How To Tour Washington DC With Kids

The cherry blossoms and the Washington monument

The nation's capital should be on every family's bucket list. It's an amazing education for children. And it can be very affordable since most of the museums in Washington DC are FREE. 

You have 3 airports to pick from near Washington DC. You can fly into Washington Dulles, Reagan National or Baltimore Washington Airports. Southwest flies into Dulles and BWI, however, BWI is usually cheaper. On the flip side, the Washington metro does not reach Dulles airport, however, there is a shuttle bus from the airport to the closest metro stop. 

If you fly into BWI, you can take the MARC or Amtrak trains to Union Station. FREE shuttles are provided at BWI to take you to the closest train stop. 

The National Cathedral in Bethesda

Once in Washington DC, where to stay? Hotels are pretty pricey, but try awardmapper.com to see if you can use points. Airbnb.com is another option. You can also opt to stay a bit out of town and ride the metro into the city.

 While in DC, try to reserve a Pentagon tour. The Pentagon is home to 23,000 employees and the nation's heart of defense. Besides the building, there is a 9/11 memorial and artifacts inside including Saddma Hussein's gold machine gun. Be warned, it is a lot of walking.

Besides the Pentagon, there are 19 Smithsonian museums which are FREE to the public. The most popular are the Air and Space Museum, the Natural History Museum, the American History Museum, the National Archives Museum and the National Zoo. You could spend a whole day at each of these museums. Plus on the mall, spend some time visiting the monuments and the memorials.
The National Cathedral is worth a drive-by or if you have time, go inside.
In addition to the Smithsonian museums, you can also check out the Newseum, the Holocaust Museum (if you are visiting with older children), the International Spy Museum and The US Bureau Of Engraving and Printing (tickets for daily tours are distributed on a first come, first serve basis).
For food, try the food trucks that line the mall. You will find lots of kebab type items. Very yummy and inexpensive.

Take Your Kids To Scandanavia For Almost FREE

Thinking about taking the family to Scandinavia or Finland anytime soon? You may want to jump on this new offer from Scandanavian Airlines. Kids ages 2-11 can fly FREE with a paid adult. You will have to pay for taxes and fees which could cost about $90 round trip. The offer is good for flights from the US and travel must occur between August 20, 2018 and March 30, 2019.  You must travel to Scandinavia on Thursday or Friday and return on Sunday or Monday.
Hurry though because you must book your flights by May 13, 2018.

Southwest Announces Hawaiian Destination Cities

Southwest announced the cities it plans to serve in Hawaii. This is great news for anyone holding a Southwest companion pass. The companion pass is a buy one, get one FREE from Southwest. I have had the pass for the past 4 years and we have definitely gotten our money's worth. We have flown to Boston (2x), Washington D.C.(4x), Cuba, New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco. 

Hawaii is one of the most popular destinations for families, especially from the West Coast. 

Southwest plans to serve the islands of Oahu, Maui, Kauai and Kona (the big island). We still don't know exactly when they plan to start service as early as late 2018 or early 2019. 

But it's coming and this is good news for almost FREE family travel. 

Amazon Prime Is Raising Its Price

Amazon released its number for Q1 and it marked the best revenue quarter in the history of the company. Slowly, we are getting accustomed to buying online and from Amazon. So what happens now? Yep, you guessed it, they are raising the price of an Amazon Prime membership. 

It will go from $99 to $119 on May 11th, 2018. 

So if you are thinking about becoming a Prime member, join now and save $20. Current members can renew at the lower rate until June 16, 2018. 

Here are the benefits of Prime:

1. 2-day shipping on most items shipped by Amazon, one-day shipping and 2 hours shipping on select items. 

2. FREE streaming movies and tv shows (but not all of them,  most new movies and tv shows will still need to buy)

3. FREE music streaming

4. Prime Reading - access to books and audible books in the lending library

5. Early access to Lightning deals

6. Alexa voice shopping 

Check out the insider to see all the benefits. There are still services that you will have to pay for as a Prime member like Amazon Fresh (grocery delivery service), video rentals etc. 

Even with Prime, shipping is not FREE, but if you use Amazon a lot, then it certainly makes sense to become a member. Plus you can share your account with others in your household. And if you have a child or you are in college or have an email address with the edu suffix, you are eligible for a student account that only costs $49. 

Two New Offers To Earn FREE Hotel Nights!

   Earning FREE hotel nights is key for successful family travel. If you can score free flights and free hotels, then you can focus spending on experiences. Here are two new offers that might help you with future travel.

1. Wyndham - Stay twice and earn a bonus 15,000 points. To be honest, Wyndham is not my favorite brand of hotel. The chain includes Super 8, Howard Johnson, Wingate, Microtel, Ramada, Hawthorne Suites and a few others. For the most part, it is a very low budget chain, but there are some treasures in their portfolio. The new offer has three steps: register your account, stay two times by July 1,2018 and earn a bonus 15,000 points which is good for 1 night at any Wyndham hotel. Now here is where it gets interesting. You can pay for a $75 per night hotel and then use your free bonus night at a $350 per night hotel. For example, I toured colleges this past spring break and we stayed at a Ramada and Hawthorne Suites during the trip. I paid $100 per night at each hotel and earned 15,000 points with the bonus offer. I turned around and used the 15,000 points to book the Wyndham Beacon Hill in Boston which would have cost me $300. Wyndham also offers a few all inclusive hotels which you can also book for 15,000 points per night. Wyndham is great for international travel as well. The Wyndham at the Lima Peru airport is super convenient since all the flights leave really early in the morning and the airport is about 45 minutes out of the city. The Ramada in Prague City Centre is a great deal for its location and very generous breakfast.

2. Marriott - If you know somone who is not a Marriott Rewards member yet, sign them up.  If they sign up, stay twice by August 28, 2018, they will earn a free night at a category 1-5 hotel. Category 1-5 hotels will be changing as of August 1, 2018 due to the merger with Starwood. There are some gems. Take a look at a post written by our friends at Mommy Points .

The bottom line is to be strategic with your hotel stays, your airline miles and purchases to maximize your travel. That's how we do it at almost FREE family travel.

What does the Starwood/Marriott Merger Mean For Family Travel

Now that the details of the Marriott and Starwood merger are being released, we can figure out what this means for family travel. I'll give you a hint, it's not great. 

One of the best perks for me personally is the FREE lounge access with the Starwood American Express Business card. My family has saved hundreds of dollars by using the Sheraton hotel lounges for breakfast and happy hour around the world. 

When I spoke with the Starwood American Express rep she confirmed that the perk was being dropped. However, they will be adding a free 1-night certificate good for a cat 1-4 hotel on your anniversary when you pay your annual fee. 

In my case, my annual fee paid in March and the lounge access perk will drop in August so for 6 months of the year, I neither get lounge access or a free night. 

The rep did not seem bothered by this at all. I will probably call again as we get closer to August. She did mention that Starwood will offer a new luxury credit card with the FREE lounge access, but she did not have details yet. She also indicated I may be able to upgrade to the new card. 

A big perk to the Starwood program that will remain intact is the bonus 5,000 points when you transfer 20,000 to an airline partner. This is good and helps when you are trying to gather enough points to fly an entire family. 

We will find out in June/July how the categories will be merged for the hotels. Rumors circulating say this could be a good thing for lower end hotels. I prefer the lower end because those brands include breakfast which I find super important when traveling with my children. 

At this point, we are still trying to sort out the positives and negatives of the merger. Stay tuned! 

United Offers Targeted Big Bonus With A Catch!

Watch your inbox! United is sending out targetted emails with big bonuses. I received this one earlier this week with a potential bonus of more than 19,000 points. 

It sounds really great, but definitely, watch the fine print on this one. My offer requires me to register by July 17, 2018 and to travel by July 31, 2018. You have to book travel on United and not on partner airlines. The tickets cannot be basic economy with N class or 016 code. It's very specific about the details. I would need to register by July 17th and then purchase my ticket and fly by July 31st. Bottom line, this one may not be worth it once you compare ticket prices in the basic and regular economy. 

United is one of the airlines I like to travel on because you can book one-way tickets and they have the largest network of partner airlines through the Star Alliance. If you were to spend the $800 on a ticket, the 19,300 bonus miles would be like getting another ticket for FREE.