

4 hours ago, clo said:

Oh a few days is smart.  I've heard of people that pay their credit card balance several time a month!

My DD(22) does that.  She got her own credit card when she started college to build her credit score and is paranoid about being in debt for anything so she always pays it off in the next day or so.