Advice for flying with twin babies (or multiple young children) Traveling with a baby is hard. Traveling with 2 babies (and for us, another child) may seem impossible, but I promise if we can do it, you can do it. Our twins just turned 2 (no more free flights for them as lap infants!) and … Continue reading Flying with twins as lap infants (2019)
If you want to be successful at booking award travel, it is important to plan your credit card application strategy wisely. Before applying for any credit card, you will want to familiarize yourself with the Chase 5/24 rule. If you're a beginner, this post also has lots of information for beginners about why Chase … Continue reading The Chase 5/24 Rule Explained
If you want to redeem miles and points for max value when booking award flights, it is important to understand the different types of award ticket pricing. In a recent post, I discussed 3 different types of award ticket pricing. zone-baseddistance-basedfare-based. I briefly mentioned a 4th type, but until last week, Delta was really the … Continue reading United Mileage Plus Award Travel Changes
Being based in DFW, we had never flown JetBlue until last week. We prefer nonstop routes when possible and the only nonstop JetBlue flights from DFW are to Boston. We finally had the opportunity to fly JetBlue from Orlando to Nassau for our trip to Atlantis. You can view JetBlue's route map here. We were … Continue reading JetBlue TrueBlue Deserves Some Attention
What is Plastiq? Plastiq is an online bill payment service. It allows you to use a credit card to pay bills that you normally wouldn't be able to pay with a credit card. Some examples are rent, car payments, and even mortgage. This can be very helpful in certain situations such as meeting a minimum spending … Continue reading Increase your miles and points balances with Plastiq
Some of our most valuable redemptions are the result of transferring bank points such as Amex Membership Rewards points and Chase Ultimate Rewards points to airline partners. Those points become airline miles and then we use the airline miles to book otherwise expensive plane tickets. There are lots of ways to get to Europe on … Continue reading Airline Transfer Partners (2019)
Other Japan posts: Our Free Ritz-Carlton Stays In Japan Japan Hotels: How To Book A 9 Night Stay For Less Than $400 Total [$3400 Value] Ryan and I just returned from an unforgettable week in Japan! We visited temples, spotted a Geisha heading to work, walked through the bamboo forest, ate our weight in sushi, … Continue reading How we booked Japan for $388 [$13,600 Value] and you can, too!
Best Ways to Book Europe with Ultimate Rewards: Part 1 Want to go to Europe with Ultimate Rewards? This is the first of 5 posts about booking Europe with Ultimate Rewards. In this introduction post, I list my 9 overall favorite ways to redeem Ultimate Rewards for flights between North America and Europe. In parts … Continue reading 11 Ways to Book Flights to Europe with Ultimate Rewards
"Actually, the best gift you could have given her was a lifetime of adventures"-Lewis Carroll 7 years ago, Ryan and I were married in one of my favorite places on this planet. I'll spare you the sappy paragraph, but he's the best! Ryan and I met through a mutual friend very soon after I … Continue reading 7 Years
Before you apply for your first credit card First of all, opening credit cards does not hurt your credit score in the long run. What will hurt your score is if you miss payments and/or run up high balances that you cannot immediately pay. I am not a financial professional of any kind but I … Continue reading Miles, Points, and Travel Credit Card Rewards 101
Update: As of May 30, 2019, British Airways has slightly increased the amount of Avios required for partner flights (such as AA operated flights). Fortunately, this change wasn't enough to change the fact that British Airways is a great way to book American Airlines (and other OneWorld partner) flights. You can see the changes here. I use … Continue reading How To Book American Airlines Flights With British Airways Avios
I've written about how to fly to Hawaii for free, but you can also use points to save lots of money on hotels. This post will cover Starwood and Marriott hotels in Hawaii. At some point I will also cover properties in Hawaii owned by other chains such as Hyatt and Hilton. SPG, Ritz-Carlton, and … Continue reading Marriott Hotels in Hawaii
Update: As of May 30, 2019, British Airways has slightly increased the amount of Avios required for partner flights (such as AA operated flights). Fortunately, this change wasn't enough to change the fact that British Airways is a great way to book American Airlines (and other OneWorld partner) flights. You can see the changes here. When British … Continue reading Iberia vs. British Airways: Battle of the Distance-Based Programs
One of the most common concerns people voice to me about opening credit cards is their ability (or lack thereof) to meet minimum spending requirements. Here are a few ways you can meet minimum spending requirements without buying lots of things that you don't need. 1. Plastiq Click here for a detailed post about Plastiq. … Continue reading Ways to Meet Minimum Spending Requirements (2019)