My Nerdy Life

Mexico on a Budget

Buenos Días!

Well it’s been another long, hard, and cold winter… okay not really, we’ve actually had an unusually mild winter, at least for Canadian standards anyway. I’d say we’ve had just as many, if not more, days with temperatures above the freezing mark. Consequently, skiing conditions have been largely marginal at best.

In today’s post I’ll cover my strategies for going to Mexico on a budget and even getting some money back through rewards points and rebates.

The Trip

All-Inclusive trip to Puerto Vallarta for one week in a 3-Star beach-side resort for only $1149 CAD including all flights, hotels, transfers, food, and drinks. And that’s before the money I’ll be getting back through points and rebates! This also wasn’t even the cheapest option.

My Criteria

• Beach destination for 7-10 days
• Resort on or very near the beach
• LGBTQ friendly (travelling with my partner)
• ~$1000-$1200
• All-Inclusive, or proportionally cheaper if not

My Approach

It’s been a while since I’ve traveled to a north american beach destination (> 10 years), so there was a bit of a learning curve with getting acquainted with my options.

The Location 

One of the foremost concerns was finding somewhere that was relatively LGBTQ friendly, or at least didn’t have any reports of negative experiences by other travelers. My partner and I are fairly masculine and discreet, but since we wanted a nice relaxing trip we didn’t want to have to stress about trying to “look straight” and pretend we were brothers or something silly like that. So after a quick Google search, we quickly eliminated any of the Caribbean destinations, as they generally have a poor reputation when it comes to the LGBTQ community. Regarding Cuba, I didn’t really find any strong good or bad reports, but from what I’ve heard and read, there’s not much to see or do beyond the resorts themselves, and the food is quite bland. As for central america, it was unfortunately outside of our budget, which left Mexico as the leading contender. I’d been to Mexico a number of times when I was younger, and generally enjoyed myself, so I was totally fine with that destination.

Finding a Tour Operator

Since this was my first time booking a vacation package to Mexico, I spent some time figuring which tour operators were available to me. I also briefly looked at some options for renting a condo or booking the hotel and flight separately, but those tended to be outside of our budget. In Canada, the main tour operators are:

Sunwing

Air Transat/Nolitours

WestJet Vacations

Air Canada Vacations

Finding a Vacation Package

Since I’m a member of Aeroplan, I initially wanted to see if I could find something through Air Canada to earn miles, but unfortunately most of the flights left/returned on a Wednesday which didn’t work with our schedules or they were too expensive. For Sunwing and WestJet either the dates and/or price didn’t work for us. Keep in mind we were booking within 2-3 weeks of departure, so undoubtedly that limited our options. In the end, Air Transat/Nolitours seemed like our best bet.

The Hotel

After narrowing down our options based on the above criteria, I turned to TripAdvisor to find out what other travelers thought about their experiences. We picked Puerto Vallarta because it has a generally good reputation with LGBTQ travelers, I had been there before, and unlike Ixtapa it’s more than just a bunch of resorts beside each other. The final choice came down to either a resort outside of the city (about an hour away) in Rincón de Guayabitos or a resort smack in the middle of the hotel zone. Both had good 4/5 reviews on TripAdvisor and had many repeat travelers. Personally, I like wandering around the city in the evenings and checking out the local shops and restaurants, and I felt in Rincón de Guayabitos this would be less possible. In the end we picked the Friendly Vallarta Resort.

Timing

Timing was the biggest factor in getting the price we did. Since mid March isn’t as busy, and you can get some great deals. A comparable hotel over the week of Easter would have easily cost 20-40% more! The day of the week can make a big difference too. Leaving mid-week (Thursday in our case) was again 20-40% cheaper than leaving on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.

Points and Rebates

Recently, I’ve discovered the lucrative world of rewards points/Airline miles (e.g.,Aeroplan), and as much as I wanted to fly with Air Canada for the miles, the extra cost just wasn’t worth it. At best, I could have earned ~2200 Aeroplan miles (at 50% per mile flown in economy), which is worth ~$20-$40, depending on how you value them (more posts to come on this topic).

Petro Points

I was very close to booking the trip directly through Nolitours, until I found out that iTravel2000 was also selling the exact same package for the same price and I could earn Petro Canada points by booking through them. Now, I generally find the Petro Canada points program to be of relatively low value, but I figured I had nothing to lose and >14,000 points (for 2 tickets) to gain. iTravel2000 allows you to simultaneously redeem/earn points, and since joining the program a few years ago I passively accumulated over 10,000 points from gas purchases, which was worth $10. That meant, right out of the gate I had netted myself ~$24 ($10 discount + earning $14 in points), just for using the iTravel2000 website.

Great Canadian Rebates

Since jumping on the point/reward train, I now check shopping portals such as Great Canadian Rebates before making any online purchases, just in case. As it turned out, iTravel2000 was offering a $20 rebate for going through the Great Canadian Rebates portal. So, on top of the Petro Points, I got myself another $20, which put me up to $44 in savings.

American Express Rewards

Now for the icing on the cake! From the start, I knew I wanted to use my American Express Gold Rewards card because they offer 2 points for every dollar spent on travel. So, for both tickets it was ~$2300, which meant I earned 4600 points valued at ~$50-$75 or more depending on how I use them (most likely transfer to Aeroplan). So in the end I earned myself ~$100+ in savings (that’s enough for a pretty decent restaurant meal for 2 in Canada) just by employing a few simple tricks.

So that’s it! I realize that $1150 is not a rock bottom price, but I still consider this pretty darn good value for a week in Mexico on a budget. Not to mention with a few simple clicks I earned myself $100+, and who wouldn’t want an extra $100 in their pocket? I’ll report back after the trip with what I learn while I’m down there.

How do you save money when travelling to a beach destination? What are you favourite places to get away from winter?