How to Cash in Those 400,000,000 Un-Used Vacation Days with Bed & Breakfast Deals

Thousands of bed and breakfast innkeepers in towns and cities across the United States are waiting for you to use your vacation days and are offering crazy deals to make it easy for you to getaway. One nation-wide program gives 50% off on a two night stay.

Vacation Benefits – they are negotiated during the hiring process and bragged about to colleagues.  And unions of every kind have fought for 60 to 100 years for vacation days. So why are they left unused? MasterCard estimates that 400,000,000 (yes, you are reading that correctly, 400 million!) vacation days are unused.

What Holds You Back From Your Vacations?

There are at least 5 unused vacation days per working adult and many people have 10, 20, 30 or more. You’ve worked hard for those days! What’s keeping you home?

“But I can’t take a whole week off.” This is a common excuse but think of it another way. Who says you have to take an entire week at once? Take a couple days here and there. Imagine how exhilarating it will be to sleep late on a Tuesday morning. Or soak in some rays on a Wednesday afternoon. Or stay out late on a Thursday because you have nowhere to be on Friday.

Draw a Circle Two Hours Drive Time From Your Home

You’ll be surprised how much you might explore within a two-hour drive of your home. Choose a town or region then look at bed and breakfast inns in the area. For instance, there’s an apple growing region an hour and a half from me located in Julian, California but by talking to the innkeeper at Orchard Hill, I also discovered both a wolf preserve and a 9-telescope astronomy night within five miles of the inn. Once you overcome inertia and make a plan you can relax and let someone else make the bed, fix the breakfast and help you find just the right adventure or simply a scenic picnic spot, fabulous local bookstore or amazing hike.

 

Find a Deal

With the iLoveInns BOGO* program you can take a midweek break for half-off. And that includes breakfast both mornings. How can you afford to not take a trip? Choose a town, then look for an inn with a Green tab that says next to it Free Night Participating Inn.  For instance, look up Santa Barbara and scanning down the list of bed and breakfasts you’ll see four that have a green tab. That means that even this popular destination with access to a population of 15 million people, often has times when properties want to offer a deal in order to keep the inn full. That’s where the Buy-One-Night-Get-the-Second-Night voucher helps both the innkeeper and the traveler. So in this case you might score a beautiful inn for $150 for 2 Nights complete with breakfast for 2 each morning. And in a high demand destination.

Combine Your Days with Weekends

Many vacation getaway savvy travelers simply take a Friday and Monday off and combine it with Saturday and Sunday to get four-day holidays. If you have 14 paid vacation days that would allow you to score seven of these mini getaways, or combine a couple days with holidays like 4th of July, Memorial Day etc.

Plan

Another problem is lack of planning. Our suggestion is to get your calendar out and book some dates, perhaps birthdays or an anniversary. You can start with two or three dates spread out over the year, but make yourself commit by making an actual reservation. (Keep in mind – you can usually cancel if an emergency comes up, just check the cancelation policy.) And most of all, it doesn’t have to be perfect – the main point is to do it.

How To

Spend some time surfing www.iloveinns, draw up a few possibilities, then put in your leave request. Just thinking about it should be energizing. Then when you have arrived to start your getaway explore and wander to your heart’s content – or find the inn’s porch swing and do nothing – all will be a new experience. Either way you’ll be refreshed and ready to dive in when you get back home. To overcome post-vacation blues when you get home, experts suggest you  plan your next getaway.

 

*Buy-One-Night-Get-the-Second-Night Free