What Are Your Travel Goals For 2019?

What are your travel goals for 2019? Whether you want to visit Niagara Falls, swim with elephants in Thailand, hold snakes in the Amazon or go on safari in Africa, you need to start planning now! 

Early planning is the key to almost FREE family travel. 

Why? Because the earlier you figure out where you want to go, the earlier you can put your plan into motion to collect enough points and miles to get there. 

For example, we are looking at heading to Chile in Spring 2020. Yes, I really wrote Spring 2020. Planning ahead, yes. But guess what, we are already building up enough Starwood points to cash in for 5 airline tickets from LAX to Santiago, Chile. 

Then when the flights open up approximately 325 days prior, we will have enough points to purchase all 5 tickets immediately. 

When you are planning, figure out what airline you will need to gather points on first, and how many points you will need per ticket. Then you can spend the next 6 months or so, opening the credit cards you need for the bonus, using shopping portals and putting all your purchases on that card. So when the reward seats open approximately 9 months ahead, you are ready to go. Then you can work on hotels and last you can book experiences. 

For the most part, American Airlines and its partners are great for South America, United and partners are great for Asia and Europe and Delta is good for Africa. 

And you can also collect points in Starwood, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi and American Express Membership Rewards that you can transfer to those airlines to pick up more points. 

Let us know where you plan to travel in 2019 or even 2020!