Once you've finalized your holiday plans, you can start making holiday travel arrangements if necessary. Holiday travel is always busy and stressful, so arranging your travel now is a good way to make things easier on yourself during the holiday season.
If you're traveling by car…
- Get an oil change
- Schedule regular maintenance on your car if necessary
- Check air levels in your tires
- Clean out the inside of your car
- Make a travel emergency kit for your trip
If you're traveling by air…
- Look at your frequent flier miles to see if you could use them to pay for part of your airfare.
- Consider registering for TSA Precheck. If you fly often, or fly with children, this may be well worth jumping through some hoops so that you can get through airport security more quickly.
- Consider buying your tickets via Ebates. You may be able to get cash back on your airfare purchase, especially if you're also booking a hotel or rental car. Priceline, Orbitz, and Expedia all participate in the Ebates program, and may offer cash back on your purchases if you make them by going through your Ebates account.
If you're traveling by train…
- In the US, Amtrak offers better deals on tickets that are purchased further in advance.
- Sign up for the Amtrak Rewards program so you can accrue points.
If you need to book a hotel…
- Check your rewards program balances to see if you have enough points to get a free room or a discount.
- Consider booking your room through Ebates. You may be able to get cash back on your airfare purchase, especially if you're also booking a hotel or rental car. Priceline, Orbitz, and Expedia all participate in the Ebates program, and may offer cash back on your purchases if you make them by going through your Ebates account.
If you have friends or family coming to visit you…
- Start making plans for how you will get guests to and from the airport, or train station.
- Write down guest arrival times on your calendar so you don't have to memorize all of the details of everyone's travel arrangements.
Are you traveling during the holiday season?
During October, Organizing Moms will feature 31 things you can do to prepare for the holidays. Preparing for the holidays can be a lot of fun, and it can help you get things done in advance so you can enjoy the holidays more.
However, if you do try to do all of the things in this series in real-time, you might drive yourself crazy. If you want to follow along and complete the tasks, that's completely fine, but no pressure. This is supposed to be fun, and help you prepare. If you want to skip some things, skip them!
A better approach would be to read along with the series, and use the things that you think would be helpful to you. Bookmark the Preparing for the Holidays page so you can reference it later.
To see links to all of the posts in the series, go to the Preparing for the Holidays page. If you'd like to get regular updates from the series delivered to your inbox, sign up for the Organizing Moms newsletter!
