Yes you can enjoy #DubaiLife on a budget. Traveling to Dubai for a week or living the expat dream? The tips in this post will help you to enjoy your stay without breaking the bank! From apps with discount vouchers, free drinks on ladies nights, cheap mouthwatering food to hotel loyalty cards.
Keep an eye on my Instagram and Facebook page for bonus travel hacks 😉
Welcome To Dubai!
Use The Entertainer App
- What: buy 1 get 1 free on meals, activities and hotel nights
- Cost: 495 AED / 135 USD
- Get The Entertainer App
- Why:
- 689 partners in Dubai & Northern Emirates
- 300 hotels throughout the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Asia and Indian Ocean
- expensive 1+1 activities like Ski Dubai will help to save a lot even if you are just a visitor
- I don’t use it that often and already saved over 390 USD
Use the FREE Guzzle App
- What: buy 1 get 1 free on drinks
- Cost: FREE
- Get The Guzzle App
- Why
- FREE, FREE, FREE
Use Cobone and Groupon Deals
- What: discount voucher
- Cost: FREE
- Groupon Website and Cobone Webiste
Bar hopping on Ladies night
- What: In a lot of bars Ladies get (a few to unlimited, depending on the bar) free drinks on certain days. No purchase required at all, no catch just free drinks and therefore a lot of savings.
- Cost: FREE
- On ladiesnightdubai.com you can find out which venues have Ladies night today!
Try some some off the beaten path restaurants
- What: Expensive restaurant bills do not necessarily mean great food. I suggest you give the local Arabic restaurants a try. And take advantage of the multicultural aspect of this city.
Dubai hosts a lot of different nationalities and everyone sometimes craves for good home cooked food. Needless to say you can find restaurants serving any type of cuisine. And often the cheap, not-fancy looking, small places, serve mouthwatering authentic food. Some off the beaten path restaurants:- North Korean BBQ (yes North)
- Authentic Vietnamese Restaurant Hanoi
- Filipino Boodle Fight (eat with your hands)
- Checkout the find me a break blog to discover more cool places
Join a hotel loyalty program, I recently joined Starwoods Preferred Guest (SPG)
- Cost: FREE
- Starwoods website
- Â Why
- There are 19 Starwood hotels in Dubai (all of them have several restaurants and bars)
- Earn SPG points and save for a free nights
- You can transfer your SPG points to an airline miles program
Use a credit card to earn air miles or hotel points
- Ask your bank about credit cards that will help you collect air miles or hotel points.
- Living in Dubai? Checkout The Emirates NBD SPG World MasterCard.
With 19 Starwood hotels in just Dubai it makes sense to have a card that gives you discount + helps you to collect Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) points while you are having a good time. To maximize your advantages, I recommend reading the tips and tricks on Eat Drink Stay Dubai.
Advantages of the Emirates NBD SPG World MasterCard- Cost: 1500 AED joining fee
- You get
- 25.000 SPG points
- another 25.000 SPG points if you have a cumulative retail spends of US$ 10,000 in the first 3 billing statements (very expensive points so don’t count on these unless you really need to spend this much)
- You will automatically get gold member status
- Upgrades to enhanced rooms at check-in
- 4pm late checkout, when available
- A welcome gift with each stay: Choose from bonus Starpoints, free premium in-room Internet access or a complimentary drink
- up to 30% discount on premium dining at over 1,000 participating restaurants. For more details, visit spgrestaurantsandbars.com
- up to 20% discount at participating Starwood SPA Properties in the UAE.
- Complimentary access to 500+ airport lounges worldwide
- Mention LoungeKey to the staff
- The Dubai International Business Class Lounge in terminal 1 is included!
- Check the full list here
- Many more benefits are listed here
Thanks for the shoutout, and cheers for the great tips.
Agree that Dubai need not be expensive (unless one likes to partake in drinking).
Sorry for the plug, but will shortly be publishing a series of articles called ‘brunch budget beds”, which shows business class Dubai hotels available for less than the cost of a brunch.
Everyone seems to think Dubai hotels are expensive, but there’s ways to get them cheap – and also earn/benefit from loyalty programs too – and don’t ever take the travel agent price!
Nice looking forward to those articles! Do some of those packages offer free breakfast? Because that would be very close to a brunch without drinks!