TRAVEL FINANCES: PORTLAND, OREGON

This is post 3 of 4 documenting our first time in Portland, Oregon. Read about what we did in Portland HERE, what we ate in Portland HERE, and stay tuned for our Vlog about Portland! (gotta cover all basis!)

This post is a breakdown of where we spent money on our trip to Portland. We arrived in Portland on a Thursday night and left the following Monday. So we stayed for a total of 4 nights and had 3 full days to explore.

I am always fascinated with how others spend money while traveling, and how they are able to save money using “travel hacks.” So here is our budget breakdown.

FLIGHTS

We flew out of Ontario, California to PDX on a Thursday night and then flew home (same route, but opposite) Monday afternoon. We flew Southwest and used points for both of our flights

Round Trip Ticket: $235.59 per person

We applied airline miles to come down to a total of..

FLIGHT TOTAL: $22 / person (due to fees)

TRANSPORTATION

We did a lot of exploring within Portland along with two day trips, both being about an hour and a half away from Portland. So we needed a car for all that traveling. Luckily, we found a pretty good deal on a rental car through Southwest. And score, we earned 600 Southwest points by booking the rental car through their website. For the most part, we found free parking wherever we went, and ended up only needing to fill the tank of gas up once when we returned it.

RENTAL CAR: $149.52

FEES (GAS + PARKING FEES): $50.35

TRANSPORTATION TOTAL: $199.87

FOOD

We pretty much ate our way through Portland. Portland has so many different places to eat that aren’t chain restaurants and we were determined to try as many as our stomach would allow us. So, the bulk of the money we spent in Portland was on delicious food.

Read more about where we ate in Portland HERE.

FOOD TOTAL: $361.92

AIR BNB

We finally bit the bullet and tried Air BNB. I did research hotels in Portland when we were booking our trip, but everything was outrageously priced. Delta Airlines had a deal that if I booked my Air BNB through their link, I could get $50 off our first stay, and earn 5x points / $1 spent on our first booking. So that’s what I did.

Read more about where we stayed in Portland HERE.

After saving $50 for our first booking, our AirBNB came down to a total of..

Air BNB total: $533 (comes out to about $133 / night after fees and taxes which is better than the hotels I was considering!)

*Heads up, if you reserve an Air BnB through the above links, I will be compensated for sharing with you. But bonus, you get $20 off your first reservation!

OTHER EXPENSES

We didn’t have too many other expenses outside of food. We went to the ACE hotel and took photos in the Photo Booth ($5), we rode bikes around downtown ($10), and we bought a few souvenirs ($12.50).

Read more about what we did in Portland HERE.

TOTAL: $27.50

Total saved by receiving discounts, and using airline travel points: $521.18

GRAND TOTAL: $1144.29

PER PERSON PER DAY (for 4 days): $143.03

So there you have it, a breakdown of how much we spent for our trip to Portland, and what we were able to earn points on when booking our travel. I wouldn’t say that we are travel hackers, and I don’t like to spend a lot of time and energy into saving a buck or two here, but we do utilize our credit card and airline points when we can. I find it almost inspiring reading about how others spend money on their travels (and travel for free!). Most times it makes traveling seem more attainable and not such a far off goal.

Because we used our Barclays Arrival+ Credit Card for all purchases made for and during this trip, we were able to rack up points for our next trip. We also have a Southwest airline and Delta airline accounts to accumulate points for future travel.

You can read more about our past travel expenses: NEW YORK AND BOSTON