IHG Doubles Points Until Tomorrow

Until Friday, you can purchase IHG points and double your bonus. If you need to top off your account or you are saving for a particular hotel, this might be a good opportunity. I don't usually buy points or miles, but it may make sense depending on your plans.
I researched hotels near the colleges that my daughter is applying to since we may need to visit some of them next year. For some cities, it made sense to buy some points to top off my account, for others, it broke even and for some, it would have cost me more to buy points and then book my hotel. Yikes!
That being said, I only have 5,238 IHG points. It's not my favorite brand, but I subscribe to their offers and opinion survey so in the past few months, they have awarded me 2,000 points.
I haven't decided if I will top off my account to 10,000 or 15,000 which could net me a FREE night or 3 nights if a hotel I'm interested in appears on the point break list. The point break list comes out quarterly and offers hotels for 5,000 per night. They sell out quickly though and are usually in out of the way places.

It's the final countdown!

For the past 2 years, I have had a Southwest Companion Pass which is one of the best values out there. It's a buy 1 get 1 free pass on Southwest airlines. You can book a ticket with miles or buy one and your companion flies free anywhere Southwest flies. I went to the east coast to look at colleges, my daughter flew for free. I went to Washington DC for a family event, my son flew for free. I even took a quick trip up north, my son flew for free. I am planning a trip to Cuba in December, my husband will fly for free.
Awesome!
Quick tip about the Southwest companion pass,  you want to earn it as close to the beginning of the year as possible as it is good for the year you earn it and the following year.
You earn the pass when you collect 110,000 Southwest points in one calendar year. 
Easy if you apply for 2 Southwest credit cards with bonuses of 50,000 points each. You can apply for two if you have a small business or spouse or child over 18.
But how do you get a companion pass for another 2 years when you cannot qualify for a Southwest credit card because you already had these cards and can't qualify for them again.
Not so easy.
But here's my plan. Marriott offers vacation packages that include 7 nights in a hotel and enough points for the airline tickets. They work with a variety of airlines so if you are planning a trip somewhere and have or can earn lots of Marriott points, this might work for you. The package I am focusing on costs 270,000 Marriott points. It will give me 7 nights in a category 1-5 Marriott, but more importantly it will give me 110,000 Southwest points. BAM!
So today I got an email update letting me know that I now have 180,177 Marriott points in my account. That is from 2 Marriott cards (one personal, one business), minimum spend on those cards and additional spend. My husband also got a Marriott card with the 80,000 bonus and he added me as an authorized user for another 7,500. He can share his Marriott points with me 50,000 this year and another 50,000 next year.
So before the end of the year, he will share 50,000 points with me bringing my total to 230,177 and then in January he can transfer the rest of bring my total to 270,000. At that point, I can buy the package and BAM, companion pass.
If we find we need more Marriott points to upgrade to a higher category hotel, we can transfer Starwood points now at 1:3. Since Marriott and Starwood merged last week. I did  a quick search and found beach resort hotels in Nevis/St. Kitts and Panama that looked inviting. We would only need 10,000 Starwood points to upgrade to category 6 and another 10,000 to category 7. If we decide to go for it and upgrade all the way to category 9, it would only cost us 40,000 Starwood points. Tempting.
Cross your fingers and I'll keep you posted!

*Remember anytime you get a credit card, immediately sign up for auto payment. You do not want to incur late fees and you want to pay off your credit card each month.

Iquitos, Peru

Riding on a tuk tuk to the bus station in Nauta

Iquitos, Peru is a throwback to another time! There are very few cars in the town even though the town has almost 500,000 people. Instead, they use a vehicle called a tuk tuk. These are similar to the tuk tuks you see in Thailand, but different.
What struck me was how the streets look with no cars and just tuk tuks.

Plaza de Armas in Iquitos

Iquitos is on the Amazon river and the humidity and heat runs high. However, it's a town so no wild animals running around. Though we did hear a nasty cat fight overnight from our hotel.
Be sure to find a hotel with air conditioning. If you can find one with a pool, then you will be super happy.
Hotels are pretty cheap and basic. Most people just stay here overnight while waiting for a flight to/from Lima or shuttle to take them to the jungle.
We found a hotel on Booking.com and got 10% cash back.

Tuk tuks are front riders instead of side riders like in Southeast Asia

View of the Amazon from the main street in Iquitos

 There are some side trips to do while in Iquitos - a butterfly farm and a stingray feeding area. We did not partake in any of these and instead just chose to walk around, eat a meal and visit a local supermarket.
The market had a hot meal area inside where you could have bought a meal for cheap. We opted for some snacks and drinks from the market instead.
Bottom line, Iquitos is not a destination, but if you have a stop over, there are some options.

Kids Get In FREE To Legoland

One of my favorite places to take the kids when they were little was Legoland. But it's so expensive! Right now, Travelzoo is offering buy 1 adult ticket, get a child ticket for FREE.  Sale ends Oct. 31

• Grants same-day admission to both attractions
• Show up any time you like before the voucher expires -- no need to commit to a date ahead of time 
• New this year: LEGO NINJAGO The Ride and The LEGO Movie 4D a New Adventure

Tickets are valid Sept. 6 - Dec. 25

What's included

• Buy one adult SEA LIFE Hopper ticket at regular price ($113) and receive one child (ages 3-12) SEA LIFE Hopper ticket for free (a $107 value)
• Tickets are valid for one day of admission to both LEGOLAND California and SEA LIFE Aquarium anytime the park is open Sept. 6 - Dec. 25; sale ends Oct. 31

Big News: Link Your Starwood And Marriott Accounts

Announced today, you can link your Starwood account to your Marriott account or vice versa. This will enable you to exchange points from one account to the other with an instant transfer at a rate of 3 Marriott points per Starwood points. 
If you look at this closer, it means if you are collecting Marriott points in order to buy a Southwest package or any other vacation package, you can top off your account by transferring Starpoints. 
For example, I am saving for the 270,000 package that includes 7 nights in a category 1-5 hotel and 110,000 Southwest miles. The Southwest miles will net me the companion pass. 
If I were short, I could now transfer Starwood points to Marriott at 1:3 to reach my goal. 
However, look at your goals to see if this is the best move for you. For now, Starwood still offers an extra 5,000 miles if you transfer your points to an airline like American. 
And Marriott hotels usually cost about 12,000-15,000 points per night. Starwood hotels cost as little as 3,000 points per night. You could transfer Starwood points to Marriott in order to reserve a Marriott hotel for just 4,000-5,000 Starwood points per night. Not bad! 
Lots of options. 
If you link your account, you will get automatic match in upgrade status. 
The programs will merge in 2018, we don't know yet what that will look like. This first step is promising so hopefully it will go smoothly. 

Marriott Hotels: AC Hotels, Autograph Collection, Bulgari*, Courtyard, Delta Hotels and Resorts, Edition, Fairfield Inn & Suites, Gaylord Hotels, JW Marriott, Marriott Executive Apartments*, Marriott Hotels and Resorts, Marriott Vacation Club, MOXY Hotels, Protea Hotels, Renaissance, Residence Inn, SpringHill Suites, Ritz-Carlton, TownePlace Suites

*Bulgari does not participate in Marriott Rewards; members can redeem but not earn points at Executive Apartments.

Starwood Hotels: Aloft, Design Hotels, Element, Four Points, Le Meridien, Sheraton, St. Regis, The Luxury Collection, Tribute Portfolio, W Hotels, Westin

Cash Back With Ebates!

Remember anytime you shop online for anything, use a portal. There are portals everywhere, cash back portals, miles, points, charity you name it, there's a portal. Same shopping, but now you get cash back, miles, points or donate a portion to your favorite charity or child's school.
We recently started using the Benefit app at my child's school and it's pretty amazing. You buy a digital gift card for a retailer with your credit card and a percentage of the purchase goes to your child's school. Nice!
I used to reload my Starbucks card through the Starbucks app, now I am using the Benefit app and sending a portion of my purchase to my child's school. One extra step, same reload and my child's school gets some FREE money.
In the photo above, you will see the cash back I'm getting from Ebates.com for booking our hotels in Peru through Travelocity. We booked others through Booking.com and will get cash back for those too. It's not a lot of money, but it could pay for my cup of coffee.
Recently, I needed to reset the expiration date on my United airlines miles so I bought my dog food through the United Airlines shopping portal. My $12 purchase reset the clock and I got 24 miles. Same dog food I would have bought anyway, but my purchase served double duty.
It's not about spending new money, it's about making the money you spend work harder for you!

*If you would like to try Ebates.com and get cash back on your shopping, please use my link so I get credit for the referral.

The Amazon With Kids

Cayman catching in the Amazon! 

The Amazon is made for kids! Full of adventure at every turn. It's a whole new culture and way of life. Our guide told my 14 year old son when he was 14, he had already caught his first 6 foot Cayman. That says it all right there.
There are various ways to tour the Amazon, stay in a lodge, on a small boat, on a tour boat or camp. We chose a lodge almost 2 hours by boat from Nauta, a small town 2 hours by car from Iquitos. It's a haul to get there so I recommend staying for at least 4 nights to make it worth it.
We chose the lodge because we want a more intimate experience than what we thought we could have on a big boat, we wanted nicer accommodations than what we thought we could find on a small boat and camping was out of the question.

Hiking through the jungle

 Each day, the guide would ask us what we would like to do. Choices included Monkey Island, Jungle Hikes, Fishing for piranha, Cayman catching, swimming with pink dolphins, walking in the village, Giant Lilly Pads, holding a sloth, bird watching, medicine walk and more.

Sunset over the Amazon River

 The food is mostly from the jungle and all organic. It's a pretty basic menu, but very good. I asked where all the fish came from and the guide told me his cousin caught it overnight.

Snakes, monkeys, sloths, spiders, oh my!

The beds were comfortable with mosquito netting around them, the room and then again around the lodge. We still got bit though. The Amazon is an adventure at every turn and worth every penny to see and enjoy. 

Though I paid full price in cash for the lodge, we used points for the airfare from Lima to Iquitos and back. Hotels in Iquitos are cheap plus I booked through a site that gave me 10% cash back. 

Earn An Easy 1,000 United Miles

Earn an easy 1,000 United miles 

As you know if you follow my blog, I am saving for a family trip to Europe next summer. We plan to fly United and right now, I have enough miles for 2 round trip tickets. But we are a family of 5. So we recently applied for 2 American Express Premier Gold credit cards with bonuses of 40,000 each plus $2,000 minimum spend. I'll explain in an upcoming post how I will use these miles.
However, I have a United account with 15,000 miles in it so I'm going to jump on this Wall Street Journal deal to build up miles in that account. I may not use those miles for Europe, but I'll use them someday.
If you subscribe to the Wall Street Journal through the United Shopping Portal by September 19th, you will earn 1,000 United miles. Easy and way better deal than buying them. So if you have an account you need to top off or you need United miles for an upcoming trip, you will want to jump on it. Just be sure to cancel the subscription after 45 days, but before 60 days or you will be charged $32.99.
To subscribe, go to the United Shopping Portal

Woohoo....IHG Awards A FREE 1000 Points!

Here's an easy way to score an extra 1000 IHG points. When you sign up for their free program and complete your first survey, they will deposit 1000 IHG points into your account. I am not a huge fan of the IHG brand which includes Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, Candlewood Suites, Intercontinental and Hotel Indigo. But sometimes you can find a gem or take advantage of the point break promotion the brand offers during the year.
I had a few thousand IHG points so this award brings me close to 5000 points which may come in handy one day.

Get a free $10 from VISA checkout

My $10 eGift from Visa Checkout!

Starbucks and Visa Checkout have teamed up for a promotion. 
If you buy a $10 Starbucks gift card you can receive a $10 bonus card. 
Here’s how the promotion works:

1. Download the Starbucks app and create an account
2. Load $10 to the Starbucks app with Visa Checkout 
3. Receive your $10 eGift within 5 days courtesy of Visa Checkout

The promotion is valid through September 30, 2016, or “while supplies last.” Unfortunately since you only get the $10 bonus card after the fact (within five days of your purchase), you won’t know for sure at the time of purchase whether you qualify.

But I did it and my husband did it and sure enough, a few days later we both received emails with an eGift from Starbucks. If it doesn't work, you would probably spend $10 at Starbucks one day anyway. 

Huacachina with kids

The secret to travelling with kids is to find interesting and exciting things to do. You can always mix in a few churches and museums, but the kids want adventure! When you travel for almost free, money well spent is on experiences.

Peruhop is a hop on, hop off discount bus/tour service. We chose a 2 day/1 night tour. The company gave us a group discount (family of 5) and a second discount because we chose to book our own hotel in Paracas. We had enough Hilton points to book a room at the Doubletree Paracas. It is a suite style hotel and even though they would only allow me to book a room for 4, we could easily accommodate our family of 5 in the room. The hotel even gave us welcome drinks and cookies for FREE.
The tour included the bus, guide, stops at Cristo de Pacifico vista near Lima, breakfast stop, Chincha slave tunnels, sandboarding in Huacachina, Ballestas Islands boat tour and Inca ruins. A true bargain!
The tour is low key, the people were all young tourists and families, the bus very comfortable and safe. The vista was informative with lots of history. The breakfast stop is in the middle of nowhere and has the most amazing bread I've ever eaten.

The slave tunnels were educational and prompted lots of questions from the kids. More on sandboarding and the islands later. The Inca ruins were the weakest stop, but that being said if you actually toured the ruins it would cost you $25 per person. The bus stops near a wall so you can peek over for free.
Bottom line, this is a great way to get from here to there and see some things along the way.
It took several hours to reach Paracas, a small beach town. If you stay at the Hilton, you need to take a taxi to and from the hotel.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing at the pool at the hotel. Nice break from travelling and a good chance for the kids to unwind. For dinner, I recommend heading back into town and there are a number of great inexpensive restaurants lining the beach. We ate dinner and breakfast at El Arizal because the woman working there was so friendly. The food was very good! One tip, there are limited ATMS in Paracas and a lot of restaurants only take cash.

The next morning, we met our Peruhop guide at a hostel. The hostel stored our luggage for the day and our guide walked us to the Ballestas island boat tour. The Ballestas islands are the poor man's Gallapagos. You do get to see the Nasca lines from the boat which is a bonus plus a variety of birds, sea lions and penquins. It's cold on the boat so dress accordingly.

After the island tour, you have the option to take a 1 hour tour of the Paracas Natural Reserve. It's a quick bus tour with stops at a few vistas and the museum. 

Then we hop back on the bus for a few hours to go to Huacachina. I highly recommend visiting Huacachina for several reasons. One, it's perfect for kids. My 10 year old loved it, my 17 year old loved it, my husband loved it. It's crazy and it's unlike anything you have ever done before. Definitely a highlight of the trip. 

The company puts 12 people in a dune buggy type of car, straps you in and then the driver takes you as fast as he can over huge sand dunes. Crazy! Check out the video at the top of this post! They make 3 stops along the way so you can sandboard down the dunes which increase in elevation with every stop ending with the giant 200 meter hill. I tried the first one and then decided to ride the buggy the rest of the way which I enjoyed. So no worries if you are not a fan of this activity.

The tour takes about 2 hours and then you are returned to the hostel and bus to return to Lima. We had a great experience with Peruhop and met people who were taking the bus for as long as 10 days.

Next post: The Amazon

#peruhop #almostfreefamilytravel

Save $10 on your next Ryan Air flight!

Ryan Air is offering a promotion to save $10 when you sign up for a FREE account. Since most flights on Ryan Air are super cheap anyways, it can make some flights almost FREE. Ryan Air is a low cost carrier with flights across Europe. Remember to check the fine print since the airline will nickel and dime you for checked luggage, printing boarding passes etc.

Lima, Peru With Kids

View from Larcomar in Lima Peru

Lima, Peru is a big city! I'm not talking New York or Los Angeles big, I'm talking 20 million people big. Think New York on steroids! That being said it is manageable, fun with kids and budget friendly. Sometime during your trip to Peru, you will fly through Lima. You may even fly through Lima a few times so it is worth spending a few days here.
Expect to pay 50-60 soles to travel from the airport to Miraflores.
Here's what we did. First, we used airbnb.com for accommodations. As you know, we are a party of 5. In South America, we found many of the chain hotels would not allow 5 in a room. And we prefer to use points or miles which for 2 rooms starts to get expensive. Airbnb.com offered lots of inexpensive options in the upscale neighborhood of Miraflores. We settled on a 3 bedroom/2 bath apartment with laundry facilities. It was nice to have the kitchen, laundry and extra bathroom.

We were actually staying in Lima for 3 nights, but we chose to break up our stay with trip down the coast. The Airbnb agreed to let us pay for 3 nights and store our luggage at the apartment for the 4th night while we were travelling for free. Awesome!

Skulls and bones arranged in a design in the catacombs

While in Lima, we checked out the catacombs at La Iglesia de San Francisco. Not as creepy as they seem on Yelp and really interesting and unusual for the whole family. Cost 10 soles per adult, 5 soles per student and 1 soles for my 10 year old. Be sure to get to the cathedral by noon so you can check it out, but the real highlight here is definitely the catacombs and tour of the convent.Near the church and the Plaza Mayor, there are dozens of small restaurants serving a typical Peruvian lunch for cheap approximately 10-15 soles. I highly recommend eating at one of these just to experience the culture and typical foods.
Another must see sight with the kids is Kennedy Park or "cat park". This park is filled with cats. Locals hang out at the park just to cuddle and pet the cats. At first, I was hesitant to let the kids cuddle the cats, but the cats are very friendly and seem well taken care of. I did hose them off with sanitizer when we left though.

Hundreds of cats in Kennedy Park in Lima 

If you forgot to buy any souvenirs in Cuzco, there is an Artisan market near the park with decent prices. Another must see in Lima is the "Magical Water Show" at Parque de la Reserva.



We took the metro (it's actually an express bus) to the catacombs for 2.50 soles per person each way and then a taxi to water show park. Always negotiate a rate with the taxi before you get in the car.
The Water show costs 4 soles per person for a laser fountain show that rivals Disneyland. Shows are at 7:15pm, 8:15pm and 9:30pm. Leave some time to walk around as well.

Fountain next to the laser water show

Another tip to help make Lima affordable, the big grocery stores have a hot food counter, ceviche and salad bar. Decent prices and the food is pretty good. We found that we would eat a big breakfast and lunch and then just pick up empanadas and fruit for dinner. Another place to visit in Lima is the big shopping center built into the side of a cliff, Larcomar in Miraflores. There is a food court here so if your family is anything like ours and can't agree on one type of food. There is also a Pardos Chicken which has about the best roasted chicken I have ever eaten and it's totally reasonable.

Next post: Sandboarding in Huacachina, Peru