Earn through your Holiday

1. Buy your holiday through a cashback site

Book your holiday through a cashback site and you will get back a percentage of what you pay. Usually the sum is quite low (around 4%-5%), but it is possible to find affiliates which will reward you with up to 10% of the cost of your flight. Also, register with sites that offer cash just for signing up, such as Rpoints which gives you £5, Cashback Shopper which gives you £5, and ecashback which gives you £2.50 immediately.

2. Use a cashback credit card

If you're the kind of person who pays off their credit card before they incur any interest then you might consider taking a cashback credit card with you. These are cards which put a bit of money back in your pocket whenever you use them. Rates vary, but some offer as much as 5% cashback (usually in return for spending a large amount). Currently, American Express's Platinum Cash Back Card is offering 5% for the first three months on spending up to £2,000, so on a £1,000 holiday you would get £50 back.

3. Sell your photos

Your holiday snaps can be more than just something you bore people with at dinner parties. If you have an aptitude for photography then selling your pictures to photo agencies could be an easy way to make money for years to come. You don't have to be a professional to sell your pictures, but you do need to get some good shots. Try fotolia, 123RF.com and picturenation which are all online agencies that will take good photos and sell them on for you.

4. Video your hotel or resort

If you have your video camera with you on holiday then film your hotel or resort and upload it to tripr.tv. Future holidaymakers can browse the site and watch reviews of hotels they might stay at themselves. The videos (which range from the very complimentary to the completely brutal) offer a candid, customer's-eye view – often more helpful than photographs on a sleek hotel website. Set up a Google Adsense account and you can have adverts appear next to your video and earn money each time someone clicks on one – tripr.tv estimates this could earn you around £40 a year.

5. Review your holiday

Qype is another site where you can earn while writing reviews, but this time it is points, not cash. Writing a review earns you eight points, writing the first review of a place earns you 20 points, and uploading a photo gets you two points. If you attach a video you get another four points and if you invite a mate to Qype you'll get 25 points. Once you get to 1,000 points you could become a "Qype ninja" – as well as kudos you could get a box load of goodies.

6. Give a guided tour

If you are know a lot about a specific area relevant to the country you are visiting you could offer yourself as an English speaking tourist guide to a holiday company. Its guests could be interested in a tour you lead and you could either get paid or get a discount on your holiday with the same company. If you're a bit of an architecture boffin you could host some tours in Greece, for example, or if you're a film buff you could take tourists on a film locations tour in New York.

7. Buy and sell collectibles

If you're going somewhere where there are attractive collectibles at low prices, stock up, take them home and sell them domestically. The key to spotting an item which would make you a profit after resale is research. Read up on the country you are travelling to and find out what is produced locally and cheaply, but is in high demand around the world. Look for items produced exclusively in your holiday destination but bought by people back home. There are of course strict guidelines in the UK governing the importing of works of art, antiques and collectibles; check with HM Revenue & Customs for a full list of rules and regulations concerning importing into the UK.

8. Take two of everything

If you're planning a trip using a camper van you could sell useful products to other people on campsites. Stock up on essentials like washing-up liquid and toothpaste at a cheap supermarket and sell them at a mark-up. Check with the owners of the site whether you are allowed to do this. If not, find a spot nearby where campsite residents will walk or drive past and sell your wares there. Again, there will be different laws about selling on spare ground depending on the country you are in so check first.

9. Rent out your home while you're away

If you live in a "des res" you could rent your home out as a short-term holiday let. Try websites like Gumtree or local lettings agents that specialise in short-term lets. If you are in a popular city or an attractive part of the countryside you could make hundreds of pounds while you are away.

10. Tell your friends about your holiday

Make some extra cash by signing up to social networking site Yuwie and reviewing your holiday. You can set up a profile, write a blog, upload photos and videos and basically do what you do with all the other networking sites, but make money at the same time. You can also make money by signing up your friends, and even when they in turn sign up their friends. You get paid by PayPal or by cheque.