If you are planning a trip to Miami, see our guide with all the steps and useful tips to save a lot of money! See below our tips and make the most of every minute in Miami:
After reading this article, check out our tips about how to save a lot of money on your trip to Miami. It is the most accessed article on our blog and will help you with all the trip planning. There are several unmissable tips that will save you A LOT of cash and set up your entire trip to Miami.
1) Plan your calendar
The first of the tips to save money on your trip to Miami is the simplest of all, but it is the one that will save you the most: avoid traveling in high season. At the middle and the end of the year, everything is much more expensive in Miami. If you travel in the low season, wich means the least crowded season, you will pay cheaper on almost everything and will run away from queues and crowds.
We recommend you avoid the months of july, december and january, in special. And also the weeks of the American Spring Break (usually in March, but it changes every year) and the Easter holiday in April. In these months, you will pay less for everything!
2) Plan how many days you’ll stay
Calculate the number of days you will spend in Miami by what you want to see there, excluding the days of arrival and departure. So you have an idea of what you want to visit, how many beaches you want to go to, and whether you want to go to other attractions, like museums. Miami’s beaches are very popular with tourists, because they are beautiful and have options for all tastes. So take a few days to get to know each one of them.
When planning a trip to Miami, shopping cannot be left out. We know that tourists dream of cheap and good shopping in Miami, so we recommend that you set aside two, three or even four days of shopping there. The malls, outlets and stores are huge, and you will take a long time in each one. Already set aside a day for the Sawgrass Mills Outlet, which is the largest in Florida. Another day already set aside for Dolphin Mall or Aventura Mall. There are two excellent shopping malls.
3) Pick your documents
Depending on where you are, you will need an ID, a new passport and a visa to visit Miami. Don’t forget to check you documents dates, because if something is wrong, you can be forbidden to enter Florida.
4) Buy your flight ticket
By following some important tips, you will be able to find cheaper air tickets to Miami and save a lot (since the ticket is the most expensive item of the trip). The first great tip is to access some airline comparator, which does a search on all airlines for Miami. It saves you from having to log into each company’s website and shows you all the options available.
We always use this comparator of airline tickets, because it is the one that always has the best prices and is one of the safest and most famous in the world. Click on it and follow the tips below to buy the tickets. Just using it, you will be able to find the best prices.
Airfare tips to save money on your trip to Miami: always check the price of the ticket to another nearby city, such as Orlando. Sometimes you can get lucky and find cheaper flights at these cities, and then just buy a domestic flight to Miami, that is much cheaper, or even go by car. Another tip is to research the flight date always on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. Thursday, Friday and mainly Saturday and Sunday flights are usually more expensive. Normally, night air tickets are the most expensive, and afternoon flights are cheaper. And the more stops the flight has, the cheaper it gets.
5) Hire an international travel insurance
An item that is indispensable for a trip to the United States, or any other place in the world, is the International Travel Insurance. It is a super cheap insurance that covers you for any unforeseen events you may have abroad, such as average assistance, dental care and luggage theft.
An appointment abroad costs more than US$ 400, and that’s why any tourist prefer to be assured with a travel insurance – you can save a lot of money just by making a very cheap insurance.
There is a travel insurance comparator that is excellent and searches all travel insurance in all the major companies in the United States. If you want to do the research now, click here on travel insurance comparator. In less than a minute you have the budget for all travel insurance, and you can hire yours.
Then, just print out the policy and take it with you on your trip. We recommend the companies Travel Ace, Assist Card, GTA, Green Card and SulAmerica, which are the world leaders. They are extremely reliable and always have the best prices.
6) Buy an international cell phone chip
Another way to save in Miami and Orlando is to use your cell phone. Using your international roaming abroad is usually the worst option and ends up being much more expensive. To use wi-fi, you will depend of the hotel or some restaurants that you’re in.
So, what most people do and is very worthwhile is to buy an international prepaid chip from an American company. It ends up being MUCH cheaper and you can use the internet throughout all your trip and with an excellent signal. We always use it and recommed!
If you are renting a car, the chip will come out for free, because with your cell phone working you won’t need to rent the GPS with the car rental company (because you can use it in the cell phone). The amount you will save from the GPS already pays the chip.
After all these years, testing several different chips and traveling all over the world, the one that we like the most and always use now is this travel chip. It has a good price and an excellent service. The signal was excellent in all the cities that we visited, and you can buy it super fast on their website. The chip is digital, and it is called eSIM.
You receive the instructions and install it on your cell phone, from anywhere in the world, using a QR code. It is no longer necessary to have the chip, int he physical way. This makes it a lot cheaper and a lot more practical. You can buy from anywhere in the world and install it right on your phone. And using our coupon GRUPODICAS you get a discount!
7) Book your car rental
Miami is a city to be explored by a car, as it has several beautiful beaches and outlets, all spread over different regions. Tourists who go there usually prefer to rent a nice car and drive around the city. It helps a lot, it’s an incredible experience, and you have the freedom to go wherever you want (including visiting near cities like Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, Key West and Orlando). And for those who want to go shopping, it is even more important.
1: Book your car in advance
The first tip to save when renting a car is to book as far in advance as possible over the Internet – the sooner you book, the cheaper you will pay. Make your reservation online as soon as possible; it is very worthwhile it and you can save money with earlier promotions, paying much cheaper compared to renting closer to your trip.
2: Don’t rent a GPS in Miami
Another cool tip to save money on your trip to Miami is to not to rent any GPS. Instead it, use your cell phone’s GPS. This will save you about US$ 120 from your GPS rental, and the chip you will use on your phone will come out practically for free (see more bellow).
3: Use amazing price comparators
There are two car rental price comparators in Miami that are amazing and do a great search on all the major car rental companies of the city, finding the best prices and great deals. As they are the largest comparators in the world, they have unbeatable partnerships and prices with rental companies. We have already saved a lot on a car rental in Miami that we were going to do with an agency and we found the same car from the same company much cheaper on the comparator. Use both of them and see which one is more worthwhile, to save even more.
Price Comparator 1: one of the largest comparator in the world, with great deals.
Price Comparator 2: the largest comparator in the world! It has more companies in its search, and the payment is always made in dollars.
More tips: Prefer the larger and more reliable rental companies, such as Alamo, Hertz, Dollar, Budget and Avis. Take out basic insurance at the time of booking, which is super important and is usually already included in the price – but don’t take other extra insurances offered by the companies, usually at the time of picking up the car. It’s just not worth it. With all these tips and comparators, you can save up to US$ 200 on rent.
8) Book a hotel room
One of the most important tips to save money on your trip to Miami is to try to save as much as possible on lodging in Miami, which is not as cheap as Orlando. It is where you will spend a good part of your budget.
Location: Staying in Miami Beach is, of course, the most popular option, but there are regions a little further away that are great and much cheaper. The Downtown area (in the Brickell neighborhood) is also very well located, and the hotels are much more affordable. We always stay there and it’s 10 minutes away of Miami Beach.
Near cities, like Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton, are great. Even though they are not in the center of the action, they are beautiful places that will take you only 20 or 30 minutes by car to Miami’s main attractions and to Miami Beach. Also look for the north beaches of Miami, which are beautiful, peaceful and have great options for cheap hotels facing the beach.
Use the hotel search: A great tip to find good hotels, with incredible prices, in the region you want and save a lot on accommodation, is to use this Hotel Search Engine in Miami. We always use it, as it is the largest hotel booking site in the world. Not to mention that it has all the hotels in Miami, Orlando and the world in his searches, with unbeatable prices due to the strong negotiation they do. And there you can check the opinion of other tourists who have already stayed in hotels, which helps a lot when evaluating each one.
Free cancellation: Another very good tip is that this search engine has a very strong partnership with the establishments and they offer free cancellation in almost all hotels. This is great, because the factor that will save you the most in hosting is the advance. The sooner you make the reservation, the cheaper you pay. So, you can book your hotel now, to guarantee the lowest price, and if you find a better one afterwards (or just don’t want to stay in it), just cancel for free.
Hotels we’ve stayed in over the past few trips:
- Hotel Hampton Inn: VERY GOOD hotel we stayed in Downtown Miami, with great location
- Novotel Miami Brickell: the cheapest hotel we have ever stayed in Downtown, and it’s great!
- Hotel The Palms & Spa: incredible resort hotel on Miami Beach and with a good price
- Hotel Abae: the cheapest hotel we have ever stayed in Miami Beach. Good and well located
9) Save 55% on attractions using GoCard Miami
GoCard Miami is the main ticket combo in the city. With it you have access to more than 27 attractions and tourist points in Miami and save up to 55% of what you would spend if you bought the tickets separately. It is very worth it and, in addition to saving a good amount of money, you also save a lot of time that would be necessary at each ticket office of each attraction, since you already travel with the tickets to them all in your hands.
If you want it, click here on GoCard Miami. Their website is very good and explains everything perfectly. It works per day, so you can buy the option 1, 2, 3 or 5 days, but it doesn’t need to be used at days in a row. If you want to buy the 3-day card, for example, you can use it on 3 different days of your choice within a 14-day period (it starts counting from the day you use it for the first time).
On each day, you can go to as many attractions as you want. The moment you buy it on the website, you already receive the digital card on your cell phone and just show it at the entrances of the venues. The best places included in the card are the Miami Seaquarium, Jungle Island, boat trip through Key Biscayne, boat trip through South Beach, ride on a mini boat through the Everglades (a natural park of alligators), Miami Zoo and Viscaya Museum.
Also included are some great remaining attractions in Orlando, such as the Kennedy Space Center (NASA Park), WonderWorks, and Fun Spot Park. They are very good tour options and the card is really worth it and makes your trip much easier.
10) Plan to see sports game in Miami
We love to go seeing games and shows (there are always shows of famous international singers and bands there) when we travel to Orlando and Miami, because even if you don’t like sports, it is an incredible experience to see the culture of the Americans there. The stadiums are very nice, everything is well organized and always very lively. We went to a lot of them, and found this tickets website wich is very good page to buy tickets for all the games, shows and sporting events in the United States.
Because it is one of the largest websites in the world, it has shows and events from all the United States and world championships. And it was also the page where we found the cheapest and easiest tickets to buy. The best sports to watch are NBA (Basketball), NFL (American Football). The NHL (Ice Hockey) and MLB (Baseball). See what matches with your trip date and watch at least one of the matches on your vacation and a show of one of your idols.
Must-see articles from Miami:
- Best things to do in Miami: must-see places and sights in Miami.
- Best places to go shopping in Miami: a complete guide to shopping in Miami.
- Best beaches to visit in Miami: the most beautiful beaches on Miami.
