Travel Finances: Austin Texas

Left: Wednesday October 18th

Returned: Monday October 23rd

This post is a breakdown of what we spent money on for our trip to Austin Texas for the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix. Check out the post where we ate in Austin HERE, our travel guide to Austin HERE, how I surprised Travis with the trip HERE, and a video of our trip HERE.

I’m going to preface this by saying that this wasn’t a cheap trip (at least to our standards). Cities usually jack up prices of hotel and travel if they know a big event is going on, so that didn’t work in our favor. Also, I was able to purchase our plane tickets, and the Formula 1 tickets back in April and pay those off before we even got there, so it wasn’t as big of a hit all at once.

Without further a-do, here is the breakdown of the money we spent to travel to Austin Texas for the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix week.

TRANSPORTATION

Austin isn’t a public transportation friendly city, so we rented a car to get around. I’m also going to include our shuttle passes to get to and from the track in this category as well. We choose taking the shuttles versus parking at the track because a parking pass for parking at the track was outrageously expensive and I read that traffic can be horrible getting to and from the track.

RENTAL CAR + FEES (GAS + PARKING FEES): $401.51

SHUTTLE PASSES: $95.41 (and yes, the parking at the track was more expensive than this!)

TRANSPORTATION TOTAL: $496.92

FLIGHTS

We flew from Ontario into Austin via Southwest Airlines. We didn’t apply any airline points for this trip because I didn’t have enough points for the round trip, and I had to book Trav’s ticket without entering his rewards number so I didn’t ruin the surprise. Although he was able to go back after our trip and enter his rewards number to redeem the points for the flights. If we aren’t using points, we are accumulating them- so thats ok with me!

TWO FLIGHTS + EARLY BIRD CHECK IN TOTAL: $711.90

This includes all of our food for the entire trip. From food at the airport, to food at the Formula 1 race, to all our restaurant and dessert stops. We didn’t purposefully seek out cheaper or more expensive places to eat, we just ate where we wanted too (as we do whenever we travel). This number is about what I would’ve guessed we spent on food during our trip.

FOOD TOTAL: $316.49

Read more about where we ate in Austin HERE.

HOTEL

Let it be known that I booked our hotel 6 months in advanced and it was still more money than I would’ve liked to spend for the hotel we stayed in. We stayed at a Hyatt House on the North side of Austin. It wasn’t the nicest hotel, and definitely not worth the price we paid for it, but it turned out to be ok because there was a small kitchenette in our room and they had complimentary breakfast that we took advantage of on two different mornings.

—I checked hotel and AirBnB prices throughout the year for the dates we were traveling to Austin and all accommodations were extremely over priced.

HOTEL TOTAL (5 nights total): $957.35

Read more about where we stayed in Austin HERE.

This includes our general admission tickets to the race, the Justin Timberlake concert upgrades, the F1 race merchandise bought at the track, the bikes we rode around town on, our bat cruise, the fee I paid to get another general admission wristband because mine became too tight (rolls eyes..), and our multiple target runs while we were there because we forgot to pack a couple things.

TOTAL: $766.68 

TO NOTE: Our three day F1 general admission tickets and the concert upgrade ($99 per person), combined, totaled $589

---

GRAND TOTAL FOR OUR TRIP: $3249.34

-After we allocated $500 worth of credit card miles the trip came down to $2749.34

PER PERSON PER DAY FOR 6 DAYS (after miles were applied): $229

---

Because this was Travis’ birthday gift for his 30th birthday (see how I surprised him with the trip HERE), we went all out and loved every minute of it. We’ve talked and said if/when we go back to Austin for another Formula 1 race there are a few things we will do differently to save money.

1. We won’t spend as many days in Austin. We’ve explored Austin, so there is no need to reserve a full day to explore Austin. We would probably leave Friday morning and come home Monday, saving two days worth of a car rental and two nights of hotel stay.
2. We will be driving to the track to save money versus taking the shuttle. Our friends who go every year found great parking not too far from the track on property that isn’t associated with the track, for far less than we paid for our shuttle passes and far less than parking at the track.
3. Unless Justin Timberlake (or Blink 182, Twenty one pilots, or the Killers) decides to play the Saturday or Sunday concert, I highly doubt we would be buying the upgraded concert passes. The concerts are free to all ticket holders, you just don’t get to be up front like we were without paying for the upgrade.
4. Wait for cheaper flights. Southwest often has ‘sales’ and I after I booked our flights, I had found flights to Austin for cheaper than what I had already paid for. Or use miles we have accumulated for flights.

So there you have it, a breakdown of our financials for our trip to Austin Texas and how we can save money during future trips to Austin for the F1 race. We ended up using $500 worth of travel credit accumulated on our Barclay Arrival+ credit card, and we do have a Hyatt Hotels and Southwest airline accounts to accumulate points and nights for future travel.