Twenty ways to cut the cost of your summer holiday before you leave home

Twenty ways to cut the cost of your summer holiday before you leave home

A standard return on the non-stop Gatwick Express from London Victoria costs £28.80. The Southern service between the same stations takes five minutes longer and has a standard price of £10.90 each way, but you can buy two £5 singles if you book sufficiently far in advance.

2: Take the tube

A Heathrow Express train from London Paddington costs £32 return. A single tube ticket from zone 1 to Heathrow costs £4. A one-day family travel card for two adults and two children (five to 15) will cost £8.

3: Take the bus

The Stansted Express costs £26.80 return from London Liverpool St and takes 52 minutes. The Terravision bus outside the station claims to take 55 minutes and costs £13 return.

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4: Advance book the airport car park

You pay £60 for one week's parking at Manchester Airport if you just turn up. Book in advance and it's £55. Or try the likes of airport-parking-shop.co.uk for quotes on car parks nearby with regular shuttles to the terminals. The cheapest we found was £19.44 for a week in August.

5: Beat the "super collision damage waiver (CDW)" car hire sting

You could save a fortune by using an insurance policy to cover the extras demanded by rental firms at foreign airports. Insurance4carhire.com offers a starting price of £49 a year (Europe only) that will cover the extra insurances which can typically put £30 a week on your basic rental bill.

6: Find cheap car hire

Guardian Money likes Holiday Autos (holidayautos.com) - it's not the absolute cheapest but is very competitive as it includes the extra CDW mentioned in point five.

7: Fly Thursday, return Tuesday

Looking for a free flight? Don't expect to find one flying out Friday returning on Sunday evening. The best-value Ryanair deals are nearly always found on flights travelling on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

8: Get a Visa Electron card

When using a standard debit or credit card, Ryanair charges £4.75 per person per single journey. EasyJet charges a minimum £1.95 per transaction. But if you have a Visa Electron debit card, there are no card charges. To obtain an Electron card, try halifax.co.uk and open an Easycash account online.

9: Never opt for "dynamic currency conversion"

This is the fastest-growing rip-off of British holidaymakers. Shops will let you pay in sterling rather than local currency, but the currency conversion rate used will be lousy and it will cost you 1%-5% more. The same goes for cash machines, which will offer "press yes for GBP, no for EUR". Holidaymakers should just press "no".

10: Get a Nationwide Flex Account card

All big banks impose a "foreign loading charge" of around 2.75% every time customers use their debit or credit card abroad. Using a cash machine abroad attracts a fee of 1.5% with a minimum charge of around £1.50. But you can avoid these charges in Europe if you take out a Nationwide Flex debit card as there are no extra charges.