Travel Success Story: Family of Four Flies to Hawaii for $80
Traveling makes me happy. Helping other people travel, makes me ecstatic. Whether you want to Fly First class around the world or just get your whole family to Hawaii for a well-deserved vacation, I want to help you get there.
The following is an excerpt from my book:
Most airlines have an airline co-branded credit card that earns airline FF miles. But the real value is in the huge sign-up bonus you receive when you apply, get accepted and meet that card’s “minimum spend.”
By knowing which credit cards (also known as miles cards) to apply for and then getting approved for them, you’ll be well on your way to rocking your travel without ever picking up a guitar.
If you have good credit (and sometimes even if you don’t) you can apply for the right cards and easily earn enough miles from sign-up bonuses to fly and stay in amazing hotels all over the world for free.
Here’s how a family of four flew to Hawaii for $80.
Emiliana Dore:
“My husband Patrick spent many happy vacations in Kauai when he was a kid and had always wanted to return. We talked about visiting there for years, but we kept putting it off due to financial concerns and other constraints. With both of us working middle income jobs and also being parents of two young children, a trip of that scope just always seemed a little bit beyond our means. But when we talked to Algis about all of the amazing trips that he was taking, we started to realize that there might be a way for us to achieve our dream.
Since Algis regularly keeps an eye out for great credit card deals, he was able to tell us about an amazing miles offer from British Airways. We wouldn’t have considered British Airways on our own, since we assumed that they only fly to Europe, but Algis explained that many airlines partner with each other. British Airways partners with American Airlines, which has direct flights between Los Angeles and Kauai—an important consideration for us since we’d be traveling with young children.
As it turned out, we found out about the credit card offer right at the same time we had a large tax payment due. My husband and I each applied for our own British Airways credit cards and were both approved. As soon as we received the cards, we used them to pay our taxes, thereby meeting our minimum spend requirements, which gave each of us a credit of 100,000 FF miles. In our case, we had already set aside money to pay the taxes, so we were able to immediately pay the credit cards off. We’re very cautious financially and would never consider going into debt to fund travel, but since we already had the money to pay off the charges immediately, this scenario worked out perfectly for us.
Using 100,000 of the FF miles we earned, we were able to book 4 Award Flights to Kauai (two seats for ourselves and two for our children.)
Without the miles, four non-stop flights from LAX to Kauai would have cost us around $3,000, but we were able to book all four flights for an $80 booking/tax fee.
Being able to fly our family to Hawaii for only $80 (as opposed to $3000!) made our trip possible and left us plenty of money to spend on our actual vacation. Instead of scrimping and saving on this trip, we were able to stay in a luxury resort, enjoy amazing food and do all sorts of fun activities.
The trip coincided with our fifteenth wedding anniversary, my fortieth birthday, and our oldest son’s ninth birthday.
We couldn’t have asked for a lovelier way to celebrate and it’s made us realize that with a little bit of planning, we can make these kinds of special trips a more regular part of our family’s lives.”
Afterward
This is just one example of how FF miles can quickly and easily allow you to experience your dream vacation. It’s easy to get caught up in the rat race of daily life and think that these experiences are out of reach, but with a little bit of effort you can achieve your travel goals at a fraction of what you thought it would cost. If you’d like to see a list of some of my favorite travel cards, click here.
