I’ve discovered many different ways to save money on leisure expenses through research, trial and error and sometimes dumb luck. Some of the ways we’ve gotten a discount on themepark tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, concert tickets and more are:
- AAA Membership
- Entertainment Book
- Employee Discount Programs
- Casino Loyalty Programs
- AARP Membership
I’m now able to add one more way to get discounts to the list. I just found a link to a discounted travel portal through my college alumni association.
I’m not a person who’s filled with pride about my college. I don’t follow its sports teams or even own one piece of clothing with the school logo. I went there for an education and received what I paid for. My main interaction with the school at this point is the school magazine that shows up in my mailbox a few times a year. At one point, I must have signed up for the Alumni Association because they have my email.
I recently received an email from them letting me know about all of the good discounts available to members. I took a few minutes, reset my password for the portal and logged in. The home page was what I expected, with ads for life insurance, gym memberships and an online shopping portal.
However, one of the banners caught my attention.
A few more clicks and I found links to hotel discounts, themepark tickets and event tickets. The main provider for these services is PerksCard. Their website shows some deeply discounted hotel rooms, particularly in major travel destinations like Las Vegas and Orlando. They also list tickets for concerts, Broadway shows and sporting events. They also sell discounted tickets to Disney World and Universal Orlando directly from the website.
I also dug a little deeper and found links for the second and third-tier amusement parks and found a website for Working Advantage that looked awfully familiar.
I logged into my work benefits account and went to the Tickets at Work website that I’ve talked about previously. I was right; it’s the same website.
I compared prices for tickets to Dollywood on the two websites and the prices were identical. The same company runs the two websites.
I’m mentioning this because it’s an additional way that someone might have access to these discount programs. I searched for the PerksCard program and found that they provide services to many different schools and several major employers. I would never have thought to look at my college alumni program to find discounts on theme park tickets, hotel rooms and rental cars.
If you are a sports superfan, your alumni program may also have exclusive discounts for area businesses, hotels, and restaurants when you come back to see whatever sporting event you like to root for. You’re not going to find those discounts anywhere else.
Want to comment on this post? Great! Read this first to help ensure it gets approved.
Like this post? Please share it! We have plenty more just like it and would love it if you decided to hang around and get emailed notifications of when we post. Or maybe you’d like to join our Facebook group – we have 22,000+ members and we talk and ask questions about travel (including Disney parks), creative ways to earn frequent flyer miles and hotel points, how to save money on or for your trips, get access to travel articles you may not see otherwise, etc. Whether you’ve read our posts before or this is the first time you’re stopping by, we’re really glad you’re here and hope you come back to visit again!
This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
Cover Image by Okan Caliskan from Pixabay
