Find Out If You Qualify For 5,000 FREE Aeroplan Miles

 

One of my favorite travel credit cards just dropped a great offer! 5,000 FREE Aeroplan points, yes! Aeroplan is the loyalty program for Air Canada which is a transfer partner and offers great flight deals. A few years back, I flew the whole family for FREE on Air Canada to Dublin, Ireland. You can read about it here. 

Find Out If You Qualify For 5,000 FREE Aeroplan Miles

If you are a current Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card holder, you are eligible. It does not matter if you were a card holder before the refresh or if you are new card holder. 

The Chase Sapphire Reserve underwent a refresh in June which you can read about here. We still love this card despite the annual fee increase as long as you utilize all the benefits and credits. 

Now if you have the Reserve credit card, it just takes minutes to register here and claim your 5,000 points. If you are not yet a member of Aeroplan, you can join first and then register. 

Find Out If You Qualify For 5,000 FREE Aeroplan Miles

If you don't have the Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card yet, there is an amazing bonus offer right now:

• 100,000 bonus points 
• $5,000 minimum spend in 3 months 
• $500 promo travel credit 
• $300 Stub Hub credit 
• $500 Edit hotel credit 
• $120 Door Dash credit 
• $120 Global Entry credit 
• $795 annual fee 

This offer is valued at more than $2,750. And now, a bonus 5,000 Aeroplan points! 

Want more personal help using points and miles for almost FREE travel? Join my Travel Coaching Program and we will design your personal strategy to travel for almost FREE and guide you through the process. Right now, you can use the promo code "FREETRAVEL" to get $50 off the program. 

Not ready to dive into the coaching program, download the ebook or custom tracker or book a 1:1 consulting call with me.  I would love to help you make priceless family memories affordable. 

*For every new client, we will donate 10% of the proceeds to one of our favorite charities. 

How I Scored A Flight To Europe for $50 And 20,000 Points

  

Number one million why I love flexible points! You have been hearing a lot about Chase Ultimate Rewards points these days because of the recently announced incredible bonus offers, but this story is about another brand of flexible points. One that you don't hear about as often and one that doesn't get enough credit. 

How I Scored A Flight To Europe for $50 And 20,000 Points 

We are talking about Avios, the loyalty points program for British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Qatar Airways and Finnair. But it doesn't stop there because these airlines are part of the One World Alliance that also includes partners like American Airlines, LATAM, and Vueling. 

The flexible part here is that you can transfer the points between the main four airlines depending on which one offers you the best deal. And you can transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards points and Capital One points to Avios too. 

Let's look at the path I took to find this great deal of 20,000 points and $50 on a one way flight from Chicago to Madrid, Spain. 

How I Scored A Flight To Europe for $50 And 20,000 Points 

1. Start with Google Flights to see your options. We find this American Airlines red eye flight for $464 in economy. 

2. Next let's check American Airlines. Now I actually don't have any American Airlines miles and it is not a transfer partner for any flexible points, but let's check anyway. It's being offered for 27,000 miles and $5.60 so that gives us a starting point. We are looking at off peak fares.  

3. I always like to check seats.aero to see what other options may be out there. You can see 90 days out with a free account. 

4. Then I check the Chase Travel Portal and the Capital One Travel Portal to see if the flight is listed and how many points are needed or the price if I decide to buy it in the portal and earn 5x points. 

Now that the Chase Travel Portal has added the "Points Booster", it's always a good idea to look because you never know what you are going to get and it changes constantly. The Capital One Travel Portal is always one cent per point so it's usually a better place to pay cash, earn 5x points and then erase the purchase with your points. In the Chase Travel Portal, the same flight would cost 30,993 points. In the Capital One Travel Portal, the same flight would cost 46,400 points.  Big difference! 

4. American Airlines is in the One World Alliance with British Airways so we try searching there. The same flight shows up for 20,750 Avios and $213. I like the the number of points, but those taxes, Yikes. 

5. So can we do better? Since Madrid is the base for Iberia Airlines and we have a stash of Avios from the Iberia Airlines credit card bonus offer a few years ago, let's see what's happening there. 

Wow! 20,750 Avios and $51.70, now that's a deal. Remember when we mentioned that Iberia is part of the One World Alliance with American Airlines? This deal is for the same American Airlines red eye flight from Chicago to Madrid. Crazy, right?

And guess what? We look for the return flight and snag that one for just 16,000 Avios and $100 taxes. That's how we do it here at Almost FREE Family Travel. 

So if you just got your Chase Sapphire Preferred 100,000 bonus, this could be one way to use those points. Click here to read about other ways. 

Want more personal help using points and miles for almost FREE travel? Book a 1:1 consulting call or Join my Travel Coaching Program and we will design your personal strategy to travel for almost FREE and guide you through the process.

 Right now, you can use the promo code "FREETRAVEL" to get $50 off the coaching program. I would love to help you make priceless family memories affordable. 

*For every new client, we will donate 10% of the proceeds to one of our favorite charities. 

Avios 

20,000 $50 Chicago to Madrid 

16,000 $131 Madrid to Chicago 

Iberia Avios 

Got My 100,000 Chase Bonus, Now What?

 

Woohoo! Thank you Chewy. That one purchase put me over the $5,000 minimum spend for the 100,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards bonus on the Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card. 

This was the incredible bonus offer that ended May 15th. You may still be working on reaching the minimum spend or you may see the bonus pop up in your account soon!

It is interesting that I have not even made the second payment on this card yet, but they gave me the bonus points. It used to be that Capital One was the only issuer that would award the points before you paid the bill. 

• This means that you could actually put the points towards a statement credit on this payment so you knock $1,000 off your credit card bill. Pretty cool. 

But we can actually squeeze a lot more value out of 100,000 Chase Ultimate Reward points. 

How can you squeeze more value out of your CUR points? 

• One way is to transfer them to an airline that usually gives fantastic points redemption on flights like Flying Blue (KLM, Air France loyalty program) and Iberia Avios. 
• But you can also find some great surprise redemptions on airlines like Emirates like this 7,500 points for a flight from Malta to Cyprus. 
• If you were to buy this flight, it would cost you $284.  
• I like to use the tool seats.aero to find out what award flights are available. The tool is FREE unless you want to search more than 90 days out.  

Another way to squeeze more value out of CUR points is to transfer them to Hyatt. You can find Hyatt Place and Hyatt House hotels for as low as 3,500 per night. Incredible. 

And you can also transfer the points over to a Chase Sapphire Reserve account and use them in the Chase Travel Portal for 1.5:1 or use them in the Chase Sapphire Preferred Travel Portal for 1.25:1 value. 

This is why I love flexible points like CUR, Amex and Capital One. 

If you don't have a Sapphire card yet, you could apply for the Chase Sapphire Reserve before June 23rd to lock in the $550 annual fee. Right now, it offers 60,000 bonus points for a $5,000 minimum spend. 

The Chase Sapphire Preferred is back to its regular offer of 60,000 points for a $5,000 minimum spend and $95 annual fee. We hear that some better offers might be announced next week so you may want to hold off for a few days. 

Want more personal help using points and miles for almost FREE travel? Join my Travel Coaching Program and we will design your personal strategy to travel for almost FREE and guide you through the process. Right now, you can use the promo code "FREETRAVEL" to get $50 off the program. Or book a 1:1 consulting call.  I would love to help you make priceless family memories affordable. 

*For every new client, we will donate 10% of the proceeds to one of our favorite charities. 

Hidden Treasure: How One Client Discovered 275,000 Points She Never Knew She Had

A new client reached out the other day because she wanted to fly across the country to visit her cousins. She had 29,500 United miles, but the flight she was eyeing was charging 15,000 miles each way. Should I buy the extra 500 miles that I need for this trip? And would it be possible to fly premium or business class?

Since this was my first meeting with this client, we needed to find out if she had any other points or miles available. She booked a 1:1 consult through the website. The client said she had a Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card, but had never checked the points balance. 

Hidden Treasure: How One Client Discovered 275,000 Points She Never Knew She Had

She logged into her account and guess what? She found that she had 275,000 CUR points, wow! "How much are those worth?" she asked. Those points could be worth as little as $3,000 and as much as thousands more depending on how you spend them. 

Back to the United flight, premium economy was not available and business class would cost a whopping 117,000 points. Though the client had the points, she didn't want to spend so many of them on this flight. 

Another option would be to transfer 1,000 CUR points to United to top off the account and buy the economy flight for 30,000 points and $11.40 taxes. 

But first we checked the Chase Travel Portal. The same flight listed for 27,798 points. Woohoo! That's even less points than using United miles. 

Hidden Treasure: How One Client Discovered 275,000 Points She Never Knew She Had

Done! And she still has 247,000 CUR points to travel where ever she wants to go next and next and next. 

Want more personal help using points and miles for almost FREE travel? Join my Travel Coaching Program and we will design your personal strategy to travel for almost FREE and guide you through the process. Right now, you can use the promo code "FREETRAVEL" to get $50 off the program. Or book a 1:1 consulting call.  I would love to help you make priceless family memories affordable. 

*For every new client, we will donate 10% of the proceeds to one of our favorite charities. 

How To Score The Best Travel Deal With Points And Miles

 

Sometimes the best option for using your points and miles is not the most obvious one and as always I am going to make another plug for why I love flexible points like Chase Ultimate Rewards.  

The most obvious is using your points and miles to book directly with the airline or hotel. But we always recommend checking multiple options before you book because you may be surprised. 

Sometimes it's a better plan to transfer miles or points to a transfer partner that may offer the same flight for less miles or use the points in a travel portal. 

Let's take a look at an example: 

We are looking to book a one way flight from San Diego to JFK in New York. 

• First, we check google flights to see what options are available. Then we check seats.aero to see what points and miles options may be available. Seats.aero is free for search 60 days out and $9.99 per month for search one year out. 

We see on Seats.aero that there are flights available on Jet Blue, Delta and American. Jet Blue is a new transfer partner with Chase so we check Jet Blue. Delta is offering flights from 15,900 points so then we hop over to Delta to see what's available. 

We see a few good options Jet Blue for 13,100 points and Delta for 14,900 points. 

The Delta flight has better timing so we check the Chase Travel Portal just to see if any of these flights are listed there and we can get an even better deal. 

Bam! We find that the Delta flight is being offered for just 11,900 points through the Chase Sapphire Reserve travel portal. CUR points are worth 1:1.5 so we can get the same flight for even less points than if we booked right on the Delta website. 

That's how we do it here and that's why we love flexible points. 

Want more personal help using points and miles for almost FREE travel? Join my Travel Coaching Program and we will design your personal strategy to travel for almost FREE and guide you through the process. Right now, you can use the promo code "FREETRAVEL" to get $50 off the program. 

Or you can book a consulting call with us for just $100. I would love to help you make priceless family memories affordable. 

***In honor of every new paid client, we will make a donation of 10% to one of our favorite charities. 

Another Client Success Story: Saved $400 on Last Minute Flights

A client called to ask for help because they needed to take a last minute trip to Austin, Texas, but flights cost over $400 each way. Argh. 

Let's walk through how I found last minute flights for FREE, well, $19. 😂

• My first go-to is usually google flights just to see what's available in the space. Who flies from San Francisco to Austin, Texas. In this case, we see that Frontier, Southwest, United and Alaska. Frontier charges $151 one way, but you would have an almost 10 hour layover in Denver or change planes in Atlanta. Ugh. 

• Next, we look at the Chase Travel Portal because we have a stash of flexible points due to amazing bonus offers like the 100,000 point offer on the Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card that is ending May 15th. We can get a flight on American one way for 29,546. The actual cost of the flight is $444 so this isn't bad, but can we do better?

• Next stop, seats.aero. This tool will let you know all the points flights available. The free version will show you flights 60 days out, the paid version will search out almost one year. We see that Alaska is offering flights for just 12,500 plus $19. Bam! 

Another Client Success Story: Saved $400 on Last Minute Flights

But next question, does this client have Alaska Airlines miles? Bilt just added Alaska Airlines as a transfer partner in March 2025 and this client uses his Bilt credit card to pay his rent each month. Woohoo! None of the other flexible points transfer to Alaska Airlines. 

Once the client logs into his Alaska Airlines account, he finds that he already has 7,500 miles in his account, yes! Another reason we love our personal tracker from the Almost FREE Family Travel coaching program so you can keep track of your points and miles. No surprises. 

Another Client Success Story: Saved $400 on Last Minute Flights

The client transferred just 5,000 points from his Bilt account to Alaska Airlines and booked the flight for 12,500 and $18 taxes. Wow! 

That's how we do it here and that's why we love flexible points. 

Want more personal help using points and miles for almost FREE travel? Join my Travel Coaching Program and we will design your personal strategy to travel for almost FREE and guide you through the process. Right now, you can use the promo code "FREETRAVEL" to get $50 off the program. 

Or you can book a consulting call with us for just $100. I would love to help you make priceless family memories affordable. 

***In honor of every new paid client, we will make a donation of 10% to one of our favorite charities. 

Have Southwest Flight Credits? Stop Giving Southwest Your Money

 

I met with a client recently who asked me why Southwest Airlines charged her 23,000 points and $185 for a round trip flight from San Diego to Phoenix. She logged into her account so we could investigate and I noticed she had $1,372 in flight credits on Southwest. 

So now I was wondering "why was she giving Southwest any money at all?"

First, let's look at how she accumulated so many travel credits in the first place. 

How do you get travel credits on Southwest?

When you buy a flight with cash as opposed to points on Southwest and then cancel that flight, Southwest does not return your funds to your credit card instead it issues you a travel credit. 

If the price of your flight goes down and you change the flight to get the better fare, if you paid with cash, then you would get a travel credit for the difference.

Have Southwest Travel Credits? Stop Giving Southwest Your Money 

If you click on the "my account" tab inside your Southwest online account and scroll all the way to the bottom you will see your flight credits. If you always fly using points like I do, you will have no flight credits. 

But if you pay cash for flights and cancel, you will see this.

Most of the time, flight credits are not transferable which means they must be used by the same passenger as the original ticketed passenger. And starting May 28th 2025, travel credits will expire in 6-12 months depending on the type of fare. 

Have Southwest Flight Credits? Stop Giving Southwest Your Money 

If you have flight credits, then you should use them. Definitely stop giving Southwest your money and buying flights with cash. Even if you have points, use your travel credits first since you can use points for anyone and you can only use flight credits for the original passenger. 

To use flight credits, when you get to the payment section for your flight, scroll down and click apply flight credits. You will need your confirmation number which is a jumble of numbers and letters listed in the flight credits section of "my account." You can use several flight credits to pay for single flight.  

In the future, always use points to book Southwest flights. That's why we love flexible points like Chase Ultimate Rewards and Bilt points. You can transfer those to Southwest 1:1 if you need more Southwest points. If you book with points, you will never be stuck with those pesky flight credits. 

Want more personal help using points and miles for almost FREE travel? Join my Travel Coaching Program and we will design your personal strategy to travel for almost FREE and guide you through the process. Right now, you can use the promo code "FREETRAVEL" to get $50 off the program. I would love to help you make priceless family memories affordable. 

Just Got Word....My Favorite Card Is Ending It's 100,000 Bonus Offer Soon 💗

Just got word that the 100,000 bonus point offer on the Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card will be ending soon. We don't know when soon is, but if you are thinking about this one. Do not wait! 

This my favorite card and Chase Ultimate Rewards are my favorite points. 

Just Got Word....My Favorite Card Is Ending It's 100,000 Bonus Offer Soon 💗 

What can you do with 100,000 Chase points? Here are some real examples:

• I flew from Athens to LAX for 15,000 Chase points + $90 taxes 
• My daughter and I flew from LAX to Medellin, Colombia for 54,000 Chase points round trip booked in the Chase Travel Portal. 
• I could transfer the points 1:1 to dozens of airlines including Southwest Airlines, what could you do with 100,000 Southwest points? How about 5 round trip flights to New York? Add the Southwest companion pass and wow! 
• I could transfer those points to Hyatt and stay at the Hyatt Regency Maui or Hyatt Vacation Club Ka'anapali for four nights. 

• Go off peak and stay at the Hyatt Place Waikiki and you could stretch those points to 7 nights FREE. 

Check out these other ways to squeeze more value out of Chase Ultimate Rewards points. 

If you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve, you could stretch those bonus points even further. 

The current bonus offer on the Chase Sapphire Preferred is a $5,000 minimum spend in three months. This card has a $95 annual fee, but comes with a $50 hotel credit. 

Want more personal help using points and miles for almost FREE travel? Join my Travel Coaching Program and we will design your personal strategy to travel for almost FREE and guide you through the process. Right now, you can use the promo code "FREETRAVEL" to get $50 off the program. I would love to help you make priceless family memories affordable. 

Great News! Bilt Adds Southwest As A Transfer Partner

 

If you are renting, you should have a Bilt credit card! You can read all about the Bilt card here. For renters, it is a no brainer way to rack up flexible points every month. Those points can be transferred just like Chase Ultimate Reward points, Citi points, Amex points and Capital One points to dozens of airlines and hotels.

Great News! Bilt Adds Southwest As A Transfer Partner

 

And now Bilt has added Southwest Airlines as one of its transfer partners. 

The only other flexible points you can transfer to Southwest Airlines are Chase Ultimate Reward points. 

The points transfer 1:1 meaning 1 Bilt point = 1 Southwest point same as Chase Ultimate Reward points to Southwest points. 

The points do not count towards the Southwest Companion Pass. 

Let's say you spend $2,500 per month on rent. If you pay your rent through the Bilt app with your Bilt credit card, you will earn $2,500 Bilt points or 2,500 Southwest points per month. You need to make at least 5 transactions per month on your Bilt credit card to qualify.  

So after three months, you would have 7,500 Bilt points which you could transfer to Southwest and use them for flights like three one way flights from San Diego to San Francisco. Now that Southwest Travel Credits expire, you should always use points to buy flights. If you use points on Southwest and cancel a flight, the points are returned to your account. Southwest points never expire. 

Want more personal help using points and miles for almost FREE travel? Join my Travel Coaching Program and we will design your personal strategy to travel for almost FREE and guide you through the process. Right now, you can use the promo code "FREETRAVEL" to get $50 off the program. I would love to help you make priceless family memories affordable. 

Why You Shouldn't Care About Southwest Travel Credits Expiring

Southwest has announced yet another change to the beloved airline and customers are hopping mad. But here's why we don't care about this change either. 

A few weeks ago, I told you why we didn't care about the change Southwest made to how many points you earn when you fly. And now they are changing the expiration date policy for travel credits. 

But we don't care about this one either because we never have any travel credits. I'll tell you why in a minute. 

Why You Shouldn't Care About Southwest Travel Credits Expiring

First, the new policy will go into effect with tickets purchased or changed starting on May 28, 2025.  

• After that date, travel credits will expire 12 months from the date of the original ticket purchase. 
• Travel credits from the new basic economy fares will expire just 6 months from date of original ticket purchase. 

Here's where it gets tricky, if you buy a Basic Economy fare ticket 6 months in advance and cancel, you will get no credit at all. The ticket basically becomes non refundable. Ouch. 

Gone is the Southwest Airlines that we knew and loved. 

Why You Shouldn't Care About Southwest Travel Credits Expiring

So what should you do? 

The hack is to always use points to buy your Southwest flights. This way, you never get stuck with a travel credit. If you cancel, your points are just returned to your Southwest account. No problem! 

The easiest way right now to get a ton of Southwest points is to apply for my favorite travel credit card, the Chase Sapphire Preferred. The new offer is a whopping 100,000 Chase Ultimate Reward points for $5,000 minimum spend in the first three months. 

• This card carries only a $95 annual fee
• You get a $50 hotel credit in the Chase Travel Portal
• 25% more value in the Chase Travel Portal 
• 5x points on hotels booked in the Chase Travel Portal
• 2x points on travel purchases
• 3x points on dining purchases

And you can transfer the Chase Ultimate Reward points to a dozen different airlines and several hotel chains including Southwest. 

What can you do with 100,000 Southwest points? How about flying from Washington DC to San Diego ten times?

That's pretty crazy, right? And if you are part of our travel coaching program and monthly live zoom sessions, you know how to book the lowest point flight and then change to a better flight without spending any more points. 

So now you can see that there are still work arounds so all the LUV is not gone from Southwest Airlines. 

As always, if you need more guidance, please join our Travel Coaching Program, you can find out more about our personal coaching here. 

Use FREETRAVEL for $50 off the cost. 

How You Can Squeeze More Value Out Of 100,00 Chase Points

 

One of the questions I get all the time is about the value of points and miles. Since the value changes for each type of points and miles, it's hard to figure out their worth. 

But with the new whopping 100,000 bonus offer on the Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card, let's take a look at the value of those points specifically to figure out what they are worth.  

I love Chase Ultimate Reward points because they are what I like to call flexible points. Flexible because you can use them in many different ways depending on where you want to travel. Chase advertises that 100,000 points are worth $1,250 of travel. 

But they actually could be worth much more. 

Let's take a look at the different ways you can use the points. 

You can: 

• transfer them to dozens of hotels and airlines
• you can use them in the Chase Travel Portal
• you can use them for statement credit or cash back 

If you choose to use the points for a statement credit or cash back, they are worth $1,000. Pretty good, right? 

But if you choose to use the points to purchase flights, hotels, car rentals, cruises and tours then your points are worth $1,250 because Chase gives you 25% more value when you use your points to book travel in the portal. The portal is similar to using Expedia. That's a pretty good deal. 

But the best deal could be transferring your points to one of a dozen different airlines or Hyatt, Marriott or IHG. You can read about how I used them to take my family to Ireland. 

• The sweet spot is transferring these points to FlyingBlue.com which is the loyalty program for Air France and KLM. You can see a one way flight is priced for just 20,000 points from Washington DC to Amsterdam. Recently, I was able to snag a flight from Athens to LAX for just 15,000 points and $90. This flight was being sold for more than $700. 
• Or transfer the points to Hyatt to snag a hotel room for as low as 3,500 points per night. 
• Or transfer the points to Jet Blue and fly from California to New York for just 13,500 points each way. Wow! 

Now you are squeezing thousands of dollars out of those 100,000 points. Plus the Chase Sapphire Preferred comes with an annual $50 hotel credit when you reserve through the portal. The annual fee on this card is only $95 so it's really a no brainer. 

The fine print, you can only get this bonus once every four years and you can only hold one Sapphire branded credit card at a time. This 100,000 bonus offer requires you to spend $5,000 in the first three months so if you have any big purchases coming up soon, you might want to think about applying. 

As always, if you need more guidance, please join our Travel Coaching Program, you can find out more about our personal coaching here. Use FREETRAVEL for $50 off the cost.