13 Travel Splurges That Are Actually Worth the Money, According to Travel Experts
Paying more for something when you travel doesn’t automatically mean you’re wasting money.
I’m all for finding a good deal. I use points and miles to cut travel costs, look for ways to save before and during trips, and generally don’t see much sense in paying more when the cheaper option works just as well.
But sometimes it doesn’t.
There are travel expenses I’ll gladly pay more for because they save time, make traveling with three kids easier, or give my family an experience we couldn’t have otherwise. The key, at least for me, is deciding what matters before the trip and budgeting accordingly. Spending more in one place might mean spending less somewhere else.
And I’m not alone.
I asked travel writers, points and miles experts, travel advisors, and other frequent travelers what they’re willing to spend more cash, points, or miles on when they travel. Some of their answers were practical. Others were more fun. And a few made me rethink where I might be willing to spend a little extra on a future trip.
Here are 13 travel splurges that experienced travelers say are worth the extra cost.
1. Bringing more people along for the journey
My favorite travel splurge isn’t business class or a fancy hotel room. It’s bringing more people with me.
Last summer, my husband and I took our three kids, my bonus mom, and my bonus sister to Puerto Rico. I used nearly 600,000 points to cover six round-trip flights from Charlotte to San Juan and nine hotel nights at two resorts.
Using that many points on one trip might make some rewards enthusiasts twitch a little. I’m fine with that.
I could have stretched those points further. I could have used them for upgrades or saved a big chunk for another trip. Instead, seven of us got to spend more than a week together in Puerto Rico.
We went fishing, rode UTVs, toured a coffee farm, took a catamaran to Icacos, and spent a lot of time just hanging out together by the pool or beach.
That’s worth more to me than squeezing every possible cent of value out of my rewards. Points and miles are tools. And one of my favorite ways to use them is to make the guest list bigger.
Here’s more on how my family affords to travel more.
2. Airport lounge access
Airports have a special talent for making everything more expensive. Suddenly, a mediocre sandwich costs $17, and you get to eat it at a crowded gate while someone three seats over has a speakerphone conversation.
For Tom Brickman, founder of The Frugal Gay, airport lounge access is worth paying for.
“I happily splurge on my Capital One Venture X yearly fee,” Brickman says. “It gives me lounge access across the world.”
The Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card has a $395 annual fee, so calling it a money-saving move might sound a little strange. But Brickman looks at what that fee gets him when he travels, including a quieter place to wait and access to food and drinks he might otherwise buy at airport prices.
“It literally removes me from airport chaos and helps me avoid the airport price gouge you get after passing through security,” he says. “Take my money. This one is money well spent.”
Amena Bakali, family travel creator and founder of Hassans on Holiday, is willing to spend extra on lounge access, too, especially when she’s traveling with her husband and three kids.
“I think it’s worth it to pay for your kid to enter an airport lounge,” Bakali says. “I have paid for my kids to enter a lounge because that cost will generally be less than what I would end up paying for my family of five to eat somewhere else in the airport.”
And the savings aren’t the only reason.
“The quality of food is better in the lounge, and it’s one less thing to worry about as a parent,” Bakali says.
As a fellow mom of three, that’s travel math I understand.
3. Food that makes the trip better
Eating on vacation is supposed to be fun. But when you travel frequently for work, a steady diet of airport food, restaurant meals, and whatever happens to be closest to your hotel can get old fast.
Lacey Langford, AFC®, founder of MILMO and MilMoneyCon, says healthy food is one travel expense where she’s willing to pay more.
“When I’m traveling for work, not eating healthy impacts so many things, like my energy level, performance, and confidence,” Langford says. “It’s tempting to choose the cheaper food or meal to save money, but the negative impacts of that decision aren’t worth it.”
Before one public speaking event, Langford spent $30 on a salad because she wanted something that would fuel her for the rest of the day without making her feel bad. On longer business trips, she’s spent hundreds of dollars having groceries delivered to her hotel through Instacart.
That doesn’t mean she’s spending freely on food throughout the entire trip. In fact, Langford generally avoids another expense that can put a serious dent in a travel budget: eating every meal at a restaurant.
“I pack a lot of my meals in a soft cooler that I carry on when I fly,” she says. “And I prefer to get groceries when possible for healthy snacks.”
Her rule for deciding when to spend more is pretty simple.
“If it’s going to stress me out, make me exhausted or make me eat like crap, I will spend more money to avoid those things.”
Of course, sometimes the food itself is the experience.
Lee Huffman, travel expert at BaldThoughts.com, used to prioritize cheap eats and free hotel meals when he traveled. Now, he’s willing to splurge on the right restaurant.
“I realized that food is part of the travel experience and it helps to cement those memories in your mind,” Huffman says.
Two completely different reasons to spend more on food, and I can see the value in both. Sometimes the $30 salad is worth it because you need to feel good for what comes next. And sometimes dinner is what comes next.
4. Convenience that makes traveling easier
Some travel splurges are about making a trip more memorable. Others are simply about making it easier.
I’m willing to spend a little extra on convenience when it saves enough time, effort, or aggravation to feel worth it.
Not every convenience. I’m perfectly capable of getting my own coffee and handling plenty of travel logistics myself. But when spending a little more can remove a disproportionate amount of hassle from a family trip, I’m usually willing to consider it.
Valet parking is a good example.
When we’re staying at a hotel and have a car, I’ll often pay an extra $10 or $15 a day for valet parking instead of self-parking. By the time I’m traveling with three kids, luggage, backpacks, a stroller, and whatever collection of random objects everyone has accumulated by that point in the trip, the idea of trekking back and forth to a parking garage has lost most of its charm.
So I pay the valet. And I budget for the tips, too.
Could I save that money? Sure. But I’d rather spend a little less somewhere else. Maybe we stock the room with inexpensive lunch supplies for a few days or skip another expense I don’t care as much about.
That’s something I’ve learned about travel splurges in general. Spending more on one thing doesn’t necessarily mean spending more on the trip overall. Sometimes you’re just moving money from something you value less to something you value more.
And when I’m traveling with three kids, I place a surprisingly high value on someone bringing the car to me.
5. Experiences you can’t easily recreate later
There are plenty of travel expenses you can skip and never think about again. Then there are the ones you’ll still be talking about years later.
Bridget Thibodeaux, founder of The Cruise Reel, is willing to spend more when an experience gives her something she can’t easily recreate at home, especially when she’s visiting a destination she may not return to anytime soon.
A recent trip to St. Thomas put that philosophy to the test.
“I’m usually pretty hesitant to splurge on pricey excursions, but recently in St. Thomas, I gave in and booked a catamaran tour that my friends really wanted to do,” Thibodeaux says. “It turned out to be so completely worth the extra cash that I’d actually pay for it again in a heartbeat.”
For Alina Hrytsenko-Regiani, founder of Citydex, that kind of splurge meant paying about $120 for an excursion from Ushuaia, Argentina, to Isla Martillo, also known as Penguin Island.
“What I believe is worth spending my money on are the experiences I can’t get anywhere else,” Hrytsenko-Regiani says.
Her tour included walking among penguins on Isla Martillo and sailing through the Beagle Channel, where she saw sea lions and birds.
Experiences are one of the places I’m usually willing to make room in our family travel budget, whether it’s a big planned excursion or something more spontaneous, like our last-minute visit to the Georgia Aquarium. My test is pretty simple: Is this something we can easily do another time, somewhere else? If the answer is no, spending a little more starts looking a lot less like a splurge.
6. Something that changes how you experience the destination
Not every worthwhile travel splurge is an upgraded seat, a nicer hotel, or a special meal. Sometimes it’s something you bring with you.
Tim Devaney, a credit card rewards expert who writes about his travels as a color blind person at The Color List, recently spent nearly $800 on a pair of EnChroma color blind glasses. Now, they go everywhere he does.
“I visit a lot of colorful places around the world, but without my color blind glasses, I’d miss out on all the beauty,” Devaney says.
For Devaney, that’s enough to make the price worthwhile.
“Color is something a lot of people take for granted, but not me,” he says. “That’s why I didn’t blink an eye at spending almost $800 on my color blind glasses. That might sound expensive, but if you’re color blind like I am, they’re worth every penny.”
It’s an unusual travel splurge, but that’s also kind of the point. What’s worth paying more for doesn’t have to make sense for every traveler. It has to make the trip better for you.
7. Local expertise when it can change the trip
Sometimes the thing worth paying more for isn’t a nicer room or a better seat. It’s having the right person beside you once you get there.
Wildlife photographer and travel expert Johan Siggesson is happy to spend more on an experienced local guide, particularly when he’s traveling to photograph wildlife.
“A good guide brings knowledge and access that you simply can’t get from a guidebook or online itinerary,” Siggesson says. “They know where animals are likely to be, understand their behavior, and often know less-visited areas where you have a better chance of having a meaningful encounter.”
For a wildlife photographer, that can be the difference between simply showing up somewhere and actually experiencing what you traveled all that way to see.
“I’d rather spend more on an experienced guide and have a deeper, more rewarding experience than save money and potentially miss the very reason I traveled there,” Siggesson says.
Junichiro Honjo, founder of LIFE on the PLANET LADAKH, takes a similar approach in remote or challenging destinations. He’d rather spend more on an experienced local driver, knowledgeable guide, and good logistics than upgrade from a comfortable hotel to a luxury one.
“A beautiful hotel room can make a trip more comfortable,” Honjo says. “But a good local team can determine whether the trip works at all.”
His rule for deciding where to spend extra money is one travelers can apply well beyond a trip to the Himalayas.
“Save money on things that are easy to replace,” Honjo says. “Spend money on the parts of a journey that are difficult to replace once you are there.”
8. A better hotel when the hotel is part of the trip
Hotels are one of those travel expenses where I can argue myself into either direction.
If I’m leaving first thing in the morning and coming back just in time to fall into bed, give me clean, comfortable, and conveniently located. But put me somewhere I’m actually going to spend time at the resort, and suddenly that upgrade starts looking a lot more tempting. I made a recent splurge myself on a family stay at The Ritz-Carlton Atlanta where the hotel experience was part of the fun.
Lee Huffman makes a similar distinction. On many trips, he’d rather splurge on a luxury hotel than business class.
“For most of my trips, the flight is short, but the hotel experience lasts for days,” Huffman says. “Spending extra points on a hotel or having elite status can get a nicer room, better amenities, and stellar service compared to budget accommodations that offer a simple place to sleep.”
For a long weekend in Cancun with his wife, Huffman used 25,000 Hyatt points per night to book an all-inclusive resort that was going for more than $700 a night in cash.
“Normally, we like to explore destinations, but it was amazing to lounge by the pool, relax in the day spa, and sample all of the different restaurants,” he says.
But there’s a flip side to his hotel-splurge rule.
“I generally avoid splurging on luxury hotels when I’m traveling to a destination where I’ll be away from the hotel for most of the day,” Huffman says. “There’s no point staying at a five-star resort when you’re not there to enjoy the amenities and service.”
Which, frankly, makes the $700 hotel question a lot easier: Are you booking somewhere to sleep, or somewhere to stay?
9. A place to rest when your travel plans go sideways
A flight delay is annoying enough. Spending several hours trying to work, sleep, or simply exist comfortably at the gate can make it considerably worse.
That’s one travel expense Lacey Langford has changed her mind about.
Langford gets an hour of access to Minute Suites through her credit card benefits. But if she’s dealing with a long delay, she’s willing to pay to stay longer.
“I will gladly pay for additional hours to sleep and work if my flight is delayed,” Langford says.
It wasn’t something she always considered worth the extra expense. Repeated flight delays changed the calculation.
“I’d lose sleep and work I would have to catch up on instead of spending time with my family when I got home,” she says.
What I like about Langford’s approach is that, to me, you’re not really paying for the room. You’re paying for what that room lets you do with a few otherwise-lost hours.
And I’ve spent enough time sitting at airport gates trying to convince myself that my backpack is a lumbar-support device to see the appeal.
10. A room with a view when the view is part of the experience
I’m willing to pay more for a room with a great view, especially when there’s water involved. I don’t need it on every trip, but when the setting is part of the reason I’m visiting a destination, it’s an upgrade I appreciate.
Tara O’Reilly, full-time travel blogger and founder of Tara O’Reilly Travel, feels much the same way.
“I’m happy to pay extra for a room with a view, particularly when I’m in a scenic location,” O’Reilly says.
One of her favorite examples comes from a two-night cruise through Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay and Lan Ha Bay. O’Reilly and her husband paid about $800 for a traditional junk boat with a private balcony, considerably more than some of the $200 to $300 alternatives available.
The balcony gave her a front-row seat to the scenery throughout the trip, including mornings spent drinking coffee while looking out at the limestone cliffs.
“Waking up to that view, having coffee on the balcony, and doing tai chi surrounded by the karst cliffs made the experience unforgettable,” O’Reilly says.
That’s the kind of upgrade I understand. I may be perfectly happy with a standard room when the hotel is mostly somewhere to sleep. But if I’m somewhere beautiful, especially near the ocean, a lake, or another great water view, I’m much more likely to work the upgrade into my travel budget.
11. Letting someone else deal with the luggage
I’m willing to pay for help with luggage in the right circumstances, especially when I’m traveling alone with my kids. There comes a point when managing three kids, everyone’s bags, and whatever else we’ve accumulated along the way stops feeling like an opportunity to save a few dollars and starts feeling like a problem I can pay someone to solve.
Tom Brickman took that idea a step further on a trip to Japan. While traveling from Kyoto to Tokyo, Brickman and his travel companion paid about $80 to have their luggage forwarded to their next hotel instead of carrying it with them.
“Spending that $80 for two of us not to haul bags from Kyoto to Tokyo was so worth it,” Brickman says. “They had the bags sitting in our room in Tokyo. Money well spent!”
I haven’t tried luggage forwarding like that yet, but I understand the appeal. I’ve paid for luggage help plenty of times when the alternative was trying to wrangle bags and kids by myself.
Sometimes convenience is worth paying for simply because it makes the logistics of getting from one place to another easier. And if my bags could leave one city without me and magically be waiting in my hotel room in the next one, I’d be very tempted to hand over the $80.
12. Saving time when vacation time is limited
Saving money on travel is always a win in my book. However, if saving money means giving up a big chunk of my vacation time, the cheaper option may not be worth it.
Bridget Thibodeaux says saving time is one of the main reasons she’s willing to spend more when she travels.
“Time is the one thing you can never get back, so whenever I head to Disney or Universal, I always pay for the skip-the-line pass version,” Thibodeaux says. “It completely changes the experience by letting you bypass the wait and move straight to more memories.”
I’m with her. When my family visits Walt Disney World or Universal Orlando Resort, I pay extra for Lightning Lane or Express Pass access, too. Theme park tickets aren’t cheap to begin with, and I’d rather spend more to fit more into the days we’re there than spend a significant part of them waiting in line.
Nicholas Rosen, travel blogger and freelance travel writer at The World Overload, applies the same logic before he even reaches the destination. He’s willing to spend more for a nonstop flight when it means protecting limited vacation time.
“You don’t want to cut into those precious minutes going from airport to airport just to save some money,” Rosen says. “All of our time is valuable and none of it should be put to waste at an airport unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
This is one of the calculations I make when I’m comparing travel costs, too. The cheapest option isn’t always the one I want once I figure out what I’m giving up to get it.
Saving $100 looks a lot less appealing if the trade-off is spending six extra hours in an airport. And on a trip I’ve already spent money and vacation days to take, I’ll sometimes pay more to get more of that time back.
13. Spending more points when it gets you something valuable
I’m a big fan of getting good value from my points and miles. But I don’t think getting the absolute maximum value out of every single point needs to be the goal. Sometimes spending more points makes sense because of what you’re getting in return.
Nancy Piccione, founder of Points Detective, likes using her points and miles to give travel to people she loves.
“I really enjoy getting to ‘gift’ family and close friends with travel,” Piccione says.
She’s used rewards to help with travel surrounding family weddings, including business- and first-class flights, hotel stays, and tours for honeymoon trips.
That one hits particularly close to home for me.
I started this list with the nearly 600,000 points I spent to bring seven people to Puerto Rico. Could I have found ways to squeeze more theoretical value out of some of those points? Probably. But putting people I love on the trip with me was more valuable to me.
Josh Bandura, travel expert and co-founder of Frugal Flyer, is willing to spend extra points for something else he values: flexibility.
When he’s booking flights several months in advance, Bandura may use more points for a ticket that allows changes or cancellations rather than choosing the cheapest award available.
“The cheapest use of points might be very costly in case of changing plans and losing the points,” Bandura says.
And then there’s the question of whether waiting for a better redemption is actually worth it.
Mendy Schonfeld, founder of Bonus Eagle, is willing to spend more points if it means traveling sooner instead of holding onto them indefinitely while waiting for the perfect redemption.
That doesn’t mean spending points without thinking about the value you’re getting. Schonfeld avoids speculative transfers, for example, and only transfers flexible rewards to an airline program when he has a specific award priced and ready to book.
But when he finds a trip that’s worth taking, he’s willing to use the points.
“The good-enough trip this year beats the perfect trip someday,” Schonfeld says, “because someday is the most expensive destination in the points world.”
The best travel splurges are personal
There’s no single travel expense that’s worth paying more for every time.
For one traveler, it might be a luxury hotel or business-class seat. For someone else, it’s a local guide, healthier food, a better view, or simply paying someone else to deal with the luggage.
The common thread in all of these answers isn’t luxury. It’s value.
And value doesn’t always show up in the lowest price or the highest cents-per-point calculation. Sometimes it’s measured in time saved, stress avoided, memories made, or people you get to bring along.
So don’t let anyone shame you for spending more on the parts of travel that matter to you. If you’ve planned for the expense, can afford it, and it’s worth the trade-off to you, it doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else.
Spend less where you won’t miss it. Spend more where you’ll be glad you did.
Michelle Lambright Black is a credit, money, and family travel expert with more than 20 years of experience in the personal finance industry. She’s the founder of CreditWriter.com, where she helps readers understand credit, make smarter money decisions, save on travel, and get more value from credit card rewards, points, and miles.
Michelle is a nationally published writer, speaker, and credit expert witness. Her work appears regularly in outlets including Forbes Advisor, Reader’s Digest, USA Today Blueprint, Newsweek Vault, Yahoo Finance, The Points Guy, Fortune Recommends, Buy Side from The Wall Street Journal, FICO, and Experian.
When she’s not writing about credit and money, Michelle shares the strategies her own family uses to travel more without blowing the budget, from points and miles to smart splurges that are actually worth paying for.
Connect with Michelle on Instagram (@CreditWriter) and TikTok (@Credit.Writer).
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