What Is ‘Travel Tuesday’ And Is It Worth The Hype?

Black Friday has been and gone: an odd holiday for us Brits, in my opinion at least, because we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving the day before, and the two seem inextricably linked.

We’re working really hard to reduce our consumerism in this house, so I didn’t do a lot of shopping on Black Friday (Spoiler: I wasn’t planning on buying anything at all, but the Loungefly backpacks the boys had on their Christmas lists were on offer, so I picked them up. I was determined I wouldn’t be buying anything I wasn’t going to buy anyway!)

But if you’re interested in travel and that’s where you spend your money (join the club!) then the next ‘holiday’ is probably the one most interesting to you. Tomorrow is Travel Tuesday. This is something I’d never even heard of until this year, and now everywhere I turn there are ‘Travel Tuesday’ deals and offers being advertised.

So I set out to uncover whether this was really a ‘thing’, whether the prices on offer were the bargains we’re being told they are, and whether the whole thing is worth the hype!

Who Is Advertising Travel Tuesday Offers?

Travel Tuesday seems to be more of a phenomenon in the U.S but in the UK there aren’t as many holiday providers offering deals. And of course many of those deals have caveats!

Jet2 are advertising up to £400 off holidays. But this is based on 4 people sharing, with the maximum discount on offer being £100 per person. You will see this same deal again in their ‘January sale’.

EasyJet are offering holidays for under £200 per person. Which seems like a great deal on the surface. But to get these prices you have to travel midweek and in off season. And if you’re happy to do that then you can find holidays for under £200 at any time of the year!

Booking.com have an offer that’s worth looking at! Up to 35% off selected hotel stays for stays up to 31st December next year. is my prefered hotel booking platform so this is a good deal BUT because this is only for selected hotels, it’s only a good deal if the hotel you’re looking at is included in the offer. To see if it was good value, I searched a mock booking for the hotel in Tokyo we’ve already booked for next April. To book it now with the ‘offer price’ was still £120 more than we’re paid.

TUI is also offering up to £300 off holidays, but there are extensive Ts and Cs attached to getting the deal and minimum spend limits to be eligible too. I’m not saying that if you weren’t planning on booking a pricey TUI holiday anyway that you shouldn’t book and get some money off, just that it’s not as good a deal as it seems.

RyanAir are offering flights from £16.99 each way, but only if you fly between December and February. RyanAir flights are always cheap! I went to Cologne this week and paid £35 per person for a return flight, which we booked in September. An example, I think, that ‘travel Tuesday’ deals aren’t any better than the deals you can get throughout the year.

Are Travel Tuesday Deals Worth It?

I LOVE to travel. I would be the first person to tell you that life’s too short, book the flight, explore the world while you can. So why have I written this post? Because sometimes ‘good deals’ aren’t always what they seem.

Just because many of these deals are marked as ending at midnight tomorrow doesn’t mean you should rush into a holiday that might not be right for you, and might not represent the best value. We travel on a budget, all the time, ever time. And we have never booked a trip on black friday/cyber tuesday. Or in the January sales for that matter!

If you really want to save money then consider booking your trips on a DIY basis (book your flights and hotel separately) and if you want to fly long haul then book your flights when the tickets are released to get the best prices (we saved more than £2,000 on our flights to Seoul by doing this).

You might also want to look at a short layover to save money – another thing we’re not opposed to if they’re big savings to be had.

I have lots of money saving tips, but this travel tuesday gimmick isn’t one of them. My wise mum used to say, if an offer seems too good to be true then it probably is!

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