How Did My Family Of 4 Travel For <$300?
One of my favorite hobbies since 2015 has been "travel hacking." We were able to travel for the 1st time as a family of 4 while spending <$300 on flights, hotels, and a rental car. I asked the Facebook group if they were interested in knowing more about "travel hacking" and the votes for yes were unanimous.
Last week I finished my 1st vacation since joining naviHealth! My family of 4 flew to Albuquerque, NM for 2 nights and then flew to Las Vegas, NV for 4 nights. We went to Albuquerque for The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta and to visit relatives. We went to Las Vegas because my wife lived there for 10 years and we weren't able to celebrate our 5 year anniversary earlier this year due to the pandemic. We wanted to visit some of my wife's friends, let our children experience some of the kid friendly activities, and take advantage of the Diamond status I have with Caesar's Rewards (even though I rarely gamble). Getting status with casinos in Vegas could have a separate blog on travel hacking!
Before I start, please understand that this will be a basic overview about travel hacking. It takes time researching and learning from other Facebook groups and websites to be proficient at it. It is kind of like learning most techniques as a clinician: you can't learn everything you need to know in a single blog!
1) What is "travel hacking?"
I define travel hacking as utilizing points and rewards programs to travel for little to no cost. This is typically done by completing lucrative credit card sign up bonuses. It can also be accomplished through matching reward status with competing airlines and hotels.
You won't make friends with Dave Ramsey by doing this, but I have found this to be very helpful to save money. With that said, this can be unhelpful for someone with issues overspending because the benefits of a sign up bonus will rarely outweigh poor spending habits.
Some Facebook groups that have been helpful over the years include:
2) Are all points the same?
Absolutely not! Each rewards program values their points differently and redeems them differently. I found a nice list and calculator on this website The Point Calculator to help provide more objective information about each point value.
Many hotel programs have a point value worth <1 cent each.
Most bank reward points are worth 1-1.5 cents each.
Most airlines are approximately 1.5 cents each, but their value differs based on different factors. One would be comparing economy class versus business class; you will get greater value in business class but will require more points. Another would be based on the airline's way of deciding the number of points for a flight. Some reward flights are based strictly on flight cost (e.g. Southwest) while others are based more on distance (e.g. Alaska).
Value can be found when learning what airlines have the same alliance. For example, you can use British Airways Avios points to book American Airlines flights if they have reward availability. In fact, I have been able to take advantage of this option to save money for my honeymoon flight to Maui and for a short notice flight for a wedding. The website Award Hacker has great search options to let you know what programs you can use based on your travel plans!
3) How do you strategize "travel hacking?"
There are various ways to decide what programs and cards work best. I personally would not get a card with a sign up bonus (SUB) worth <$500 unless there were amazing perks to having the card.
You want to make sure you can meet the minimum spending requirements to achieve any given sign up bonus. It is best not to try to open multiple cards at once unless you know you can meet the spending requirements, which are typically within a 3 month time period once approved for the card.
I will provide my recommendations on what I believe are the best strategies on what credit cards to sign up for:
A. Start with Chase cards because they have the strictest rules.
Chase has what is known as the 5/24 rule. You will automatically be denied if you have opened any 5 credit card accounts in the past 24 months. Chase has a variety of cards that are worthwhile and I will discuss that more in a little bit when I explain how I traveled for <$300.
B. Select cards that have a high sign up bonus.
My go to source for that information is Doctor of Credit. They rank the top sign up bonuses and they don't use affiliate links like most other websites. They explain whether or not a card is a good deal or if there have historically been better offers.
C. Select cards that have flexible rewards.
Many banks have their own point system which can be used for cash or travel partners. Typically transferring to travel partners gives you the most value. The most common ones are:
American Express: Membership Rewards
Capital One: Miles
Chase: Ultimate Rewards
Citi : Thank You Points
I found this great interactive chart that shows what travel partners transfer from which programs. I wish I knew this existed when I was 1st learning how this all works!
4) Should I avoid cards with Annual Fees?
This is a common question, and the short answer is no. I mentioned previously some of the different perks cards come with, and the majority come with benefits that offset the annual fee. At the very least, the bonus offsets the initial annual fee. If after a year you don't find value in it, you can either downgrade to a no annual fee card or close the account. I have downgraded Delta to the no annual fee card because I rarely fly with them. I have downgraded Chase and Citi cards with annual fees to cards with no annual fees. I would always recommend seeing if you can get a retention offer before closing an account. Some, especially with the pandemic limiting travel, will provide one.
5) Will this hurt my credit?
The short answer is no. My credit score has not dropped below 780 and has remained >800 the majority of the time. FICO scores are based on:
35% Payment History
30% Amounts Owed
15% Length of Credit History
10% Credit Mix
10% New Credit
You may see a short dip because of opening a new account. Often times a new card will improve the debt:credit ratio. With that said, it is not a good idea to open up a new card before financing a home.
6) How did I spend <$300 on travel for 6 nights?
I will break it down by flights, hotels and rental car for a total of $283.05.
A. Flights: $50.40
I often fly Southwest Airlines because Southwest has a very valuable perk if you can obtain it called a Companion Pass. With it, you can let 1 person fly with you for free, paying only the $5.60 fee for each one way flight. There are 2 ways to earn it: fly 100 flights in 1 ye ar or earn 125,000 points in 1 year. Once you earn it, you get the Companion Pass until the following December from the year you earn it. It takes planning to know how to get it, and a good article on how to do it can be found on the website 10Xtravel.
I earned the Companion Pass through the Chase Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card, so my wife was free other than the fees. My youngest child was free because he was a lap infant <2 years old. I only had to pay for my oldest child and myself. Since I earned >125,000 points, all the flights were paid for except the fees. I actually didn't pay the $50.40 because I had a travel credit from another credit card. However, I decided to go ahead and include it in the grand total.
B. Hotels: $50
In Albuquerque, NM we stayed at the Sheraton by the airport. It was the only reasonable option because the prices of hotels during the Fiesta were outrageous. The hotel would have cost $300/night if paying with money. The points were 20,000 a night (a very good value in this case), but I was short a little more than 4,000 points. You can buy points, which often isn't a good idea, but in this case it was worth it. I paid $50 to get the additional 6,000 points needed to book the 2 nights.
In Las Vegas, NV we stayed at the Staybridge Suites across from the new Allegiant Stadium. I think this hotel is one of the best values in Las Vegas, especially for families! Since both my wife and myself have an IHG credit card, we both get a free night annually at a hotel valued up to 40,000 points. Due to the pandemic, they allowed the free night from 2020 to be extended to the end of 2021. We were able to use our 4 certificates by calling in to IHG and booking through them. The good thing is that even if I didn't have the certificates, it would have been free because I had enough points from the sign up bonus with the Chase IHG® Rewards Club Premier Credit Card plus the 4th night is free with the card.
C. Rental Car: $182.65
The price of rental cars have been outrageous this year. There are various reasons why that I won't get into, but know that this will likely be the most expensive part of traveling because there are rarely good options to use points for rental cars. There are some companies like Avis that have reward programs that you can earn free rentals, but I didn't have any credits.
We were fortunate with Albuquerque that we didn't need to spend $200/day to rent a car because I had relatives that let us borrow their car for the day to go to the Fiesta. If that wasn't an option, we would have used Uber or Lyft, which would likely have been $100 added to our travels.
For Las Vegas I tried Turo for the 1st time. Turo is like the Airbnb of renting cars. We had a pleasant experience, renting a hybrid sedan for $191.45 after all fees. I did have a promotion with American Express for $30 off a Turo rental, so I subtracted that from the total price. The cost of gas was $21.20, so I included that in the total cost.
7) What cards do I use?
Here I will provide the affiliate links to some of the cards I use. Full disclosure: I do get points for approved applications.
I always recommend checking with Doctor of Credit to see if there are better offers out there because affiliate links many times have different offers than public offers (e.g. IHG often has a less optimal SUB through affiliate links).
At the time of this post, the 100,000 Ultimate Rewards points (worth at least $1000) SUB with the Chase Sapphire Preferred (CSP) card is only available via a referral link. It will likely not stay around much longer and nobody knows when/if there will be a better bonus in the future. That isn't a scare tactic to have you sign up right now. The public offer for 100,000 points ended on 10/6/21, and I honestly never saw that high of a bonus on this card until 2021.
If you are under the 5/24 limit and haven't received a SUB from a Chase Sapphire card in the past 48 months, it is a "no brainer" to sign up. I know that I will trade $95 dollars for the annual fee in exchange for >$1000 every day of the week!
Chase Sapphire Preffered
Chase IHG
Chase Southwest Airlines Cards
Chase United Airlines Cards
Chase Freedom Cards
Other travel cards I have used in the past include:
American Express Delta Gold (which I have since downgraded to the no annual fee version)
Citi Premier (which I used to get points for my honeymoon and since downgraded to the Double Cash no annual fee card)
Barclays and Wells Fargo cards that have been closed and no longer exist
My wife and I have "tag teamed" for cards that really only need 1 of us to own to utilize benefits. Those include:
Bank of America Alaska Airlines
Citi American Airlines (since downgraded to the no annual fee version)
I do plan to get the Barclays Wyndham Rewards Earner® Business Card because it has an all time high SUB at the time of this post and has a low spending limit for the SUB. It has many useful perks and doesn't count against the 5/24 because Business Cards are typically not counted against you except with the bank that issues them.
I hope you have found this information useful or at the very least entertaining! The best part of this vacation was that it was the 1st time in a long time to not have any text, e-mail or phone call about patient care while on vacation! If you want to be able to experience the same thing and join a nonclinical career, the most important thing you need to start is to have a good nonclinical resume!
Don't end up wasting hours filling out multiple applications if your nonclinical resume needs to be fixed! I offer both free and paid options to improve your resume:
Free: Download my free e-book Nonclinical Resumes That Get Interviews!
Paid: Click here to sign up for your a 1-on-1 time that works best for you!
