Happy Holidays And Happy Travel!

From everyone here at Almost FREE Family Travel, have a safe and happy holiday season! 

Heading To Berlin? Try The New Fast Train

If you are heading to Berlin or Munich in 2018, you should check out the new high speed train called ICE. Now you can travel between those cities in just under 4 hours. A big improvement over the 6 hours plus it used to take by regular train. 

The inaugural run of this train did not go very well, but we assume they will work out the kinks quickly. 

Ticket prices are about $78 each way in 2nd class. 

www.seat61.com is the guru of train travel. He has a great writeup about how to travel on the new ICE trains in Germany. Which routes have ICE trains and how to book tickets.

www.seat61.com recommends buying your ticket through the DB Bahn and I found the prices to be much less expensive than buying through Rail Europe. 

The site is easy to navigate. Enter your departure city and train station and then enter your arrival city and train station.

 DB Bahn  will give you all the available times/prices for that date. You can pay for your ticket right from the website. You will either be able to print your ticket from home or they will email you a ticket. 

Remember to use a credit card that does not charge foreign transaction fees. 

The train is an experience in itself for children so sit back, enjoy and bring some snacks. 

How I Made A Rookie Mistake

Even the experienced travel hacker can make a rookie mistake. Travel hacking is not an exact science and sometimes even the experienced get nabbed. It happened to me this week. Actually, I made the mistake in June 2017 when I applied for the Citi Advantage Platinum Select credit card. I am not even going to put the link here because I am so mad.
I was approved immediately. The card had a 60,000 bonus offer for $3,000 minimum spend. The annual fee was waived for the first year.
I spent the $3,000 that month and waited for my bonus to clear.
Usually I am a lot more on top of the bonus clearing, but we had a busy summer and my daughter left for college so I didn't check.
This month as I was performing my end of year review, I realized that I had not received the bonus. I called Citi and they informed me that you can only get this bonus once for any Advantage credit card within 24 months.
Since I had received a bonus with a Gold Advantage card back in September 2015, I was not eligible. I was 3 months short of my 24 month period. Argh!
I argued and told the rep how I had called to make sure I was eligible for the bonus before I applied, but she wouldn't budge.
I asked for a supervisor who told me the same thing.
She did offer me 5,000 American miles for my trouble.
Bottom line, be very careful with the fine print and keep good records.

Flightaware and Gateguru - track flights

With all the flying over the holidays, two websites that I find invaluable are www.flightaware.com and www.gateguru.com. 

These two websites make it easy to track any flight anywhere. You use the live tracking feature or you can track estimated take off time, arrival time and gate status. 

On the home page, enter the name of the airline and the flight number. The site will find the plane and all the information including departure, arrival and gate information. 

Obviously over the holidays with weather and high traffic volume, this can be extremely helpful.

Hope this helps makes your holiday travel just a little bit easier. 

How To Get 3 FREE Nights At An All Inclusive Resort

Wyndham Viva Dominicus Beach in the Dominican Republic 

Wyndham has brought back its 45,000 point credit card offer! Woohoo! This is one of my favorite offers out there for almost FREE family travel. That's because Wyndham offers every room in its 7500+ hotels at 15,000 points per night. Many of these hotels offer complimentary breakfast and some are even all inclusive.
Wyndham has two offers out there right now.
1. No fee card for 18,000 points You are awarded 15,000 points after your first purchase and 3,000 more points after a minimum spend of $1,000
2. $75 annual fee not waived for 45,000 points. You are awarded 30,000 points after your first purchase and 15,000 points more after a minimum spend of $2,000

Wyndham reward points are easy to redeem through the website. We used 15,000 points per night per room to stay for 2 nights in the Ramada Prague City Center.  This hotel is blocks from the clock tower and main square. It includes a buffet breakfast that will fill you up for the whole day. Amazing! The rooms are comfortable and clean. If you paid for this hotel, you would pay approximately $200 per night per room. We were able to book 2 rooms for 2 nights since we are a family of 5 on points saving us approximately $800.

Wyndham also has 8 hotels called Viva which are all inclusive and are located in the Caribbean and Mexico. One of those hotels is Wyndham Viva Dominicus Beach. They have just changed their rules so 2 adults are included in the 15,000 points per night, but you will need to pay extra for children. Children under 13 years old are charged at a child's price and over 13 are charged as adults. There is also a 3 night minimum. However, if both spouse opened the 45,000 point Wyndham card, you could book 2 rooms which would cover a family of 4. If you are family of 5, obviously pay for the youngest family member and you have a great trip for a couple hundred dollars. Woohoo!

Exploring Warsaw Poland With Teens

Bean bags to relax on in the old town

The old town of Warsaw was completely destroyed during World War 2. However, the government has rebuilt an exact replica of the old town. It is fascinating to see the photos of before and after. The Royal Castle is the only building that was not destroyed. In fact, it was set to be bombed, but at the last minute, the Nazis called off the bombing. They realized that if they bombed the castle, they would be trapped.  You can still see the holes that were packed with dynamite. The Royal Castle is FREE on Sundays and you can buy an audio guide for a few zloty. 

One of the rooms inside the Royal Castle Of Warsaw

 You could spend a whole day inside the Royal Lazienki park in Warsaw. Either by foot or bike, there are lakes, paths and even a fancy waffle and ice cream place inside the park called Trou Madame. You can also take a small boat around the lake in front of the palace.

The palace on the water in Royal Lazienki park 

 In the summer, there are FREE Chopin concerts in the park and on Saturdays, there are FREE yoga and mediation classes.

Fancy waffle and ice cream place inside the park

Poland is cheap for food, transportation and hotels. We used points to stay at the Hampton Hilton City Centre. 10,000 Hilton points per night per room including breakfast. The hotel is located across from the train station just minutes by bus from old town. We found a traditional Polish restaurant called Radio Cafe around the corner from the hotel and ate there both nights. Be sure to try the pierogies, potato pancakes and apple pancakes. The owner is a hoot and has a very colorful history.
That's how we do almost FREE family travel!

How To Get 100,000 Hilton Points

The Hilton Honors Surpass card from American Express is transferring to the Ascend card on January 18th 2018 so you may want to jump on this offer now.
The Surpass card nets you 100,000 Hilton points for a $3,000 spend and another 25,000 points for an additional $1,000 spend. You get 10 priority hotel club passes too. The annual fee is $75.
We don't know yet what the offer will be for the Ascend card, but we do know that the club passes will not be a part of it. We also know the annual fee will be $95, but there will be no foreign transaction fees.
So what can you do with 100,000 Hilton points? Check out some top hotels from our friends at the Points Guy. Other properties that we like include:

1. 3 nights in Krakow, Poland for 5,000 Hilton points per room per night at the Hampton Inn Krakow. The room included breakfast - 30,000 points
2. 1 night in Warsaw, Poland for 10,000 Hilton points per room per night at the Hampton Inn Warsaw City Centre. The room included breakfast. - 20,000 points

Other great category 1 or 2 Hiltons are located in Kuala Lumpur, Panama City, Cairo, Beijing, Oman and Mexico City.

This is an amazing way to travel almost FREE with your family!