How to travel light with a family

Whether we travel for a week or a month, we pack the same thing in the same bag. My rule is each person needs to wheel their own bag the entire trip. And we travel by plane, train, bus and boat a lot. This photo above sums it up. Each child wheeling their own bag and then my 4 year old riding on my bag which we shared. That's it.
If the trip is more than a week long, we do laundry halfway through. In Peru, we booked an apartment with Airbnb.com halfway through the trip and did a bit of laundry.
In Thailand, we did a load while we stayed with a friend.
As long as you plan on doing a load somewhere, you can pack for one week.
We also pack layers. I remember when I traveled once around Europe in December and wore every piece of clothing in my suitcase. I was that cold!

Here's my packing list:
2 pairs of pants
2 pairs of shorts
6 pairs of underwear
5 pairs of socks
1 pair pajamas
2 bathing suits
1 sweatshirt
1 dining outfit
6 shirts
1 long sleeve shirt
2 pairs of shoes (you wear one and pack one)
toiletries

If you are traveling to a cold weather location, then the packing list gets a bit longer.
For Peru, we encountered everything from cold to really hot. So we had to add gloves, scarf, long underwear and a jacket.
The big issue is always whether we should check one bag and bring sunscreen, shampoo and conditioner or buy it when we arrive or even better hope the hotel is supplying it. For Peru, we checked one bag since we also needed to bring along bug spray and medications for the Amazon.
For Thailand, we bought it all there. Going to the local grocery store is always a fun experience!
The bottom line is pack light and do laundry.

How To Get Bonus Avios Miles

Between February 6th and March 8th, British Airways is offering a 35% bonus when you transfer points from select hotel loyalty program to Avios. The promotion is valid for points transfers Club Carlson, Hilton Honors, Hyatt Gold Passport, IHG Rewards Club, Marriott Rewards, Shangri La Golden Circle and Starwood Preferred Guest.
No registration needed and bonus will post 4-6 weeks after the transfer is initiated. You have to transfer at least the following amounts:
Club Carlson 2,000
Hilton Honors 10,000
Hyatt Gold 5,000
IHG Rewards 10,000
Marriott Rewards 10,000
Shangri La 2,500
Starwood 2,500

Now I'm not really excited about any of these except the Starwood offer and I'll tell you why. Starwood offers a bonus 5,000 when you transfer 20,000 to Avios already. So if you transfer 20,000 points to Avios, Starwood will kick in a 5,000 bonus and now through March 8th, British Airways will kick in another 35% or 8,750 points. So for 20,000 Starwood points, you will get 33,750 Avios. That's a good deal!

Use portals for Valentines for FREE miles

Nothing makes me madder than when I see people shopping online without going through a portal. One things makes me madder and that's when people pay cash for stuff. 

But we are talking online in this post.

There are tons of portals depending on what your goals are. 

1. Do you want cash back?

2. Do you want miles?

3. Do you want points?

For Valentine's Day, some of the portals are offering big bonuses. 

Just got this one from American Airlines. Spend $125 cumulative between now and 2/13/2017 and you will earn a bonus of 500 miles. Spend $250, earn 1,000 bonus miles. You were going to spend the money anyway, so get the extra miles. 

Need United miles, the portal is offering the same deal. 

Now if you don't need miles, then how about cash back? Every month, I get about $25-$40 back through Ebates.com. Use the link to the right, if you want to open an account. You get a freebie and I get referral credit. 

The bottom line is you need to leverage your spending for free travel. That's how you do it. 

New United Excursionist One Way Perk

United Airlines launched its excursionist perk in October 2016, but it's just starting to catch on. And it's an amazing deal! The idea is that you can book multi city flights and get one leg for FREE. You can check it out here, but the details are as follows from United Airlines website. 

• The Excursionist Perk cannot be in the MileagePlus defined region where your travel originates. (For example, if your journey begins in North America, you will only receive the Excursionist Perk if travel is within a region outside of North America.)
• Travel must end in the same MileagePlus defined region where travel originates.
• The origin and destination of the Excursionist Perk is within a single MileagePlus defined region.
• The cabin of service and award type of the free one-way award is the same or lower than the one-way award preceding it.
• If two or more one-way awards qualify for this benefit, only the first occurrence will be free.

Click here for the list of United Airlines regions

Here are the steps, choose multi city and book an award flight. 

Step 2 - find the flight that works, if you qualify for excursionist fare, the leg of the flight will be marked 0 miles. 

Step 3 - Review and purchase

This is a great option and could save you hundreds of dollars if you want to check out more than one city in a region. Only catch is that you must book with United miles on United flights and all legs must be in the same class.  Let me know how you use this amazing perk! 

Wyndham Hotels Booked

One of the best deals out there is the Wyndham 45,000 point bonus on their credit card. The minimum spend is $2,000, but they actually give you 30,000 points with your first purchase. Then they award you the next 15,000 when you reach your minimum spend. There is a second card that comes with 18,000 points and a $1,000 minimum spend. There is a $75 annual fee on the first card. There is no annual fee on the second. I prefer the first one because it's worth an extra 2 FREE nights just for $1,000 more in spend.
This is a great way to get hotel points quickly. Every room worldwide is 15,000 points. So we used it last summer for 1 night at the Wyndham Costa Del Sol Lima located across from the airport. Next summer, we will use the points for 2 nights in Prague at the Ramada City Centre. 
Since we are family of 5, we booked 2 rooms for each night.
I used the last free night for me and 6 kids at the Days Inn San Francisco At The Beach.
The Wyndham hotel group is not my favorite, but it usually includes breakfast and if it's free, I like it.

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.