Best AARP Travel Benefits for Seniors

It’s no secret that AARP travel benefits have been slipping from the membership’s privileges in recent years, but many of the discounts for 2018 remain useful for travel deals and discounts.

AARP Travel Benefits 2018

Here are four potentially important deals you won’t find anywhere else, such as AAA or other loyalty programs.

British Airways Discounts

Buying a round-trip ticket on British Airways through the AARP travel portal gets you $65 USD off the price in economy or premium economy, and $200 off the price in business class. (Last year’s discount on premium economy was $130, but after testing some booking it seems that benefit has shrunk to the same as regular economy’s $65 discount.)

AARP is about the only place most travelers can find true “dollars-off” airfare discounts of any kind. The $200 business class discount can be a wildly valuable benefit when you apply it to a flash sale fare that’s already highly discounted.

18 Percent Discount on Medjet Assistance

AARP travel affords discounts of 18 percent off most enrollment options for MedjetAssist and MedjetHorizon, programs that offer emergency medical evacuation and crisis response assistance to travelers. Medjet is popular with lots of frequent flyers who do not buy medevac coverage in policies bundled with trip-cancellation insurance. If you need these protections, this AARP travel discount is a good way to get them.

Tour and Cruise Discounts

AARP travel includes $50 to $100 per-person discounts on select tours and cruises, including those operated by Collette Tours and Cruises and Grand European Travel. There’s also five percent discounts applied to Vacations by Rail, and varying exclusive discounts on Liberty Travel packages.

12 Percent Parking Reservation Discount

AARP members get 12 percent discounts on 150 off-airport parking locations reserved through Park Ride Fly. Again, this is probably as good a deal on parking as you’re likely to find anywhere.

Other AARP Travel Deals

This year AARP’s hotel program is smaller, but it includes most locations and brands of Choice‘s budget-priced hotels, Wyndham‘s mid-price hotels, and Hilton‘s more upscale offerings, along with Best Western and LaQuinta, which were recently acquired by Wyndham. The deal is either 10 percent, or “up to” 10 percent at most locations.

It’s worth noting that the AARP program lost Starwood and Motel 6 for this year, but similar hotel discounts are widely available to members of many other organizations, including AAA.

For rental cars, AARP now deals only with the Avis Budget Group, which includes the Avis, Budget, Payless, and Zipcar brands. The primary benefit at Avis, Budget, and Payless is fees are waived for one extra driver.

You Tell Us: Do you use a travel benefits program like AARP? Comment below.

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Consumer advocate Ed Perkins has been writing about travel for more than three decades. The founding editor of the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, he continues to inform travelers and fight consumer abuse every day at SmarterTravel.