Planning a trip to England to see Stonehenge and Buckingham Palace? It may be cheaper to add Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate to the itinerary.
UK teenager Jordon Cox saved £7.72 ($11.06) and added 1,637 kilometers (1,017 miles) to his journey by taking a sightseeing detour to Berlin on his trip from Sheffield in northern England to Shenfield in the south.
He even had cash spare for a four-hour jaunt around the German capital, where he enjoyed a $2 currywurst lunch, visited Potsdamer Platz and Checkpoint Charlie, and took in the free tour at the Reichstag parliament building.
Bargain-hunter Cox, 18, blogs for consumer advice website Money Saving Expert under the moniker The Coupon Kid. His thrifty cash-saving skills once saw him net more than $800 of groceries for six cents. But even he admits in his blog that his latest adventure “is a rather extreme way of saving money.”
Cox was making the 228-kilometer journey to Sheffield from his home town of Shenfield, Essex, to teach a class on – unsurprisingly – saving money by collecting coupons.
Deal-detecting skills
He managed to score a cheap $27 train ticket on the way north, but the return journey was set to cost him a whopping £47 ($67). That’s 29 cents per kilometer. Using the Internet and his deal-detecting skills, he realized he could fly home via Milan, Copenhagen, Berlin or Dublin with lbudget airline Ryanair – and it’d still be cheaper than a train journey in England.
Destinations: England | Germany
“I chose to travel via Berlin as it was the cheapest and the farthest away so I would get my money’s worth,” he told the Daily Mail.
So, skipping the three-hour train trip, he spent £4 on a train from Sheffield to Derby, £4.20 on a bus from Derby to East Midlands Airport, £11.83 on a Ryanair flight to Berlin, £9.54 on a flight from Berlin to Stansted and £8 on his bus ride home.
A 13-hour journey, but a total spend of £44.07 ($63). For a 1,637-kilometer journey, that’s less than four cents a kilometer.
Tips from the expert
So how do we get in on this money-saving action?
Cox recommends looking for the best deals two to four weeks before the travel date, bearing in mind it’ll probably be necessary to book two separate flights, and factor in extra booking fees and travel to and from the airport.
His Berlin tickets were booked three weeks in advance.
“If you’re not in a rush, your focus is saving money and you fancy a little walk around a European city, it’s worth a look.”
He admits it’s not an environmentally friendly way to travel, but adds: “I got to enjoy a ‘free’ mini holiday to a city I’ve always always wanted to visit. Next time you’re traveling on a train be sure to look up prices for flights as well.”