Sausalito - Great Day Trip Out Of San Francisco

If you plan to be in San Francisco anytime soon, be sure to spend an afternoon in Sausalito. Sausalito is a sleepy little town that will remind you of the Mediterranean islands or a small town on Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket. It's full of ice cream shops, houseboats, and art galleries. Great for walking and biking.

You can easily get here by driving over the Golden Gate Bridge from San Franciso. If you are brave, you can even rent bicycles and ride over the bridge. There is also a ferry that connects San Francisco to Sausalito. This ferry ride is considered one of the most beautiful in the world. The Golden Gate Ferry leaves the downtown ferry building and makes the trip in just 30 minutes several times per day. Price is $25 per adult round trip and $14 per child. Children 4 and under ride FREE and there is a senior discount. 

The main street is a picturesque walk ending at the bay with a spectacular view of the Golden Gate Bridge. The other end features a park, museum, and boardwalk along the water. There are lots of restaurants, ice cream stores, touristy boutiques, and galleries. Be sure to check out the Southern Boardwalk which is famous for its appearance in the 1947 film with Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth. And be sure to walk through Vina del Mar plaza, it was named after Sausalito's sister city in Chile. You will notice a beautiful fountain and elephant statue. 

There is also a Visitors Center that provides guided tours and a giant 3-D model of the bay.  Nearby is Fort Baker and the wonderful Bay Area Discovery Museum. Great for kids under 10 years old to run around. 14 miles north of Sausalito is Muir Woods, one of the last remnants of the Redwood Forests that used to cover so much of California. There are six miles of groomed trails in Muir Woods. Shuttle buses are available from Sausalito, but you do need reservations. 

And if you can get to Sausalito over the Labor Day weekend, the city hosts one of the world's best art fairs, the Sausalito Art Festival. 

Remember to purchase ferry tickets on a credit card that gives you bonus points for travel like your Chase Sapphire Preferred card. This is one of my favorite cards because Ultimate Reward points are so flexible. And if you don't have this card yet and decide to apply, please consider using our referral link. 

Sausalito is a city in Marin County, California, across the Golden Gate Strait from San Francisco. It’s known for its Richardson Bay houseboat enclaves, built by artist squatters after WWII. 

Two Shopping Portal Promotions End This Week

 

Two shopping portal promotions ending this week, one from American Airlines and one from United Airlines. If you need a few miles to top off your account or if you need some activity on your American Airlines account, then you might want to take a look. 

United Airlines miles never expire, however, American Airlines miles expire after just 18 months of no activity. Shopping portals are a great way to show activity on your account and reset your expiration date. 

Two Shopping Portal Promotions End This Week

Right now, both promotions are the same. Spend $150 and get 500 miles, spend $300 and get 1,000 miles. You do not have to spend the entire amount on one purchase. You just need to spend the total by the promotion end date. 

If you don't know how shopping portals work, check out this post. Shopping portals are a great way to earn airline miles and points without actually flying. Many of your favorite retailers are listed on the marketplace and may have different offers on each portal. I use cashbackmonitor.com to see the offers in one place. Stacking offers can make shopping portals even more lucrative. 

The American Airlines promotion ends Jan. 20th. 

The United Airlines promotion ends Jan. 19th. 

How To Get A FREE Massage With Your Priority Lounge Pass

 

If you are traveling over the holidays, you might want to stop by the Be Relax Spa for a head, foot or back massage! The spas are located in seven airports around the country. It's FREE with your Priority Pass membership. 

How To Get A FREE Massage With Your Priority Lounge Pass

The Priority Pass is a benefit that comes with several premium credit cards such as

• Chase Sapphire Reserve, 
• The Platinum card from American Express, 
• The Business Platinum card from American Express, 
• Hilton Honors Aspire
• Hilton Honors American Express Surpass
• Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant 
• US Bank Reserve
• Citi Prestige

You will need to logon to your credit card account and activate the pass. Once you do that, you can go to prioritypass.com to search for lounges and restaurants included in the 1,300 location network. 

Most of the locations are lounges that offer snacks, drinks, and a quiet place to charge your devices. But some restaurants are listed and for me, that's the sweet spot. 

Your pass is good for $28 credit at the restaurant for you and a guest. Wow! 

My daughter and I enjoyed a full dinner at the Bobby V's Steakhouse in the JFK airport before our flight to London. 

We also stopped at the Grain Store in the London Gatwick airport on our return to pick up sandwiches, croissants, and much more. In fact, we had a hard time spending the entire credit. 

Be sure to read the fine print and bring your physical card with you. You will receive a card in the mail a few weeks after you activate your membership. 

How you can earn 5x points on groceries

Great news for those of you holding Chase FREEDOM (no longer available), FLEX and Unlimited credit cards! The Q1 rotating categories have been announced and it's time to activate. These cards offer bonus categories that change every quarter. You have to activate the bonus which you can do anytime during the quarter and it's retroactive. 

Then you earn 5x Ultimate Reward points on purchases up to a total of $1,500. Pretty sweet! 

Past categories have included retailers such as gas, Walmart, and PayPal. The strategy is to switch your spending in those categories to these cards for the quarter to max out the points. Then transfer your points to your Chase Sapphire Preferred or Reserve credit card to max out the value. Make sense?

I love Chase Ultimate Reward Points because they are so flexible. You can transfer them to dozens of airlines, Marriott, Hyatt, IHG, pay yourself back in cash, and more. 

Okay, so here's the big announcement for Q1, the categories are groceries and Ebay. I love when the category is groceries because it's so easy to rack up the bonus points fast. When you get a chance, activate the offer by logging into your Chase.com account and clicking on the activate button.

Then label that card for groceries so you remember to swipe it the next time you are at the store starting Jan. 1. If you don't have a Chase FREEDOM Unlimited or Flex card yet, consider using my referral link when you apply. The bonus right now is $200 for a $500 minimum spend. Pretty sweet. This is my go-to card since there is no annual fee. However, you will want the Chase Sapphire Preferred or Reserve card also since those cards give you access to travel partners and offer more value in the travel portal. You can apply for one of those cards using this link.  Right now, the bonus is 60,000 points for a minimum spend of $4,000. That's about $750 in the travel portal. Woohoo! 

How To Save Your Wyndham Points From Expiring

 

If you are seeing this on your Wyndham account, listen up! At the end of the year, it's a good time to check expiration dates for your various loyalty reward programs. The worst is when an expiration slips by you and those treasured points and miles disappear. 

Most programs state that miles/points will expire due to inactivity usually for a period of 18-24 months. 

However, Wyndham has a two-tier rule. Reward points expire after 18 months of inactivity AND four years after they are earned. 

Ouch! So even our tricks of making a purchase through the online shopping portal to show activity won't work to save points coming up on the four-year mark. 

So what's the go around? 

Wyndham Rewards has several partner transfer programs including United Airlines, American Airlines, and Frontier Airlines. However, the points are not worth much. For example, 6,000 Wyndham points equal 1,200 Frontier miles. 

But check out Caesars Rewards. Now personally, I didn't even know Caesars had a rewards program. But it does and points transfer from Wyndham to Caesars 1:1 and more importantly back again. So theoretically, you can transfer your points to Caesars, reset the expiration date and then transfer them back to Wyndham. 

Caesars includes brands like Ballys, Harrah's, Tropicana, and more. I'm not a Las Vegas fan so this chain does not interest me at all. But if I can save my Wyndham points, then sign me up. 

So here's the process: 

• Open a Caesars Rewards account (you must use the exact same name as your Wyndham account)
• Go back to your Wyndham account, click on explore the program, use Wyndham points, more ways to redeem

• Scroll down the page to Points Transfer Partners and click  
• Click on Caesars Rewards 

• Enter your name exactly as it appears in your Caesars account
• Enter your new Caesars account number 
• There is a minimum transfer amount of 10,000 points, but don't worry, you will transfer them and then transfer them back to Wyndham. 

You will see your points leave your Wyndham account immediately. It says it takes 7-10 days for the points to transfer to Caesars Rewards so I'll let you know what happens. Now take a look at the expiration date back on your Wyndham account. It's located in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen. 

Once the points show up in your new Caesars account and the expiration date passes, you can just transfer them right back to Wyndham. If you have more points that will expire, just do the process again. You can use the same points to reach the 10,000 minimum. If you don't have 10,000 points, use the shopping portal or buy some points to reach 10,000 so you can transfer. May be worth it. 

How you can earn a quick 3,000 Wyndham points for FREE

 

Wyndham Rewards is the newest hotel to hop on the Bakkt platform. Bakkt is a digital asset platform where you can convert your hotel and airline points to cash or even crypto. Right now, if you link your Wyndham Rewards account to the Bakkt platform, you will earn 1,000 reward points. If you convert a minimum of 100 Wyndham Rewards points to cash (value .35 cents), you will earn another 2,000 Wyndham Reward points. 

Not too bad. 

Here's the way it works: 

• Download the Bakkt app
• Create an account 
• Click on the tab labeled hotels
• Click on Wyndham Rewards
• It will prompt you to log into your Wyndham Rewards account

The two accounts are now linked and you will see the 1,000 points drop right into your account. 

Once that is done, click convert and choose how many reward points you want to convert to cash. The fine print says the minimum is 100 reward points to a max of 15,000. I chose to convert the minimum of 100 points. 

You will see the transaction noted in your history. 

It says it will take some time for the bonus reward points to drop into your account. It took 7 hours for my bonus to show up. Wow! 

Note, this may be a targeted promotion. 

How To Earn The Most Points and Miles on Black Friday and Cyber Monday

One of our first FREE trips was to Thailand and Japan. It was an amazing one-month adventure rich with culture and new experiences. It was especially sweet because not only was it FREE, we actually made money on the trip. I vowed never to pay for travel again. 

One of my tricks during the holiday shopping season is to lean heavily on online shopping portals and then use the right credit card to double or even triple dip on points and miles. 

As we head into Black Friday and Cyber Monday, I am going to show you how to do it too. 

Before pressing the place order button, check cashbackmonitor.com to see if the online retailer is listed on any shopping portal. Most major retailers are listed on shopping portals as part of their marketing strategies. All the major airlines and some hotels offer shopping portals plus there are cashback portals and flexible point portals like Chase Ultimate Rewards, Barclays, and Capital One.

Once you see where the retailer is listed, you can compare the points and miles offers. 

For example, I type in Best Buy and bam, it's listed all over the place from cashback to Southwest to Chase Ultimate Rewards.

Depending on your strategy, you may pick one portal over another. 

• if you need to top off an account
• you have points that are expiring and you need some activity
• you are trying to earn enough points for a specific trip 

There are a lot of reasons to pick one portal over another. 

My go-to portal is the Chase Ultimate Rewards since I can transfer those points to dozens of different airlines, hotels, use them in the travel center or pay myself back. Points earned in the Southwest shopping portal count towards the Companion Pass. 

Sometimes the portals will offer bonus points too so if I saw a great bonus offer in another portal, I would head there. 

You can click on the portal out of cashback monitor and log in from there. Some of the portals require a separate login from your regular airline mile account. 

Then make your purchase just like you would normally. The portal will track your purchase and a few days later you will get an email letting you know that your purchase is being tracked. 

Now one more thing before you push the button to make that purchase and after you click through to a shopping portal, be sure you use the right credit card. If you have a Chase FREEDOM or FREEDOM UNLIMITED or FLEX card, then check your bonus categories. If the store you are making a purchase from is listed, then use that credit card to get the bonus on top of the portal bonus. For example, Q4 2021 bonus categories are Walmart and Paypal. Can you use Paypal to pay for this purchase? Many retailers offer the option, then do it and collect 5x bonus points on top of the portal points. 

If not, is the retailer an office supply store? If so, use your Chase Ink credit card to earn 5x points and so on. Amazing!

If you don't have a Chase FREEDOM card or Southwest Credit Card, consider using my referral links so we can continue helping you get the best deals in travel. 

That's how we do it here at almostfreefamilytravel.com. Happy holidays! 

 cashback monitor 

Chase and use the Chase Reserve Credit Card