Back From 3 Weeks In Europe For Almost FREE!

President's Palace in Berlin, Germany

Yes, we just spent 3 weeks in Europe for almost FREE. I'll break down the trip in this post for you and show you how we did it. Then I'll write follow up posts breaking down each city, what we saw, what we did and how we saved money.
First, let's talk about the flights. Getting there is the biggest expense, headache and much more. So if you can take care of flights and hotels, you are really on your way to almost FREE family travel.
I blogged about how I secured these flights before when I did it, but here's a recap.
I had enough points collected already on United for 3 one way tickets to Europe. Course, there are 5 of us so that's hardly a drop in the bucket.
But it's a start. We opened 2 American Express Premier Credit Cards with a bonus of 40,000 points each. I transfered those points to Singapore Airlines Kris Flyer and topped it off with Starwood points. Starwood gives a bonus of 5,000 points for every 20,000 transferred to Kris Flyer.
Also Singapore Airlines which is a Star Alliance partner sells their award seats for 27,500 points instead of 30,000 points like United. Same flights, but they cost less points. Woohoo!
Now I'm able to book 5 round trip tickets and just pay taxes. We end up flying United to London and then SAS to Stockholm. For the return, we flew Lot Airlines from Warsaw to Vienna and then Austrian Airlines from Vienna to LAX. Perfect.
Great flights except Heathrow Airport is a nightmare. Because England is not in the EU, you have to go through security which takes forever and they are diligent about checking each bag. Even though we had 1.5 hours to transfer to our connecting flight, we almost did not make it.
But the flights cost approximately $450 for airline taxes. That's 5 round trip tickets to Europe from LAX for less than $500. Woohoo!
Now onto hotels, I booked 2 bed and breakfast hotels for my daughter and I in London and Paris. Both included breakfast and together were about $600 total. We booked 2 rooms at the Sheraton Berlin Grande Hotel Esplanade. One we charged to my Starwood American Express Business Card so we could take advantage of the club. The Sheraton club serves complimentary breakfast and happy hour. For a family of 5, this is a huge savings.
The other room was just $81 per night through Expedia so we chose to buy it rather than use points. I booked the room through Ebates so I get a percentage cash back. Ebates just told me I can expect a $50 check in the mail. Nice! Plus I charged this hotel to my new Barclays Arrival Plus Card and then used points to cover it. So it was FREE.
I'll review the hotel in a later post.
In Prague, we stayed at the Ramada City Centre. This is a Wyndham property so we were able to use 4 FREE nights since we both opened Wyndham credit cards with a 45,000 bonus. This hotel also included FREE breakfast.  More on this hotel in a later post.
In Krakow and Warsaw, we stayed at the Hampton Inn by Hilton. 5,000 points per night in Krakow and 10,000 points per night in Warsaw. Both included breakfast. More on these hotels in a later post.
So hotels and flights cost less than $1,500 for a family of 5 for 3 weeks in Europe. Wow! 

Your son/daughter turned 18, now what?

Congratulations, your son/daughter is 18! Well, done. Even though they may not act like it, they are officially adults. They can vote! They are responsible for themselves! They can make their own decisions! They can get married! And they can now open a credit card under their own name. Good or bad, depends on who you ask.
I think it's actually a good thing as long as they know how to manage it. There are a number of student credit cards out there and some offer small bonuses.
I'm assuming that you have been teaching your child about financial literacy since he/she was small. But now it's a good time to talk to your son/daughter about interest, financial responsibility and leveraged spending. By the way, it's also a good time to create a power of attorney, medical power of attorney and HIPPA privacy authorization form (you can find these forms online) Your 18 year old is an adult so in the case of an unfortunate event, you need to legalize your authority to make decisions for your child.  I'll go deeper into this in another post.
My daughter has a debit card and one of my credit cards. She is allowed to put one tank of gas a month on my credit card to pay for those times I ask her to run errands or shuttle her siblings around. Otherwise, the credit card is for emergencies only.
Now that she is 18, moving across the country and has a college tuition payment, I figured it's time for her to have her own credit card in her name. She already has her own checking account and debit card. Yes, I could make her an authorized user on my card, but then I'm not teaching her anything and she isn't establishing her own credit history. And I have always believed that my job is to teach her to be a responsible and independent adult.
Needless to say, she already understands leveraged spending, but now I need to get her into the habit.
And, of course, the most important part managing that credit card and not overspending.
Because she has no credit history and limited income, I looked for student credit cards. I found quite a few, but since we have a relationship with Bank of America, I focused on their offerings. They have 3 student credit cards Bank of America Cash Rewards For Students, Bank Americard for Students and Bank of America Travel Reward For Students. All are fee free, but offer slightly different benefits. We opted for the travel card for the $200 travel bonus and no foreign transaction fees. Even though, we will pay a convenience fee for charging the $1,000 minimum spend from her college tuition payment to her credit card, we will get a $200 travel credit in return. You always need to weigh the pros and cons of convenience fees.
Every stage of life marks growth and turning 18 is a big one!

Use United Miles To Buy TSA Precheck

This is a new one from United Mileage Plus Program. They are offering members a chance to buy TSA Precheck for 10,000 miles. TSA Precheck costs $85 per person so your miles are being valued at .0085 which is pretty bad.
Besides you can use United miles for one way plane tickets which could save you hundreds of dollars. I used 15,000 miles for a one way ticket Bangkok to Toyko. If I bought that ticket, it would have cost me approximately $150 with taxes and fees.
But it is an option if you don't want to spend your cash and you have United miles sitting around that do not help you with your goal.
TSA Precheck means you breeze through a special security line where you do not have to remove your jacket, shoes, laptop or belt. It is good for 5 years.
Some premium credit cards will include TSA Precheck, but the annual fee for these cards will be $450.
If you travel a lot, TSA Precheck is a must.

Chase Hyatt Card Changes Bonus 6/29/17

Some things can't last forever and the 2 nights FREE bonus from Chase Hyatt credit card is one of them. This bonus is ending June 28th 2017. The new bonus will be 40,000 Hyatt points. Now for some, the new bonus may actually be better because you could cash in 40,000 points for 4 nights at a category 1 or 2 hotel and get the 5th night free.
But if you use the 2 FREE nights for the Hyatt Kanapali in Maui like I did a few years back then the new bonus doesn't compare.

Hyatt Kanapali in Maui 

My husband and I each opened the Chase Hyatt card so we actually got 4 FREE nights at the Hyatt Kanapali in Maui. And because of a mixup with parking, they comped us the parking and resort fee. 

The Chase Hyatt card will still have a $75 annual fee that is not waived the first year and a $3,000 minimum spend. 

So depending on your travel goals, you may want to jump on this card before June 28th 2017 or you may want to jump on it afterwards.

Want to lower your electric bill?

I just signed up for OHM Connect, a website launched in 2016 to help people lower their electric bills. It is currently only operating in California. And at this point, I cannot tell you from personal experience, if it is working or not. But I figure, I'll tell you about it now and then we can decide together. It was very easy and free to join and connect my SDGE account. I set up alerts on my phone so the theory is that OHM Connect   will send me an alert when there is high energy usuage on the grid. OHM Connect's theory is that when there is high energy usuage, the dirty power stations turn on. So if we all lower our usuage during peak times, then those dirty power stations won't turn on and pollute the environment. The other pro is that the rate for energy goes up during peak times so if you use less energy at those moments, your bill will decrease. 

OHM Connect gives you a personal dashboard with lots of information and the website will award you for responding to alerts and stopping your activity. Since I just joined, I have not received any alerts yet. In the community forum, there seems to be conflicting information about how much you will get paid for saving electricity. It appears that you earn the most points through referrals, but if you can manage your electricity use, then you will lower your bill and save money that way as well. So seems like a big win either way to me! 

Check it out and let me know how it works for you.

Summer is here, but you should be thinking about next summer!

Summer has arrived! I took my son to the beach yesterday and it was packed. You could smell the sunscreen and barbecue in the air. I love summer! And we have a big summer trip planned for next month. Woohoo!
But guess what? I'm already thinking about next summer's trip and the holidays 2018. Why? Because if you want to take advantage of award travel with a family, the secret is to plan ahead and I mean, way ahead.
I usually tell my clients to plan about 18 months in advance. You can change your plans or narrow your focus, but you need to make a generalized plan.
So my family and I were talking the other night about next summer vacation plans and due to the kid's summer plans, a big summer 2018 trip is probably out. So we moved on to the holidays 2018. My daughter is headed back east for college so a warm holiday vacation seems like a good idea.
Where should we go? I'm always on the hunt for new countries as a I have a personal goal of 50 countries by the end of my 50th year. Combine that with a warm climate for the holidays and we focused on Central America or the Carribean. Both great vacation spots and both are accessible using American Airlines.
Now our focus is narrowed so we can look around for credit card bonus offers that will help us reach this goal.
We have a big purchase coming up in July, first college tuition payment. Yikes! With any big purchase, I run through the pros and cons of putting that purchase on the credit card. You always have to weigh whether paying a convenience fee for using the credit card and is worth it. It's not usually worth it just to put a large purchase on the credit card for points if you will be charged a fee, but if you are eligible for a bonus then it may make sense.
So for her college tuition payment, I decided it would make sense to put part of the payment on the credit card and increase my American Airlines miles.
I'm over the 5/24 rule for Chase so those cards are out for me. I looked at other banks offering cards and the highest bonus right now is the Citi Advantage Platinum Select. That card offers a 60,000 bonus for $3,000 minimum spend and the $95 annual fee is waived for the first year. There is a business version and personal version, but you can only have this card once every 2 years and still earn the bonus.
If I put the minimum spend on the card with the college tuition payment, I'm looking at approximately $90 in fees. But 60,000 miles is worth 2 domestic air tickets or 2 tickets to Panama City from LAX valued at $682 each.
Now we are talking! $90 is a small price to pay for that value.
I also decided to have my daughter apply for her first credit card now that she is 18 years old through our bank. It's a student card, but comes with a $200 travel credit which will help pay for her flights home from college. It also will establish her credit history. More on this in another post.
Planning early pays off! Since you can book airline tickets 335 days in advance, you need to be ready with your stash of points and miles if you want to do almost free family travel.

Starwood Referral Bonus Goes Higher

If you have a Starwood American Express card, you can now refer friends and family and get rewarded with a bonus of 7,500 points. It used to be 5,000 points as a referral bonus so this is much better.
Starwood points as you know are so versatile and therefore very valuable. You can transfer them to dozens of airline partners plus you will be rewarded 5,000 miles bonus for every 20,000 miles you transfer.
And if that's not enough, you can use Starwood points to stay at any of the Starwood brand hotels which includes Sheraton, Westin, W and Four Points. Plus you can transfer Starwood points at 1:3 to Marriott.
Marriott and Starwood merged last year so it's just a matter of time before the two merge their loyalty programs as well so it's a win-win right now for people to open Starwood credit cards. There are 2 types of cards, personal and business. The personal card offers a 25,000 bonus for a $3,000 minimum spend. There is a $95 annual fee that is waived the first year. The business card offers a 25,000 bonus for a $5,000 minimum spend. It also has a $95 annual fee that is waived the first year. No foreign transaction fees on either card. I like the business card because you get FREE Boingo WIFI and FREE club access at any Starwood that offers a club level. Club means complimentary breakfast and happy hour. I have saved a ton of money over the years by eating breakfast and dinner at the club.

To refer a friend or family member,
1. log in to your Starwood account
2. Click menu and search for refer a friend
3. click the links until you find one that gives you the 7,500 bonus
4. enter your friend's email address
5. if you friend applies for the card and is approved, you will earn the bonus. Your friend will earn the same bonus as if they applied through a random website.

Good luck!