Jet Blue Holiday Deals

I'm not a big Jet Blue flyer, but they are offering deals for the holidays that I can't pass up. Everyday at 1pm EST, they will release a new deal. Deals like $20 flights! Wow! Here's the link. Be sure to check back daily until December 16th 2016. And let me know what kind of deal you get!

Get 3 FREE Nights At Wyndham Hotels

Barclays is offering the Wyndham credit card right now with a 45,000 bonus. That's good for 3 nights at most Wyndham hotels. Last summer, we used 30,000 Wyndham points for one night at the Wyndham Costa del Sol airport hotel in Lima.  We are a family of 5 and needed 2 rooms. The hotel included breakfast and we were just steps from the airport so it was easy to catch our early morning flight.
Then we used the remaining 15,000 points to stay a night at the Days Inn San Francisco at the beach. I stayed there with 4 kids and it included breakfast so it was a great value!
My husband and I just applied for this card again and if approved, we will have 90,000 points. We plan to use them to stay at the Ramada in Prague next summer. 2 rooms for 3 nights and includes breakfast. It's at least a  $650 value. Great deal!
Here are the details on the card:

• Earn 30,000 bonus points after 
  your first purchase. Plus, earn an 
  additional 15,000 bonus points after 
  you spend $2,000 on purchases within 
  the first 90 days of account opening.3
• Earn 5 points per $1 spent on eligible 
  purchases for every participating hotel 
  stay, Wyndham Vacation Rental North 
  America properties, and on-property 
  spend and maintenance fees at Wyndham 
  timeshare properties4
• Earn 2 points per $1 spent on eligible 
  gas, utility and grocery store purchases 
  (excluding Target® and Walmart®)4
• Earn 1 point per $1 spent on 
  purchases everywhere else (excluding 
  Wyndham timeshare downpayments)4
• Get PLATINUM! Automatically 
  receive a Wyndham Rewards 
  PLATINUM Membership and enjoy 
  these new perks5
• Earn 6,000 bonus points annually 
  after your account anniversary every year3
• No foreign transaction fees1
• $75 annual fee1

Buy $10 Starbucks, Get $10 FREE

Starbucks & Visa Checkout are once again teaming up to offer a very nice discount. I just did it and it worked! 

The Offer

Receive a $10 Starbucks® eGift when you reload $10+ in the Starbucks® app using Visa Checkout.

How It Works

1. Download the Starbucks app and create an account
2. Reload $10 to the Starbucks app with Visa Checkout
3. Receive your $10 eGift within 1 day

Key Terms

• Supplies are limited.
• Starbucks will give away a limited number of Bonus Loads to eligible customers between 11/29/16 and 12/22/16 while supplies last.
• To receive a Bonus Load, you must load your Starbucks® card in the Starbucks® app with $10+ using Visa Checkout as a payment method and meet the other eligibility requirements below.
• This offer is open to legal residents of the 50 United States and D.C. who have a valid Visa Checkout account.

Save Big On Your Next Vacation, Here's How

When you are planning your trip, sometimes it's hard to use miles and points. Depending on where you want to go or if there are certain flights you want or very specific days you want to travel, it may be nearly impossible to use your points and miles.
So what do you do?
A great credit card to have in your toolbox is the Barclays Arrival Plus. Right now, you get 50,000 points bonus for signing up and spending $3000 in the first 90 days which is like a $500 travel credit. Then you get 5% back every time you use the card on travel purchases like airbnb, fees and taxes for airlines, hotels, train ticket etc.
So when we traveled to Costa Rica a few years back, we needed to fly on a certain flight on a certain day. Plus we were going with extended family and they wanted to all fly on the same Delta airlines flight. Delta is not my favorite airline and I don't usually collect miles or points for Delta.
But since I won't pay full price for plane ticket, I had to find a go around.
Here's where the Barclays card came in. I could buy 2 plane tickets and essentially get the 3rd ticket FREE with the bonus and 10% back in travel credit.
My mother in law opened a card too and knocked thousands off the cost of the trip since she picked up many of the hotels and meals.
It's been 2 years since I've had the Barclays card so I just signed up again. Plan to put my property taxes on the card to reach the minimum spend. Even though I will be charged 3% in credit card fees, it's worth it to get a $500 travel credit since I think I will have to buy my husband a one way ticket next summer to meet us in Europe.
That's how you do it....almost FREE family travel!

Using the right credit card to maximize earnings

Once you apply for a few credit cards, it's important to use the right credit card to maximize the points earned. For example, the Chase FREEDOM card changes bonus categories every quarter. Right now, if you use the card at wholesale club stores like Costco, you earn 5x Chase Ultimate Rewards Points. Those points can be used for cash back, gift cards or travel. The travel is a little tricky since you need to have the Chase Sapphire Preferred to be eligible to transfer rewards points to airlines.
But earning 5x rewards points is huge!
The Chase Ink card Business Cash offers 5% cash back on office supply store, internet, cable and phone bills. So you should always auto pay those bills to your Chase Ink card to maximize earnings.
Starwood Points are super valuable because you can transfer them to lots of different airlines and get a bonus so I use this card as my default. American Express offers savings on their website so check those out every once in a while and add them to your card.
Especially helps during holiday shopping. Always, always use a portal when you do your online holiday shopping. I check a variety of them i.e. cash back and airline before I purchase.
In January, I may start using my Southwest card again to collect points towards a companion pass.
And for the rest of this year, I'll use my Marriott card since I'm hoping to buy a Marriott Vacation Package in January and gain a Southwest Airlines companion pass. Check my previous blog post to read about how to do this.
There are other cards that have bonus categories and some cards that are co-branded that will give you a bonus if you use that card to stay at the hotel or buy plane tickets on that particular airline.
I actually mark the physical card with the bonus category so I remember which card to use. Good luck!

How to save money on airline taxes and fees

Had dinner with a friend the other night and he was telling me how he scored 4 round trip tickets from the US to Italy in business class with points.  I got really excited because I love when people travel for almost free. But then he said he paid almost $2500 in airline taxes and fees. Bummer! 

Here's the lesson. You don't have to use your miles on the airline that you earned them on. For example, my friend had Avios points. Now he could have used those Avios points on a partner airline and avoided the fees. British Airways has one of the highest fees and taxes in the industry especially if you stop over in London. But British Airways is in the One World Alliance so it partners with American Airlines, Iberia Airlines and dozens of other airlines so he could have used those Avios to book on another airline and saved a ton of money in fees and taxes. 

When I went to Peru this past summer, I used my Avios to book plane tickets on LAN Airlines. This is great use for Avios because most flights in South America are considered short haul. Short haul flights cost just 7,500 Avios. So  for 37,500 Avios my family of 5 was able to fly from Cuzco to Lima. If I had paid for this flight, it would have cost me at least $650. I earned 100,000 Avios by applying for the British Airways credit card when they offered their bonus last year. 

Remember using your points is often like playing a game of detective, but it can pay off huge. 

Raise Money For Your Kid's School For FREE

So I love to save money on my family's budget by using cash back portals and cash back rewards credit cards. But did you know that you can use a new app called Benefit to raise money the same way for your child's school or a non profit.
It's so easy and right now for every 10 people who open a new account by November 30, Benefit will send $100 to your designated school.
Here's how it works:
1. Download the app to your phone or tablet
2. Sign up for new account

3. Designate your child's school or a non profit as the beneficiary
4. Then buy any giftcards like you normally would through the vendor's website. There are dozens of vendors including Starbucks, Home Depot etc.
5. The first time you use this app, you will need to register your credit card. The app will charge a small amount to the card and ask you to verify that amount. This could take 24 hours, but it only happens the first time. Once you verify, you can instantly purchase any gift card.
6. You will instantly see a egift card that you can transfer to a current gift card or present at the store for redemption.
7. After you use the gift card, you will see the percentage transferred to your beneficiary.

This app works with Escrip.com 
Easy!