Spending smart: How this couple winged their way through Kiwi land

The Luthras cracked the code for a cost-conscious New Zealand honeymoon with smart hacks, sharp planning

- Shipra Singh

How do you plan a budget international vacation? Pick a destination with affordable flight options, book alternative lodgings at hotels, utilize public transport, and shortlist free or low-cost activities. One holiday destination that ticks very few boxes on this checklist is New Zealand.

Due to its geographical isolation, high cost of living, and long distances for inter-city commute, a holiday to the Kiwi land is prohibitively expensive for Indians. However, Mumbai's Shashwat Luthra and Kriti Sinha have some cost-saving hacks from their vacation in New Zealand that helped the couple save costs on car rentals, meals and activities. As part of Mint's travel series, Luthra shared how the couple enjoyed their amazing 11-day honeymoon in the country for under ₹7 lakh.

Long flights and visa While planning for our honeymoon, we both realized this was one of the few times with our corporate jobs that we were getting such a long time off. We wanted to make the most of it, so we decided to travel to New Zealand. Our flight was 18 hours long, with a layover of an hour and a half in Singapore. We took Singapore Airlines so that the layover in Singapore would be without transit visa. The other option was Qantas, which had a stopover in Australia and required a transit visa. So, we picked Singapore to save on the transit visa fee.

Flights were our biggest expense, at ₹2.42 lakh. But we chose the fastest option, even though there were options at half our price with a 22-28-hour duration. The visa process is completely online but time-consuming. We did not apply for a spouse visa together since we were not married by then. We applied from our base cities-Delhi and Mumbai-and observed that the visa from Delhi took a longer time of 24 days, while the Mumbai one came in 11 days.