New! Southwest Makes Locating Your Travel Funds Easier

Southwest prides itself on transparency, but using your old travel funds was one place where the airline didn't make it easy. Now that's changed. 

Travel funds are the $5.60 per ticket that you pay when you use points to fly on Southwest, any tickets you paid for, but canceled at least 10 minutes before the flight, LUV vouchers or gift cards. 

You have to use these funds within one year of booking your canceled ticket, but remembering how much you have was difficult.  

I stopped holding the funds for future use because they only way to use them was to refer to the confirmation code and who holds on to that? Plus you could only use the funds for a ticket in your name. 

That hasn't changed. You can still only use the funds for a ticket in your name, but now keeping track of those funds is a whole lot easier. 

How to find your travel funds:

• Sign in to your Southwest Airlines account
• click on my account
• see a tab called My Travel Funds. 
• If you click on that, you will see your funds listed. 

Only funds from tickets canceled since December 3rd will be shown right now. You can still lookup funds with the confirmation code. 
Southwest has the most flexible cancellation and ticket change policy around and again, the airline is making it easier for consumers. You can check out my previous post on how to change your Southwest flight here. 

Book Now Before Hyatt Changes Awards

Following in the footsteps of other hotel brands, Hyatt is changing its award structure starting in March 2020 to off-peak, standard and peak pricing. 

However, if you book now and a hotel drops to off-peak, you will receive the difference back. If you book now and a hotel increases, you will not be charged the difference. 

Before Wyndham changed its award structure from 15,000 points for all rooms to a range of 7,500 - 30,000 points last year, I booked the New Yorker hotel in NYC and the Super 8 in Kalispell, Montana. The New Yorker did increase from 15,000 to 30,000 per night so that was a good move. The Super 8 did not change at all. And in case you are wondering why I was concerned about a Super 8 in Montana, this Super 8 is located just outside the gate of Glacier National Park and we were there in August which is high tourist season. 

My daughter fed the birds each morning at the Hyatt Regency Maui

At this point, we don't know which Hyatts will drop in points and which ones will increase. But the point range will be from 3,500 - 45,000 per night. We also don't know what is considered off peak, standard or high peak. But you can probably make an educated guess and you have nothing to lose if you book early. 
The number of award categories will remain the same. 
Right now, Chase is offering a World of Hyatt credit card that has a $3,000 minimum spend for a bonus of 25,000 points which can net you a lot of category 1 nights if you go that route. 

How To Visit New York City On A Budget

Walking near Seaport across from Brooklyn

The big apple can take a big bite out of your wallet. But if you do some advance planning, you can visit New York City on a budget.
I always start with flights when planning my trips because when you travel as a family, you have to be flexible. For this trip to New York City, I was able to use Southwest points for my ticket and add my daughter as my companion so she flew for FREE.
You can read my previous post on how to earn the Southwest companion pass for two years here.
The hotel comes next. I start with awardmapper.com to see which hotels are in the city and how many points they require to book. For this trip, I tapped the Wyndham New Yorker for 15,000 points per night. Since I booked, Wyndham added three tiers for point redemption and unfortunately, they raised the points for this hotel to 30,000 per night.

Our hotel room at the Wyndham New Yorker Hotel

I still think the New Yorker offers great value even at the increased rate. It is well located just 5 blocks from Times Square and next to Penn Station.  Our room at the New Yorker was huge plus the hotel is historic and bursting with charm.
For transportation, there is no better way to get around New York City than with the subway and your feet. On the subway, each ride costs $2.75. When you are ready to go to JFK airport, take the LIRR to the Skytrain. Total cost will be approximately $20 per person. The subway is less, but takes much longer. And of course, taking an Uber is way more expensive and can take just as long depending on traffic,
Now that we have our flights and hotels booked with points, we can move on to food and experiences.

View from our hotel room and our yummy bagel

My favorite bagel store, Liberty Bagels, is located across the street from the New Yorker next to the Starbucks. They told me they are opening a second location too. If you like vegan cream cheese, this is your place. And a huge bagel with smear costs approximately $6. Wow!

The line moves fast and the slices are big! 

Joe's Pizza is also a steal of a deal. Located right off Times Square, you can get a huge piece of delicious authentic NY pizza for just a few bucks per slice.
There is so much to see in New York City, you will just have trouble deciding what to do. Remember to check out Todaystix.com and the half price ticket booth for Broadway shows.
And have fun!

Travel Deal Tuesday - Where To Find The Deals

After Black Friday and Cyber Monday, get ready for Travel Deal Tuesday! Yep, December 3rd may be the day for travel deals. According to Skyscanner, Travel Deal Tuesday usually has better deals than Black Friday, but not as good as Cyber Monday. 

However, Tuesdays are traditionally discount days to book travel. 

That said, here are some places to look for deals:

1. Travel Zoo - Great package travel deals, but do your homework. Some deals include $299 for an 8-day tour to China flights included, $599 4-night tour including flights to Iceland to see the Northern Lights. If you figure, just the flights alone could cost more than the whole package, it might be worth it. Wow! 

2. 3rd party sellers like Expedia.com, Travelocity.com, Cheaptickets.com and Orbitz.com

3. Watch the shopping portals for increased cash back 

Good luck! and happy traveling! 

Giving Gratitude When You Travel

My daughter handing out stickers to the children in the Zambia village

On this Thanksgiving Day, I feel thankful that I get to travel and help my children experience the world, history, traditions, other cultures, and people. But I also get to show them that no matter where we go we can give back to others. 

When we traveled to South Africa, we brought along stickers, toys and pencils for the children in the township and villages. When we were in Panama, we brought arts and crafts for the children in the Embera village. When we were in Cuba, we brought towels, socks and chocolates for the families there. 

In our own small way, we become not just tourists, but agents of goodwill and we model that for our children. I am also blessed to educate families about how they can afford to travel the world and have the same experiences. 

On this Thanksgiving, I am thankful for the blessings I experience and the ones I am able to bestow on others. 

Black Friday And Cyber Monday Travel Deals

Get ready for the biggest shopping days of the year, Black Friday or the day after Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, the Monday following Thanksgiving. 

Though these shopping days traditionally focus on retail deals, travel won't be left out of the mix. 

Here are our top 5 places to look for travel deals:

1. Southwest Vacation Packages - already you can check out the site and offers range from $250 off to an extra night FREE. We did a quick search for a San Diego vacation and it came up with 3 nights at Paradise Point Resort with flights for two people for $662. When I checked, rooms at Paradise Point for those dates were going for about $160 per night and flights on Southwest were going for $295.92 for two people. So the vacation package is a savings of about $125. Not too bad. 

2. Cruises - like Celebrity Cruises are promising good deals starting on Nov. 26th. You can check those out here.  

3. Amtrak is promising a super sale going live on Nov. 29th. We don't know what type of deals the company will be offering at this point. 

4. Airline Deals - According to Hopper.com, look for flight deals from Aer Lingus, Air France, Cathay Pacific, Air New Zealand, Singapore Airlines and TAP Portugal. 

5. Legoland New York - will be opening July 2020, but on Black Friday, the resort will be offering 50% off an annual pass so the price will be $99. And the best part is that the pass will be good for 30 other Merlin Entertainment parks around the country. 

In addition to these top deals, you might want to check out hotels.com which will be offering scratch off card discounts and Priceline.com which will offer daily deals. 

And if that's not enough, Travel Deal Tuesday is December 3rd. Travel experts say the best deals actually fall on Tuesday as travel operators try to entice procrastinators to book a winter getaway. 

Good luck and happy travels! 

Early Black Friday Deal: Cash Back At Amazon!

If you do most of your shopping on Amazon, it's hard to find cash back deals on that platform. Amazon does not participate in most of the shopping portals. And as you know, I love shopping portals because it's a great way to double or even triple your miles/cash back from a single purchase. You can check out this past post on how to use shopping portals.
Now Rakuten, formerly Ebates, is offering up to 5% cash back on Amazon.

When you click on the Amazon link from Rakuten, there is a quick list of the cash back offers in different categories. Here's a look at that list and you can see it varies greatly, but it's better than zero which is the norm for Amazon.

If you use my referral link to Rakuten, you will get an additional $10 off your first purchase of at least $25. Happy shopping!