Bonus: Earn Up To 1,700 Miles On United

I love shopping portals! and you should too! Shopping portals give you FREE money or FREE miles for things you would purchase anyways. 

For example, I bought dog food yesterday. My dog has to eat, right? Well, that $80 purchase (my dog is on a special prescription diet, don't judge) puts me halfway to earning a bonus 500 miles. 

Right now, several portals are offering bonuses: 

Southwest and American - various spring special bonus offers for specific stores

United Shopping Portal Mix And Match Promotion - spend $150, earn 500 bonus miles, spend $300, earn 1,000 bonus miles. Offer ends 5/19. 

You can always check cashbackmonitor.com for an overview of all the programs. 


Plus the United Shopping Portal is offering an in-store option when you link your credit card.

Here's how it works:

• Link the specific offer to your card
• Enter your mobile number
• Shop in the store with your linked card

Right now, I am working on earning the minimum spend on my upgraded Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant American Express so I linked that card to JC Penney's (dress shopping trip with the girls) and bam, one purchase earns Marriott miles and United miles. It's a double dip and certainly makes spending money a lot more enjoyable. 

Then you are prompted to link your card and you see this

And then you see the fine print where it states the linked offer expires in 30 days. 

So whether you are spending money on gifts, clothes or just groceries, be sure your credit cards are working as hard as you are. 

Last Days To Earn 100,000 Marriott Points

It's the final countdown on the 100,000 bonus offer for the new Marriott Bonvoy Boundless credit card. This spectacular offer ends May 16, 2019 so if you have been thinking about it, now is the time. 

If you have or have had a Marriott Premier Plus credit card in the past 24 months, you are not eligible for this offer. However, check your account and see if you are offered an upgrade with a bonus. 

I had the Starwood American Express credit card and Marriott offered me 100,000 bonus points if I upgraded and spent a minimum of $5,000 on the card. With a big event coming up, that was easy. 

Here's the fine print for the Boundless credit card:

• $95 annual fee not waived 
• $5,000 minimum spend in the first 3 months 
• 6x points at Marriott Bonvoy hotels (this includes Marriott, Sheraton and more than 6,700 hotels)
• 2x per $1 everywhere else
• Silver Elite status
• FREE night each year (value 35,000) points 

Here's an interesting twist, if you use my referral link for the Boundless card, you will get 3 FREE nights at any Marriott valued at 35,000 points per night for just $3,000 minimum spend and the $95 annual fee. This is actually a better deal for you and I get 20,000 points too. Wow! 

What can you do with 100,000 Marriott points, well, lots. Obviously, you can use them at the more than 6,700 Marriott Bonvoy brand hotels, but you can also transfer them to a dozen different airlines including American, Alaska and United. Plus for every 60,000 points you transfer, Marriott will give you an extra 15,000 airline miles as a bonus. So, your 60,000 Marriott points actually equals 25,000 airline miles. 

Pretty sweet. 

Want To Fly FREE On Southwest? Here's What You Need To Do

Think you need a lot of money to travel, think again. It just takes some planning and knowledge. Look at this, so far, this year, I have saved thousands of dollars on flights on Southwest Airlines and will save thousands more on flights throughout this year and next. 

These are all the FREE flights, I am taking this year.

Let's me show you the savings: 

San Diego - Chicago                                    - 2 people - savings $400

Boston - San Diego                                     - 2 people - savings $500

Buffalo-San Diego                                       - 3 people - savings $750

San Diego - Spokane (upcoming)              - 5 people - savings $500

Salt Lake City - San Diego (upcoming)      - 5 people - savings $500 

San Diego - Buffalo (upcoming)                 - 2 people - savings $450

San Diego - New Orleans (upcoming)        - 1 person - savings $250

That's a savings of $3,350, wow, right?
So how do I do it? Great question. It's not hard, you just need to know what to do and I'll give you a hint, it involves earning the Southwest companion pass, one of the most valuable travel perks out there. 
I have teamed up with gototravelgal.com for the first Southwest School. Registration closes Tuesday and school starts Wednesday. If you want to save money like I do on flights, family vacations and more, you do not want to miss this.
Use this link to enroll so Lynn knows I sent you!

Hilton Tru Brand

It looks like a cross between a hip tech startup and a preschool. Picture bright colors, foozball, giant connect 4, swinging chairs and saying like "We are glad you are here" and "Get in here" greeting you in big bold letters. That's Hilton's new Tru brand. Think Aloft, but more colorful.
There are 30 of these Tru hotels in the United States. We stayed at the one in Syracuse, New York mainly because it had an airport shuttle, free breakfast, and cost under $100 per night - $88 per night exactly. If we had paid with Hilton points, the number listed is 21,000 per night. 
For the budget category, it was quite nice. Definitely extra on the personality and catering to the millennial crowd.

Tru provides FREE coffee, tea, hot chocolate and hot water 24/7. There was a small gym with very nice exercise equipment, laundry facilities, and a complimentary hot breakfast. Breakfast included scrambled and hard-boiled eggs, oatmeal, bagels, donuts, juice, cereal, greek yogurt, and waffle boats.
Waffle boats, according to Tru, are meant to be filled with your favorite toppings including whipped cream, hot fudge, caramel and well, you get the idea.

This hotel smelled new and had cute sayings in the elevator and on the walls.
My 12-year-old thought it was super cool. It was a little over the top for me.

The rooms also catered to the millennial crowd - no closet, lots of USB outlets, shampoo and conditioner dispensers in the bathroom instead of small bottles and hardwood floors.

Beds were quite comfortable as well.
Exercise caution with the overnight door lock when you leave your room. This Tru opened in June 2018 and the door lock in our room was loose so when we tried to reenter our room, it had locked us out. Fortunately, the handyman was able to fix it and had us back in our room in about an hour.
The front desk person was less than gracious during this experience, however.
All that being said, Tru is a fine addition to the brand if you are looking for more hip Hilton.

Rack Up The Points When You Send Mom Flowers

Sending Mom flowers for Mother's Day this weekend? If so, you better hurry and don't miss out on thousands of miles for doing it. Shopping portals offer free money or airline miles for purchases you would make anyway. 

Here's a sample of a few popular ones:

• Southwest shopping portal is offering a bonus of 1,750 points with 1-800 flowers
• American Airlines shopping portal is offering a bonus of 15 miles per dollar with Pro Flowers 
• United Airlines shopping portal is offering 30 miles per dollar with Pro Flowers plus a mix and match 1,700 bonus
• Rakuten (formerly known as Ebates.com) is offering 15% cash back with 1-800 flowers plus an extra $10 when you use my referral link.
• Melaleuca Marketplace  is offering 15% back in product credit with 1-800 flowers and 1-800 florals (this is a benefit if you belong to the club)

You can use cashbackmonitor.com to check out multiple offers at once. These offers are great to top off an account or just build up miles 
And Happy Mother's Day! 

Don't Change Your Southwest Companion Until You Do This One Thing

One of the best freebies out there is the Southwest companion pass. To earn the pass, you must collect 110,000 miles in a calendar year OR you needed to sign up for the bonus credit card offer at the beginning of this year.
Either way, if you have the companion pass, congratulations!
You can fly Southwest BOGO for the next year or two depending on how you earned your pass.
Your companion can be anyone, a friend, a sibling, a child, a spouse, a neighbor, anyone. But they have to fly with you on the same flight. You can change your companion three times in a calendar year. 

You have to call Southwest to register your companion. Once they are registered, you can add them online to any flight with you.

Makes sense, but what if you want to change your companion at the last minute? You can do it, but you need to do something first. 

Last week, my son was supposed to fly with me to the East Coast, but last minute, he had to change his plans. I had already bought my daughter a seat on the same flight with points. So my thought was to cancel her flight, add her as my companion and then she could fly FREE. 
It took about 30 minutes to get through to a Southwest operator who was happy to make the change, cancel my daughter's ticket and rebook the companion ticket for her.
She checked first to make sure there were enough empty seats on the plane so we didn't get shut out while making the change. No worries.

What we didn't expect, however, is that the computer went bonkers over my flight booked in August now that my son was no longer my companion. In fact, the computer has cancelled his flight three times in August because it thinks he is double booked. 

I had to call Southwest back to get help fixing the error, canceling my daughter's flight and rebook my son's flight for that trip.

Lesson learned. Before changing companions, cancel any future tickets issued for that companion. It just makes things easier.

100,000 Marriott Points Could Be Yours If You Act Fast

The quickest way to almost FREE family travel is by taking advantage of credit card bonus offers. Sometimes you even get lucky and get offered an upgrade bonus. This is great because there is no additional credit inquiry or pull on your account so it won't count against you with the 5/24 rule. Chase Bank limits people to opening 5 credit cards every 24 months.  

Right now, the new brand, Marriott Bonvoy, which is a combination of Starwood, Ritz Carlton, and Marriott, is offering 100,000 point bonus if you upgrade your Starwood American Express to a Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant. 

The Brilliant credit card is the luxury card so it comes with a hefty $450 annual fee which is not waived for the first year. However, it also comes with a $300 Marriott credit that you can use to book hotels, incidentals or even to buy gift cards. Plus it comes with a $100 Global entry credit, a $100 Ritz Carlton credit and a 50,000 point bonus on your anniversary. 

If you plan to use at least the Global Entry credit and the Marriott credit, then the 100,000 points cost you just $50. Pretty awesome! 

100,000 Marriott points are valued at about $800. You can use them for hotels or transfer them at 3:1 to more than 2 dozen airlines. Marriott will also give you 5,000 airline miles for every 60,000 points you transfer. So for 60,000 Marriott points, you would have 25,000 airline miles. That's enough for a FREE domestic airline ticket. 

The offer ends April 24th so you just have a few days left to take advantage of this deal. Check your American Express account to see if you are eligible for the upgrade. If you are not, you can still apply for the card as a new customer as long as you do not have the Starwood luxury credit card.