More Ways To Earn Southwest Points Without Flying

Hotels at Kaanapali, Maui 

Now that Southwest Airlines flies to Hawaii, let's talk about some other ways you can boost your Southwest points balance. 

Here are some awesome ways to earn points without flying:

1. Shopping Portal - Never buy anything online without going through a shopping portal! It's FREE money if you use a cashback site and its FREE points (FREE travel) if you use an airline shopping portal. 

Find the store you want to shop at and get rewarded 1x, 2x, 3x or 4x bonus points per dollar. Charge the purchase to your Southwest credit card and earn 1x points for your purchase. So let's say you spend $100 at 1-800 Pet Meds, you would be rewarded 400 bonus points for using the portal and another 100 points from using your Southwest credit card for a total of 500 bonus points for something you were going to buy anyway. Wow! 

2. Rocketmiles.com  - Same idea, but with hotels. We had a layover in Houston, TX on our way back from Panama. I looked on Rocketmiles.com and found a hotel near the airport that offered free breakfast and 2,000 Southwest bonus points per room. I booked two rooms and got 4,000 bonus points. I used my Southwest credit card and got another 200 points. 

3. Dining Program - You can join Southwest dining program, link your credit or debit card and then when you dine you will earn bonus points. This is not going to rack you up a lot of points, but they will trickle in. 

4. If you live in certain states, you may be eligible to earn more Southwest points by enrolling in NRG, Reliant or buying gas at Marathon. Check out the home and lifestyle offers on Southwest.com. 

5. You can take surveys too to boost your points balance. Again, these are small amounts, but if you just need more points, it might work for you. Check out this page to enroll. 

Starting in 2021, US Citizens Will Need A Visa To Travel To Europe

Europe is one of those romantic and popular travel destinations. The history, the food, the culture is an amazing array for the senses. Starting in 2021, US citizens will need the authorization to travel to the Schengen area. The Schengen area includes 26 European countries that do not have internal borders. 

Those countries are:

• Spain
• France
• Italy
• Germany 
• Greece
• Poland
• Austria
• Belgium
• Czech Republic
• Denmark 
• Estonia 
• Finland
• Hungary 
• Iceland 
• Latvia
• Liechtenstein
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg
• Malta
• Netherlands
• Portugal
• Slovakia
• Slovenia
• Sweden
• Switzerland 

The authorization will cost $8 and be good for three years. "Completing the online application should not take more than 10 minutes with automatic approval being given in over 95% of cases," the European Commission said in a statement.

The authorization is not considered a visa and more than 60 countries are affected not just the United States. 

The European Parliament approved the authorization in July citing security concerns. 

I Got My Southwest Companion Pass! Woohoo!

Southwest Airlines got final approval to start flying to Hawaii and I'm ready. Look what showed up in my inbox this morning. Woohoo! 
Now we just need Southwest Airlines to start selling tickets. 
This is my third Southwest companion pass in the last 6 years. For those of you who don't know what this is. It is one of the best perks ever. 
The pass is a buy one get one FREE pass for two years on Southwest Airlines. Wherever I fly, I can take a companion for FREE. The companion must fly with me on the same itinerary and I can change my companion three times in a calendar year. 
So how did I earn the pass again?

This time, I opened two credit cards: 
1. The Southwest Business Credit Card - Minimum spend $3,000 and a $99 annual fee with a 60,000 point bonus. You also get 6,000 points on your anniversary. 
2. The Southwest Priority Credit Card - Minimum spend $1,000 and a $149 annual fee, but you get a $75 airline credit that can be used for tickets and a 40,000 point bonus. You also get 7,500 points on your anniversary and 4 upgraded boarding passes. 

Then I stayed at a hotel with two rooms on a layover back from South America and one night at another hotel and used the Rocketmiles website to book them so I earned another 5,000 bonus Southwest points. 

And bam, that was enough to earn 110,000 points by end of February. The pass is good through 12/31/2020. I already have two trips booked to the East Coast so I have saved over $2,000. That's how we do it at almostfreefamilytravel.com 

Southwest Flights To Hawaii Are Live, You Can Buy Your Ticket!

Starting this morning, you can now book flights to Hawaii on Southwest Airlines. Woohoo! 

I did a quick search and prices range from $49-$400. That's right I found a flight from Los Angeles to Oahu for just $49. Flights start April 7th. 

You can fly from the following cities:

• Los Angeles
• Burbank, CA
• Long Beach, CA 
• Ontario/LA, CA
• Orange County, Santa Ana, CA 
• Oakland, CA 
• San Jose, CA 

Notably missing from the list was San Francisco, but maybe that's coming. 

One search even showed flights as low as $49. 

Southwest is also offering flights between the islands of  Oahu, Maui and Kona on the big island for as low as $29 each way. Crazy!  

Book early and book often. The great thing about Southwest is that you can change or cancel anytime. Hawaii anyone? 

New IHG Point Break List Goes Live

IHG otherwise known as Intercontinental Hotel Group may be one of those overlooked rewards programs. I'll break it down for you in another post. But one of the unique perks of the reward program is their PointBreaks. 

This quarterly list of hotels is offered reduced points for that quarter. 

Now, this used to be a very robust list and I once snagged a Crowne Plaza in Newark, NJ for just 5,000 points per night. What a deal. 

In the last year, the list of hotels participating has dwindled. However, if there is one on the list that makes sense with your travel plans, you could get quite a deal. 

For example, the list released this week features a Crowne Plaza in the Dominican Republic. It's not all-inclusive, but rooms usually sell for 25,000 points per night. It is listed on the PointBreaks list for just 10,000 points per night. 

It's like getting 2 for 1 at the hotel. Sweet. 

There are 97 hotels listed, IHG will remove them when there is no more availability. 47 are international and 50 are in the US. 

IHG is also running a bonus offer right now when you buy points. I ran the numbers for the same DR hotel and I would save about $75 if I bought the points and used the point break offer rather than just buying the rooms at the current rate. Right now, I only have 830 IHG points so it's not a huge savings. But if you have a stash of IHG points or you are ready to open an IHG credit card that comes with an 80,000 bonus, then it might be a winner! 

Southwest Gets The Verbal Thumbs Up For Flights To Hawaii

Southwest could be days away from offering flights to Hawaii. The airline got a verbal thumbs up from the FAA this week. Formal written approval should follow this week now that the airline has completed a series of test flights. 

Tickets are not for sale yet on the website, but keep checking with flights to follow about a month later. So, save those points and working on your companion pass. Once ticket sales start, then get ready because it will be game on. 

Why You Might Want To Book Your Wyndham All Inclusive Now

Wyndham Dominicus Beach 

One of the best ways to get the most value out of Wyndham hotel points is to book one of its all-inclusive resorts. Since you can redeem 15,000 points for any room at any Wyndham, the all-inclusive hotel gets you the most bang for your buck. 

But, alas, all good things must come to an end.  So on April 3rd, Wyndham is going to a three-tier redemption system for its points. The tiers will be

•  7,500
• 15,000
• 30,000

Now, this is good news if you want to use Wyndham points for the lower end hotels. And Wyndham, whose brands include Days Inn, Microtel, Ramada, Super 8 and soon to be La Quinta, has more than 6,000 hotels that can be classified as budget. Wyndham has not released a list of which hotels will be in which tier, but we can only assume that budget hotels will be in the 7,500 tier, medium hotels will be in the 15,000 tier and all-inclusive will increase to the 30,000 tier. 

Now Wyndham says if you book a hotel now and stay after April 3rd and the hotel moves to the lower tier, you will get a credit for the point difference. 

On the opposite end, if you book a stay for after April 3rd at an all-inclusive, you will NOT be charged the difference when the hotel moves to the 30,000 tier. 

Personally, I am looking at the all-inclusive in the Dominican Republic for a summer getaway so I may book now to lock in the lower rates. I can always cancel up to the day before my stay and get my points back. Be sure to check the cancellation policy for the individual hotel. 

That's how we do it here at almostFREEfamilytravel.com