Airport Money Saving Tips are essential – we’ve flown a few times and I’m the kind of person who doesn’t like to spend money unless I absolutely have to. Purple Parking have created a handy money-saving guide on their site, and I’d like to share some of mine.

Get your holiday insurance before travelling! Most places sell it when you’re in Duty Free, though you may not get the best policy that way. We’ve often been caught out, spending up to £50 in the process. Even worse, I had to do a claim when some of my belongings went missing, and the excess was £50 – so after that I ended up with a cheque for £2.50. Shop around beforehand!

Parking-wise, we’re Purple Parking customers – one thing I’d say, make sure you write down where you’re parked otherwise you’ll end up like Shaun and I when we arrived back at Stansted just before midnight one year, taking over two hours to find our car. When we parked I knew I’d remember the number (as it was similar to a song) and by the time we landed I was exhausted and had forgotten. There’s a reason there’s a space on your ticket to write it down!  We booked up-front which gives you a better deal than paying as you get there.

I always look out for deals online before getting to Duty Free – my favourite one was the Clarins Eau Dynamissante two for £25 deal which I often caught – a bottle would cost around £18 in-store, so two at that price was amazing. These days you can shop online before you even get to the airport, picking it up as you’re boarding your flight.

The last time we flew H was fifteen months – as we were staying with the in-laws we didn’t need to take a lot, but we still needed enough in our hand luggage for a days worth of flying. Luckily a lot is provided by the airlines, so read up beforehand. It’s worth bearing in mind the limits for liquids and so on at the security check, as you can pick them up in Duty Free generally (like bottles of water), so don’t take more than you need.

The one we get caught out on every time – make sure you’ve included an overseas tariff in your mobile phone package. There’ll be that one time you need to phone relatives or friends and you’ll need to use your phone, eventually coming home to a £50 bill rather than your usual £15 – so look into what your provider offers, or if your phone is able to take it, think about buying a Pay As You Go SIM card to use in your phone to use when you get there.

The last time we went to Australia we had a LOT of luggage. Our taxi was cancelled due to the snow, so we had three suitcases, one cabin sized suitcase, a changing bag, a buggy and one other bag – oh, and a car seat. We got the train to Gatwick, and travelling in the cold one top tip which costs nothing and I always pass on, wrap your car seat in a large bin bag. Not all airlines will let you have your car seat in the cabin, so you want to protect it from any cold and wet (and it’ll be freezing in the hold if it ends up there).

As far as transporting it, Yyou can buy loads of fancy gadgets to carry things but in the end a simple belt around our cabin sized suitcase was enough for us – and was something we already had. That and we had a lot of help from people on the train, as you can imagine!!

Taking the train to the airport is less than a taxi but keep an eye out for buses that go to airports. From Carshalton there’s an express bus which is every 30 minutes – the X26 from Croydon to Heathrow. You pay the cost of a single fare on the bus – which is good if you’re looking to save money. It takes an hour and a half on a bad day.

I hope some of these are helpful – don’t get caught out like we did, an airport is somewhere you can save money, and hopefully these airport money saving tips will be of use!

We have been sent vouchers for this post.