If money is what’s keeping you back from traveling, 2019 may just be your year to run the world thanks to travel “layaway.”
You’ve heard of buy now, pay later for things like furniture or clothing, but did you know you can do the same with travel?
To be perfectly honest, I just discovered this and…#mindblown.
The biggest challenge when planning for a trip (apart from deciding who to travel with, where to go, when to go, what to pack, what you’ll do there and how to get the time off work) is that you have to pay for it all at once. And sometimes, if you haven’t been saving up for a specific trip and are deciding to travel on the fly, your bank account isn’t as excited as you are about the adventure.
Turns out, though, there’s ways to pay a little bit at a time for the trip you’re about to take, according to Lonely Planet. Here’s a look at four options that may change your travel life and help you achieve some of those #travelgoals in 2019.
Expedia
Since 2016, Expedia lets travelers spending more than $200 on a trip pay for it in installments. The travel site has a partnership with online lender Affirm, that let’s you pay for your wanderlust in three, six or 12 monthly installments. Not exactly sure how I’m only now getting this memo, but better late than never I guess? When booking on Expedia, you can just select Affirm as a payment option, they pay Expedia, which is essentially a loan to you that then has to be repaid with a transfer from your bank account, a debit card payment or a check. If you’re spending $1,500 on travel plans, for example, you’d only have to pay $139.16 a month if you opted to pay over a 12-month period. There’s a 20 percent interest rate, but if you pay over a shorter period, the interest could be as low as 10 percent. It may be a small price to pay if it means travel will be more manageable. More details here.
Airfordable
Airfordable offers up a similarly travel life changing option, that allows you to purchase your flight in installments before the departure date. This one requires some advance planning, but if that’s how you operate anyway, you’ll be in business. With Airfordable, you search for a flight from sites it works with (like Expedia, Google Flights, Priceline), take and upload a screenshot of the flight details to the Airfordable site, book the trip up front with them for a fraction of the cost and then pay the rest in installments before the flight. You only receive your e-ticket once you’ve made the final payment. It’s free to sign up, but there’s a one-time fee for the service and they don’t tell you what that is until you sign up. More details here.
Virgin Holidays
Here’s how I know Virgin Holidays gets it: When you visit the direct debit page of its site it says, “Now that you’ve booked your holiday…unfortunately you’ll need to pay for it. Why not break the balance of your holiday down into less scary payments?” I’m here for it. To make this magical offer work, those booking trips with Virgin Holidays have to set up a direct debit to their account with Virgin. They’ll take the money out once a month on the 1st of the month, the 7th, the 14th or the 21st—you decide what works best for you. You get to decide how much they take out each month, too, and it doesn’t even have to be the same each month. You can pay $50 one month and $100 the next as long as it’s all paid off 12 weeks before departure. So again, some advance planning required, but it could easily be very worthwhile. More details here.
FOMO Travel
As the name suggests, FOMO Travel never wants you to suffer FOMO (fear of missing out in case you’re not hip with it) when it comes to travel. The company offers a heap of different travel packages, and if you’re keen to book one, all you have to do is select “Pay with LayUp” at checkout to create a customized payment plan with interest-free monthly installments. The most interesting part of this one? You don’t have to be the only one paying into it. FOMO Travel lets you share your holiday with friends and family via email or social media and they can contribute to your trip and lower your remaining installments. Quick, if you book something now, there’s still time to rope loved ones into adding to it instead of getting you a holiday gift you probably don’t want. More details here.