Did you book your IHG point break hotel yet?

IHG opened their new list of point break hotels today for this quarter. You can reserve dozens of hotels around the world for just 5,000 IHG points. A lot of the hotels are in obscure places, but for me, one of them was around the corner from a university I am visiting in the spring. You can cancel these reservations up to one day before for a full point refund. But they sell out fast!
And they are usually only offered on reservations 2-3 months out.
And if you apply for an IHG credit card, you can get a 60,000 point bonus with just $1,000 minimum spend. That's a heck of a lot of 5,000 point break hotel rooms. The rules state you can only book 2 nights on point break, but you never know. And if you add an authorized user, you can get an additional 5,000 points. Nice!

How to prep your home with airbnb

One of the best ways to pay for your vacation is to rent out or exchange your home while you are away. It just makes sense. Your home is empty so use it to create income and pay for your vacation. At first, it may feel a little strange to know that strangers are living in your home, but look around, you are probably vacationing someplace awesome because of it.
So there are a few different companies out there that you can use to rent your home. They are all similar, but involve varying different fee structures.
I prefer Airbnb.com because the fees are low and they offer $1 million dollars insurance. They will also negotiate on your behalf if there is a problem. But there are others out there. I recommend listing on just one site so you avoid double booking.

Things to remember when you rent out your home:
1. Remove anything you do not want stolen or broken, just in case
2. Vet your guests as best you can. Check out their Facebook page and Google search them.
3. Build a relationship with your guest, ask lots of questions.
4. Provide the guest with a clean and welcoming place to stay

The other way to go is to exchange your home with someone else. These can be done simultaneously (you stay in the other home at the same time they are staying in yours) or not (usually in the case of a summer home). Again, you want to build a relationship with the guests. Sometimes, these arrangements include using each other's cars as well.

Both are great options to knock thousands off the cost of your vacation. And that's the idea of almost FREE family travel.

IHG Releases 5,000 Point Break Hotels

Each quarter, IHG releases a list of hotels that qualify for point break. Point break means they cost you just 5,000 points per night. Pretty great! Now I find that this list usually contains hotels in places you may never visit.
BUT sometimes you can find a few hidden gems.
This morning, IHG released a preview list for this quarter, check out the Candlewood Suites Anaheim and the Hotel Indigo Krakow plus there are few hotels that looked interesting in South and Central America.
And if you are spending some this spring, checking out colleges like we are, then there may be a hotel that works for you.
You can book these starting Monday Jan. 30 2017 and they go fast. So do your research and make plans over the weekend!

Ebates Launches 7% Back On Hotels

Ebates.com is one of my favorite cash back sites. The other one I like is through my shopping club where I get all my organic household items for 30-50% off regular prices. This morning, Ebates.com launched its own discount hotel booking site.
In the past, I have usually booked my hotels with points or through Booking.com with my Ebates.com account. This strategy usually netted me 6-10% back on hotels. Now Ebates.com is promising 7% back across the board.
A quick search showed that yes, the prices are discounted.

The price that Ebates.com shows you is the price minus the discount. The discount won't actually post until 45-60 days after your stay. I did a quick comparison with Booking.com which offered a 2% cash back if I went through my Ebates.com account and here's what I found.

The initial price for the hotel on both sites was the same so obviously 7% discount is more than 2%. So in this case you save more money if you use the new Ebates.com hotel discount for the Hilton Garden Inn in West Lafayette. Is that the same for every hotel? Who knows? You may have to play with both sites to see where you get the best deal.
But it's good to have options and as I tell everyone I meet "anytime you buy anything online, use a portal!"

*If you decide to sign up for an Ebates.com or Booking.com account, please use my link located to the right on my website almostfreefamilytravel.com. You will get a bonus and I will too. Thank you!

Priceline for last minute flights

Sometimes sad circumstances can lead us to great deals. A friend of mine needed to fly to the East Coast last minute due to the passing of her grandmother. She searched airline and travel sites and the best fare she could find from San Diego to Newark, NJ was about $1200. However, she remembered that Priceline.com offers last minute flight deals so she took a look.
You can only pick your day and daypart that you wish to fly then Priceline.com finds flights and deals. For my friend, it found a $400 round trip flight plus she went through her cash back portal for an additional 4% discount. Ebates.com offered 10% cash back. Wow!

Fly the kids for FREE on SAS

Want to take the kids to Scandanavia or Finland for Spring Break 2017? If so, hurry to get this deal. Scandanavian Airlines is offering fly the kids for free with a paid adult. You can buy one adult ticket and fly up to 8 kids up to age 11 years old with you for FREE. You just pay taxes and fees. But decide quickly, you must buy your ticket by January 23rd for travel between February 7th and April 9th 2017. Wow!

8 Hours In The Singapore Airport

My kids enjoying the free massage chairs

If you have a layover at the Singapore airport, relax and enjoy! This is one of the best airports I have ever visited. We spent 8 hours in the airport and enjoyed every minute. You can see a movie, eat in more than a 120 restaurants, check out the Koi pond, sit in a massage chair, run the kids around in the giant climbing maze, walk through the butterfly garden and sunflower garden, ride the giant slide, or check out the airport pool,

Butterfly in the butterfly garden in the airport

 If you get tired of all the things to do inside the airport, you can actually take a free tour of downtown Singapore. You can't reserve ahead, but when you arrive, go to the City Tour stand.

Or you can check out the Koi pond

And if you are feeling really adventurous, they offer fishicures at the airport as well. If you have never done this, I highly recommend it. It's a pedicure by fish. No joke.

Perk for families: Companion tickets

The most challenging part of traveling as a family is collecting enough points/miles to get the plane tickets. It's a lot of miles and points. To get my whole family to Peru last summer, we spent 225,000 American miles and then for domestic flights we spent 90,000 Avios.
That's a lot of work.
But there are a few credit cards that offer companion tickets which might help depending on where you are planning to travel.
I'll list them here in no particular order.

Delta Platinum American Express - in your renewal month, Delta will give you a certificate good for a domestic companion ticket within the 48 contiguous United States. The fine print says "Seats are only available in L,U,T,X,V classes of service and may not be available on all flights or markets. " The annual fee on this card is $195. But you also get a $100 statement credit for any Delta purchase. 

Alaska Airlines Visa Signature Card - Won't give you a free companion pass, but it will give you a $99 companion flight ticket upon approval of the card and again every year on your anniversary. If you look at the fine print, the voucher is good for $99 fare plus $22 in taxes so you would actually pay $121. The annual fee is $95, but it could be worth it if you live in or near a hub. Or maybe you are planning to take the family to Hawaii. $99 flight to Hawaii isn't free, but it's almost free. 

Southwest Airlines Companion Pass - This is the best deal out there. For the first time, you can earn it easily by opening 2 Chase Southwest credit cards. You may have to google 50,000 offer to reach a live link. Each card comes with a bonus of 50,000 miles, add in the minimum spend of $3,000 and you have already collected 106,000 Southwest miles. Charge another $4,000 and you have earned the companion pass. Southwest awards anyone who earns 110,000 Southwest miles in a calendar year, the pass. This allows you to bring a companion along free on any flight for the rest of the calendar year and the next one too. So if you earn this pass in January, you will have it for the next 2 years.
If you already have the Chase Southwest Credit Cards or you are not eligible for them, it is harder. However, you can collect Marriott points and then cash in for a Marriott vacation package. This deals ends March 31st 2017.  See my previous blog post on how to do this. The Southwest credit cards have an annual fee of $69 or $99, but Southwest awards you with 3,000 or 6,000 bonus miles on your anniversary.

If you know of any other cards that offer companion tickets, let me know.

On the day, we celebrate the life and wisdom of Martin Luther King Jr., I remember this quote. "The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important."
So what is quality to you? For me, it is time with family, travel, new experiences and helping others.
Through my blog and other businesses, I strive to help people save and manage their money so they can afford to see the world with their family and experience different cultures. I believe that once we venture out of our own bubble, we learn that all people are the same. All people regardless of their race, nationality or religion are looking for love and acceptance.
Enjoy the holiday with your family and of course, thinking about where you will travel in 2017 and 2018 and how almostfreefamilytravel.com can help!

How to spend the minimum to get the bonus

Over the holidays, a few people told me about big trips they would like to take summer 2018. I told them I would help them travel for free, but they said I don't spend a lot of money so I can't get the bonuses on credit cards like you do. And I don't want to spend extra money.
Right, I don't spend extra money. I just spend smarter.
Every few months, I call the secretary at the synagogue and change my credit card for my monthly membership bill. I told her she is helping me go to Europe for almost free, she is more than happy to help.
So I asked my friend, do you have an electric bill? Yes, she said. Okay, do you have a cable bill? Yes, she said. What about a cell phone bill? Oh, yes, I have one of those too. Right.
What if we put all of those payments on one credit card for 3 months? Would that equal $500 per month or $1500 dollars in 3 months? Probably pretty close.
How about your gym membership? car payment? groceries? Costco? medication?
Do you have a big expense coming up? How about your auto insurance, homeowners insurance or property taxes? You may be able to figure out how to put your rent or mortgage on the credit card too.
Just remember to always set your credit card to auto pay immediately after you receive it in the mail. And you have to pay it off each month.
Some people manufacture their spend to meet minimum spending requirements, but I don't. I just use a single credit card for all of my bills for a few months and then move on to the next one. And I make a note in my calendar about a month before the one year anniversary date so I can decide it's it worth keeping the card or cancelling it.
If I'm not focusing on a single card, then I fall back on my Starwood American Express card and my Visa Marriott Rewards Premier credit card. 

WOW Air offers great Spring Break Flights

WOW Air, the discounted Iceland airline, is offering amazing deals right now through April. If you are thinking about a European vacation over Spring Break 2017, this may be your ticket. And if you buy the tickets with your Barclay Arrival Plus credit card, you can get 5% back or use your $500 travel credit.

Some sample fares include:

$99 from Los Angeles to Reyjavik, Iceland
$129 from Los Angeles to Berlin, Germany

and lots more! I have seen reports of fares as low as $69, but I could not find those. The lowest I found was $99 one way.

Now WOW Air is a discounted airline so be careful because they will nickel and dime you for everything including printing your boarding pass, seat reservation, baggage etc. So read the fine print!

But for a family wanting a vacation, you could fly for almost FREE!

Bam! Wyndham Bonus Arrives Today

This is one of the best kept secrets out there. Once you get your flights secured with points or miles, you need to move onto hotels. For my family, breakfast and a clean room are tops. A pool is a bonus if we are going to a warm climate.
But luxury is not the way we usually travel. And since we are a family of 5, sometimes we have to book 2 rooms due to hotel rules.
So the Wyndham Credit Card  has been very useful for us. The bonus is 45,000 points with a $75 annual fee which is not waived and a $2,000 minimum spend. You actually earn 30,000 points with your first purchase and then the additional 15,000 once you reach the minimum spend. There is a second card. The bonus is just 15,000 points, but there is no annual fee and the minimum spend is just $1,000.
Since every hotel room costs 15,000 points, this bonus is good for 3 nights.
You can use the website Awardmapper.com to find Wyndham hotels and partner hotels.
Hotel partners include Days Inn, Ramada, Howard Johnsons and Super 8.
We used the points for an overnight this past summer at the Wyndham Costa del Sol Airport in Lima Peru. The Wyndham is actually connected to the airport which makes it so easy to catch an early morning flight.
The breakfast is quite hearty and included. We booked 2 rooms so it cost us 30,000 points. If we had paid cash for this hotel, it would have cost us $350.
My husband I both applied for the card this time and we were both approved. We knew we had some bills coming up like our gym membership so reaching the minimum spend wouldn't be hard.
We will use the 90,000 points for a 3 night stay with 2 rooms in Prague next summer. If we had paid for a hotel in Prague, we would have spent approximately $750. BAM! That's what I call almostFREEfamilytravel!

Great News! Southwest Extends Companion Pass

Southwest announced this morning that they will reverse the hotel transfer policy until March 31st 2017 reopening a loophole to earn the companion pass. That is great news! They suddenly closed the loophole without any notice on Jan. 1st and were inundated with emails from upset people.
I sent them an email as well because I had been collecting Marriott points for more than a year waiting to cash them in for a vacation package. 
Why were so many people hoping to buy a vacation package? Here's the loophole. You can buy a Marriott vacation package and still earn the pass. The Southwest Marriott 7 day vacation package costs 270,000 points, but nets you 120,000 Southwest points and 7 day vacation at a category 1-5 Marriott. When the 120,000 Southwest points hit your account, Southwest automatically awards you with a companion pass. 
The companion pass allows you to bring a guest free on any flight for that calendar year and the next. So it's good for buy 1 get 1 free travel for 2 years. Wow!
Now you have until March 31st 2017 to do this so don't delay because starting in April the loophole will close for good.

Strange Southwest Email

I received a strange email this morning from Southwest Airlines. At first, I was excited then I was angry. To be clear, my companion pass expired Dec. 31st, 2016. I have been collecting Marriott miles for almost a year so that I could buy a Marriott vacation package and earn the pass again. On Jan. 1st, Southwest changed their policy and hotel transfer points no longer qualify.
Fellow blogger Loophole Travel  called Southwest and the agent told him he would see his companion pass post tomorrow. Loophole Travel says he has not earned the pass. The agent could not tell Loophole Travel how he had earned the pass.
Southwest's official Twitter page says the emails were sent out in error. I'll be checking tomorrow. Perhaps, Southwest felt bad for me.

Bad News For The Southwest Companion Pass

Sometimes you win in this game and sometimes you lose. This is a loser. Southwest Airlines announced on January 1st 2017 that points transferred from hotel loyalty programs will no longer count towards a companion pass.
So that means if you were saving up those Marriott/SPG points to buy a Southwest vacation package that would also earn you a companion pass, you are now out of luck.
More details are coming.......