An alternative to "endearing," used to mean "make more expensive"

Question

I love the concept of the word 'endearing' meaning 'to make more dear/expensive', but it is apparently obsolete. Is there any word or short phrase that can replace it?

Sample sentence: "Transport is the 'endearing' factor of the vacation"

Answer 1

Make more expensive was the original, now obsolete, meaning of to endear :

• to make dear, esteemed, or beloved: He endeared himself to us with his gentle ways.
• ( Obsolete) - to make costly.

(Random House Kernerman Webster's College)

From vocabulary.com

• In the 1500s, endear meant "increase the value of," though it quickly came to mean "make dear," or perhaps to increase the emotional value, especially of another person.

Endear: (Etymonline)

• 1580s, "to enhance the value of," also "win the affection of," from en- (1) "make, put in" + dear (adj.). Meaning "to make dear," the main modern is from 1640s.

• Regarding your sentence, You can express the concept saying that : transportation is the more expensive part of the vacation, or transportation is what makes the vacation expensive.

Answer 2

Sample sentence: "Transport is the 'endearing' factor of the vacation"

How aobut using "cost-fuelling" or "cost-raising" factor? instead of endearing factor?

I don't think people will have difficulty in understanding what they mean.

Answer 3

You could also turn your sentence the other way around and say:

transportation is the most empoverishing factor of vacationing

Answer 4

I would just say expensive, because that is exactly what it is.