There’s simply too many awesome places to see in the world to pass up any real opportunity to travel. That’s especially true when we’re talking about traveling for free (or greatly discounted). As I’ve mentioned a number of times already, the easiest way to lower travel costs (outside of just finding an overall great deal) is to use points or miles. While much of the concept of earning points when you travel is straightforward, there are a few little-known tips to help you make the most of earning travel rewards. That’s what we’ll explore in this post. Points and Miles...
Card Review: Capital One Venture
Hello! Today we are going to look at one of the staples to free or cheap travel: points! One of the best ways to get points / miles is by using a travel rewards credit card for purchases you’re already making. This card is one of the best out there – maybe even the best, depending on what kind of purchases you make. Summary This is my number two travel rewards card – barely. Why? Because we’re talking about travel rewards. The newer Chase Sapphire Reserve card is better for travel-specific purchases, but not for general purchases. When you’re...
A Year of Alaska Plane Spotting
If you like to travel, and you’re from the United States, that probably means you’ve been on a flight recently. There are plenty of ideas out there about how to pass the time while you’re at an airport or waiting for your plane to take off, but my favorite is spotting planes. What is plane spotting? It’s the hobby of watching planes, or keeping track of what planes you’ve seen or flown on. It makes the time on the ground much more interesting and exciting, especially when you’re at a busy airport. Since we live in the Pacific Northwest, our...
Sample: 12 days in Hong Kong and Japan for under $700
You’re here because you like to travel, and you want to do it more and spend less doing it. Some of the readers here have mentioned wanting to learn more about how I maximize points without using all of them to travel on one trip. Some have wondered how I book trips without spending tons of money. If you’ve read my previous posts, you probably know that we are planning a trip to Japan in April. So I thought one of the best ways to share some of these tips with you would be to share details about an actual...
5 Free Ways to Save on Travel
The second time my wife and I went to Europe was just a year after our honeymoon in October 2014, when we were there for three weeks and visited five countries. We came back already thinking about when we could go back again. In January of 2015, we had a friend who we had worked with for a while staying at our house and we ended up talking about traveling and how much we liked Europe – and wanted to go back. In the course of our discussion we decided to look up some flights to see how much they...
How I Spend Less to Travel More
I recently came to a big realization: I plan vacations differently than most people do – because I have to. I’ve discovered how to travel cheap! I make less than $45,000 a year, but my wife and I love to travel. In the last three years since we got married, we have done two trips to Europe (including visits at least once to Italy, The Netherlands, England, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Poland, Czech Republic, and Croatia), a cruise to Alaska, and trips to the Northeast United States, Grand Canyon, and Yellowstone. In a few months we will be...