Find Out How Starbucks Is Changing Its Star Rewards

Starbucks is overhauling its reward system so you will earn and be able to spend your stars faster. 

Starting April 16th, you can cash in your stars as soon as you earn them. You don't have to get Gold status first. Stars are still worth 2 per dollar spent. 

But then you can spend the stars on different things:

25 stars = shot of espresso, a pump of flavor or any non-dairy milk substitute

50 stars = brewed coffee, baked good or tea 

150 stars = specialty handcrafted drink, breakfast sandwich or yogurt parfait

200 stars = lunch on Starbucks

400 stars = packaged coffee and merch

The new categories make it a bit more difficult to earn a frap since it was 125 stars before and now it will be 150 stars. 

If you are a Chase credit card or debit card holder, your stars will not expire. 

But don't worry, the complimentary birthday drink lives on. 

Top Things You Need To Know If You Plan To Check Out The Superbloom

Due to all the rains in California, now the Superbloom is amazing. That's a short period of time in March/April that the wildflowers bloom in the desert. So if you are in Southern California or plan to be in the next few weeks, you may want to head to the desert to check it out. 

Here are the things you need to know: 

1. Best viewing is in Anza Borrego and Lake Elsinore, but I have also seen fabulous photos from Lake Poway and Mission Trails. 

2. Take water, food and good walking shoes. The flowers are not next to the highway. In most cases, you need to hike a bit. 

3. Check online or visit the visitor's center to see where the best places are to view flowers on the particular day you visit. 

4. Go early in the day to avoid the crowds 

5. Do not pick or step on the flowers

We headed out to Borrego Springs on a Monday due to a staff day at school. Borrego Springs is about 2 hours east of San Diego. The best part is you can drive through the small town of Julian which is known for the best pie in the world. YUM! 

First stop is the Visitors Center at Anza Borrego State Park. There is a $10 day parking fee, but it is worth it just to run in and get the map of the best places to view the flowers plus there are bathrooms, water fountains and picnic tables. 

There are also some trails where you can view flowers, but I would suggest moving onto some of the other viewing sites. On the way to the visitors center, you will see the giant sculptures in the desert called Galleta Meadows. 

We drove to the recommended viewing site at Ocotillo Wells, about 5 miles southeast. There is another visitor center there where the ranger gave us a flower guide and another map to two nearby viewing areas. 

No charge to park the car. We could walk to the first viewing area which featured several different flowers, some giant beetles and caterpillars plus big rocks for the kids to climb on. 

 To get to the second viewing area, we drove through a wash and had to dodge the sand. An adventure in itself. 

But once we arrived, it was a short walk up the hill and we were rewarded with fields of color plus sand dunes to roll in. 

On the way back, a beautiful desert sunset as if the desert was saying thank you to us for visiting, but really we were thanking mother nature for a beautiful day.

More Ways To Earn Southwest Points Without Flying

Hotels at Kaanapali, Maui 

Now that Southwest Airlines flies to Hawaii, let's talk about some other ways you can boost your Southwest points balance. 

Here are some awesome ways to earn points without flying:

1. Shopping Portal - Never buy anything online without going through a shopping portal! It's FREE money if you use a cashback site and its FREE points (FREE travel) if you use an airline shopping portal. 

Find the store you want to shop at and get rewarded 1x, 2x, 3x or 4x bonus points per dollar. Charge the purchase to your Southwest credit card and earn 1x points for your purchase. So let's say you spend $100 at 1-800 Pet Meds, you would be rewarded 400 bonus points for using the portal and another 100 points from using your Southwest credit card for a total of 500 bonus points for something you were going to buy anyway. Wow! 

2. Rocketmiles.com  - Same idea, but with hotels. We had a layover in Houston, TX on our way back from Panama. I looked on Rocketmiles.com and found a hotel near the airport that offered free breakfast and 2,000 Southwest bonus points per room. I booked two rooms and got 4,000 bonus points. I used my Southwest credit card and got another 200 points. 

3. Dining Program - You can join Southwest dining program, link your credit or debit card and then when you dine you will earn bonus points. This is not going to rack you up a lot of points, but they will trickle in. 

4. If you live in certain states, you may be eligible to earn more Southwest points by enrolling in NRG, Reliant or buying gas at Marathon. Check out the home and lifestyle offers on Southwest.com. 

5. You can take surveys too to boost your points balance. Again, these are small amounts, but if you just need more points, it might work for you. Check out this page to enroll. 

Starting in 2021, US Citizens Will Need A Visa To Travel To Europe

Europe is one of those romantic and popular travel destinations. The history, the food, the culture is an amazing array for the senses. Starting in 2021, US citizens will need the authorization to travel to the Schengen area. The Schengen area includes 26 European countries that do not have internal borders. 

Those countries are:

• Spain
• France
• Italy
• Germany 
• Greece
• Poland
• Austria
• Belgium
• Czech Republic
• Denmark 
• Estonia 
• Finland
• Hungary 
• Iceland 
• Latvia
• Liechtenstein
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg
• Malta
• Netherlands
• Portugal
• Slovakia
• Slovenia
• Sweden
• Switzerland 

The authorization will cost $8 and be good for three years. "Completing the online application should not take more than 10 minutes with automatic approval being given in over 95% of cases," the European Commission said in a statement.

The authorization is not considered a visa and more than 60 countries are affected not just the United States. 

The European Parliament approved the authorization in July citing security concerns. 

I Got My Southwest Companion Pass! Woohoo!

Southwest Airlines got final approval to start flying to Hawaii and I'm ready. Look what showed up in my inbox this morning. Woohoo! 
Now we just need Southwest Airlines to start selling tickets. 
This is my third Southwest companion pass in the last 6 years. For those of you who don't know what this is. It is one of the best perks ever. 
The pass is a buy one get one FREE pass for two years on Southwest Airlines. Wherever I fly, I can take a companion for FREE. The companion must fly with me on the same itinerary and I can change my companion three times in a calendar year. 
So how did I earn the pass again?

This time, I opened two credit cards: 
1. The Southwest Business Credit Card - Minimum spend $3,000 and a $99 annual fee with a 60,000 point bonus. You also get 6,000 points on your anniversary. 
2. The Southwest Priority Credit Card - Minimum spend $1,000 and a $149 annual fee, but you get a $75 airline credit that can be used for tickets and a 40,000 point bonus. You also get 7,500 points on your anniversary and 4 upgraded boarding passes. 

Then I stayed at a hotel with two rooms on a layover back from South America and one night at another hotel and used the Rocketmiles website to book them so I earned another 5,000 bonus Southwest points. 

And bam, that was enough to earn 110,000 points by end of February. The pass is good through 12/31/2020. I already have two trips booked to the East Coast so I have saved over $2,000. That's how we do it at almostfreefamilytravel.com 

Southwest Flights To Hawaii Are Live, You Can Buy Your Ticket!

Starting this morning, you can now book flights to Hawaii on Southwest Airlines. Woohoo! 

I did a quick search and prices range from $49-$400. That's right I found a flight from Los Angeles to Oahu for just $49. Flights start April 7th. 

You can fly from the following cities:

• Los Angeles
• Burbank, CA
• Long Beach, CA 
• Ontario/LA, CA
• Orange County, Santa Ana, CA 
• Oakland, CA 
• San Jose, CA 

Notably missing from the list was San Francisco, but maybe that's coming. 

One search even showed flights as low as $49. 

Southwest is also offering flights between the islands of  Oahu, Maui and Kona on the big island for as low as $29 each way. Crazy!  

Book early and book often. The great thing about Southwest is that you can change or cancel anytime. Hawaii anyone? 

New IHG Point Break List Goes Live

IHG otherwise known as Intercontinental Hotel Group may be one of those overlooked rewards programs. I'll break it down for you in another post. But one of the unique perks of the reward program is their PointBreaks. 

This quarterly list of hotels is offered reduced points for that quarter. 

Now, this used to be a very robust list and I once snagged a Crowne Plaza in Newark, NJ for just 5,000 points per night. What a deal. 

In the last year, the list of hotels participating has dwindled. However, if there is one on the list that makes sense with your travel plans, you could get quite a deal. 

For example, the list released this week features a Crowne Plaza in the Dominican Republic. It's not all-inclusive, but rooms usually sell for 25,000 points per night. It is listed on the PointBreaks list for just 10,000 points per night. 

It's like getting 2 for 1 at the hotel. Sweet. 

There are 97 hotels listed, IHG will remove them when there is no more availability. 47 are international and 50 are in the US. 

IHG is also running a bonus offer right now when you buy points. I ran the numbers for the same DR hotel and I would save about $75 if I bought the points and used the point break offer rather than just buying the rooms at the current rate. Right now, I only have 830 IHG points so it's not a huge savings. But if you have a stash of IHG points or you are ready to open an IHG credit card that comes with an 80,000 bonus, then it might be a winner!