Tips on reducing costs of a big vacation

Don't bring your wife

air bnb for cheap as hell places to stay. Also try hostels.com

People routinely travel in central america for less than $10 a day.

My sister spent 4 months in Europe and spent less than $4,000

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What are some suggestions for maybe scoring a discount/upgrade on hotel, flights, food, etc... when vacationing 5 days or more? How does the board feel about contacting a travel consultant to assist with planning?

Background:
I am looking at a week long vacation plus 2 days of travel in about 6 months. I currently do not have a high enough credit limit to pay the entire vacation on my credit cards so I will miss out on at least some cash back opportunities. The trip will be within the states so no international planning is not required.

//Edited to add: This will be a honeymoon so the wallet will be opened up a little more than I prefer.

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Skyscanner.com

Put in the dates, your departing airport and then "everywhere" as the destination. Be flexible on the dates and you will have even more options. In terms of finding affordable air travel, it is the best thing since sliced bread.

So if you can find one of those timeshare deals all you have to do is sit through the presentation for a couple of hours and this will allow you to have a cheap week as well as have a full kitchen. The full kitchen will save you money because it will allow you to dine in every once in awhile.

if you near a few hours from multiple airports, shop each for your flights. usually cheaper to fly out of major airport.

if your dates are a little flexible, do a lot of shopping around different days and hotels. honeymoon is one of the times i would recommend a nicer hotel - you will more time in the room than on most trips. i found a great deal on a room at a waldorf for mine - totally worth the money.

depending on where you are going, i agree that vrbo is awesome. you could possibly score a condo or house for cheaper than a hotel. i usually try to find places owned by individuals and not managed professionally for better deals.

the best advice to me is start looking to book stuff now. closer you get, prices generally going up

If flying domestically, and can get a new credit card, today is the last day to get the 50,000 point Southwest card from Chase. That will pay for you and the Mrs.

AirBnB is pretty neat. I actually just used it to rent an apartment for a week in Barcelona later this year. $100 a night for what would be a >$300 hotel room quality wise.

Will probably use it to book a villa in Miami later this year for a bachelor party then stuff 12 bros in there.