You know those annoying posts from the early days of blogging where the author would apologize for not blogging for a long time? This kind of feels like that. It’s been a year and a half since I announced my abandonment of this blog to join The Points Guy as an Editor and now here … Read more
I’ve been rolling out my Maldives trip report series and thought I’d share how I actually paid for it using points and miles. As you can tell from the title of this post, it wasn’t all “free.” Even with the hotel and airfare booked using points and miles, there were other costs. The Waldorf Astoria … Read more
Have you ever fantasized about owning a vacation home in Italy that you can escape to when life gets too stressful in the U.S.? Imagine how much more appealing this scenario is when the home costs just $1. No, this isn’t some internet scam concocted by a fake prince. You can actually buy $1 homes … Read more
How fast did 2019 fly by? Not nearly as fast as December. In three short weeks we’ll be making New Year’s resolutions we’ll forget about and settle into the boredom of January. Hopefully, we can all liven things up with some fun travel plans. January 2020 In January, I’m going to Turkey with my parents. … Read more
To me, I look at this hobby as the banks, airlines, hotel programs vs. us consumers, just trying to catch a break and save a few bucks on travel. The reason I think we always win is the ability to act quickly. I’ve spent most of my life working for myself. I did have one … Read more
Plastiq is running targeted promotions through October 31 that can help you save some cash if you regularly use the service to earn miles on mortgage payments. You can choose between earning Fee-Free Dollars (FFDs) for future payments or getting a discounted 1.5% fee. So which of these offers should you go with? That depends … Read more
Earlier this week I recapped my credit card holdings and was able to reconfirm about 24 open cards (Experian says 27?) and scores in the 777 range. It was also interesting to find my oldest card is 17 years old and my average account age is a little over 6 years and still “never been … Read more
Over the last couple of years, I’ve noticed a proliferation of fare deals to Europe and Asia that would make me think twice about a coach class redemption to either destination. They seem to show up everywhere from, Flyertalk’s Mileage Run forum, blog posts, secretflying.com, on Facebook groups and I even saw one recently mentioned on … Read more
Remember, in this hobby, every one of us has a different goal and things that are important to them. Some folks want to learn about First Class cabins. Some care about locations, and others still, are into reselling or maybe it’s manufactured spending. Here’s where I go for information every day. Email updates The first … Read more
Several years ago I had the opportunity to travel in style on the Amtrak Coast Starlight one way from Los Angeles to Seattle. The trip takes about 35 hours and you can go in either direction on any given day. I did it on Amtrak points and with the current offer for the Amtrak card … Read more