Near the end of 2014, we strategically applied for credit cards with the specific goal of getting the Southwest Companion Pass for 2015 and 2016. This companion pass let’s you get unlimited buy-one-get-one free on all Southwest flights with the same person, whether the first ticket is booked with points or cash, and lasts for up […]
Category: Travel Hacking
How We Booked a $14,000 Honeymoon for Under $400
Becky and I have officially tied the knot and are now married! The wedding took place in Seattle where we live and despite the chaos of planning and executing a crazy event like this, it ended up being an amazing experience where we were able to celebrate with family and friends, many of whom we […]
Is Anyone Actually Saving Money By Travel Hacking?
Who can resist the allure of “free travel”? Just sign up for a credit card or two and you can set off across the world for pennies on the dollar! To someone who has never applied for a credit card with a big bonus before, that last line probably sounds exaggerated at best and outright fraud […]
Our Current Credit Card Collection
A reader recently asked me if I would share the current credit cards we had open to help inspire his next application and I thought it might be useful to share with everyone. The best place to start when deciding which credit card to get is with your own future travel plans as I outlined when discussing […]
Back On The Churning Horse With 3 New Credit Cards
Starting a few months ago, we took a break from signing up for new credit cards in order to refinance our mortgage and start saving over $300 per month. Aside from a small surprise when they pulled our credit, the whole refinance process went fairly smoothly even with tons of new credit accounts and inquiries […]
Piecing Together The Honeymoon: New Zealand and Fiji Hotels with Points
This year is shaping up to break all of our travel records up to this point. Miles flown, nights spent away from home, and even countries visited will all have new personal bests if everything goes according to plan and a good chunk of that is thanks to our honeymoon. The destination is Fiji and […]
Everyone Knows You Don’t HAVE to Manufacture Spend… Right?
I recently attended a Travel Hacking meetup in the Seattle area and met a lot of interesting people who share the common interest of traveling with miles and points, mostly earned from credit cards. After brief introductions, it didn’t take long before the discussion on various manufactured spend (MS) techniques got started, and that’s honestly the […]
The Power of Travel Flexibilty: Our Cancun Trip Gets More Complicated
Not too long ago, I discussed an awesome Cancun trip that Becky and I booked for very little money out of pocket. In fact, the title of the post was How We Booked 4 All-Inclusive Nights in Cancun for $160. A few months after booking that trip, we got an email from Southwest informing us that […]
Tracking Our Miles and Points Redemption Stats
If you didn’t know yet, I’m big on statistics and tracking the ins and outs of whatever I’m involved in. Keeping track of the costs and benefits of just about anything makes it 100 times easier to make decisions such as whether or not you should keep doing that thing in the future. The first major […]
Starting Out The New Year With a Mattress Run – IHG Accelerate 2016
IHG has consistently been doing targeted hotel promotions over the past year or so of varying qualities, but I always register to see whether or not it’s worth pursuing. The latest IHG promotion is Accelerate 2016 and takes place from the beginning of the year until the end of April. Registering only takes a minute […]