What Are Your Travel Goals For 2019?

What are your travel goals for 2019? Whether you want to visit Niagara Falls, swim with elephants in Thailand, hold snakes in the Amazon or go on safari in Africa, you need to start planning now! 

Early planning is the key to almost FREE family travel. 

Why? Because the earlier you figure out where you want to go, the earlier you can put your plan into motion to collect enough points and miles to get there. 

For example, we are looking at heading to Chile in Spring 2020. Yes, I really wrote Spring 2020. Planning ahead, yes. But guess what, we are already building up enough Starwood points to cash in for 5 airline tickets from LAX to Santiago, Chile. 

Then when the flights open up approximately 325 days prior, we will have enough points to purchase all 5 tickets immediately. 

When you are planning, figure out what airline you will need to gather points on first, and how many points you will need per ticket. Then you can spend the next 6 months or so, opening the credit cards you need for the bonus, using shopping portals and putting all your purchases on that card. So when the reward seats open approximately 9 months ahead, you are ready to go. Then you can work on hotels and last you can book experiences. 

For the most part, American Airlines and its partners are great for South America, United and partners are great for Asia and Europe and Delta is good for Africa. 

And you can also collect points in Starwood, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi and American Express Membership Rewards that you can transfer to those airlines to pick up more points. 

Let us know where you plan to travel in 2019 or even 2020! 

Happy Holidays From Almost FREE Family Travel

Hope you have a wonderful holiday season! 

Thank you for reading and supporting the blog. 

Now the question is where will you travel in 2019?

Stephanie 

Chase FREEDOM Q1 Bonus Categories Are .....

One of the perks of the no fee Chase Freedom credit card is a rotating 5% bonus category. Chase just announced the Q1 category of gas stations, tolls and drugstores. You can earn up to $1,500 cash back in these categories combined. 

You need to activate your card by March 14th 2019 and it is retroactive. 

By switching your buying habits just for the first quarter, you can earn 5% cash back on your gas fill-ups. Pretty sweet! If you have a Chase Sapphire credit card, you can use the Chase Ultimate Rewards for travel. If not, then you can use the points for cash back. 

Since the Chase FREEDOM card has no annual fee, it's a good catch-all card. If you don't have this card yet and would like it, follow this link and you will get a $150 bonus when you spend $500 in the first 3 months. You will also earn 1% cash back on all purchases. 

Buy $10, Get $5 FREE At Starbucks

New Starbucks promotion out today if you need to buy any gifts or maybe just load up your own card. To take advantage of the offer, click on this link for the Starbucks-Masterpass promotion. Create an account if you don't have a Masterpass account yet. Add a $10 Starbucks card and when you click on your cart, you will see the $5 promotion card added. Quantities are limited so act fast. 

If you see that you can only pay with a Capital One card, go incognito and try again. You will need to pay with a Mastercard. 

Discover Q1 2019 Bonus Categories

Besides requiring no annual fees, Discover and Chase Freedom credit cards offer bonus rotating categories every quarter.  Which mean instead of earning just 1% cash back on purchases in these categories, you earn 5%. We are still waiting to hear what the Chase Freedom categories will be for Q1 2019. But Discover released its bonus categories for Q1, you will earn 5% cash back at grocery stores. 

You must activate your card by logging into your account and then remember to use that card whenever you make a purchase in the bonus category. You can earn up to $1,500 in the quarter. 

I'll keep you posted on the Chase Freedom bonus categories for Q1 when they are released. 

Buy A Delta Gift Card, Get An Airbnb Gift Card FREE

If you are planning to buy a Delta plane ticket anytime soon, you may want to buy the gift card now and pick up a discount on your next Airbnb too. This promotion will go quickly since there is a very limited supply of gift cards available. But if you are lucky and move quickly, it could be a bit of a discount on your next vacation. You must use this link. 
Remember to use your Delta credit card to buy the gift card if you have one in order to maximize your points or your Capital One Venture Card or your Barclays Arrival Plus and then you can erase most or all of the purchase with points and you get both for FREE. 
And good luck! 

Why You Need To Think Strategy When Booking Flights

Loyalty is still rewarded when you fly. So when you book that next flight, be sure to use the right credit card to maximize perks. Most of the airlines have co-branded credit cards, United, American, Southwest, Alaska, Delta. Depending on what's important to you i.e. lounge access, priority boarding, free checked bags, extra miles, companion ticket and which airline you typically fly will determine which card makes the most sense for you. 

For example, I flew to New York last weekend and booked my American Airlines flight with my co-branded Citi American Platinum Select World Elite Mastercard which includes one FREE checked bag and priority boarding. 

Priority boarding means you move up to boarding group 6 which for my flight meant the difference between being allowed to carry on my bag or checking my bag. 

If you tend to fly different airlines, then I recommend the Capital One Venture or Barclays Arrival Plus. Both cards let you "erase" travel charges with points earned. You can charge any airline, hotel, train or other travel and then use points to offset the purchase. Both come with a large sign up bonus and annual fee waived for the first year.