Everyone likes freebies, right?
How about FREE airfare, hotels, and a rental car for 12 days in Europe?
We at Journey Moore Often have just done that! Worth over $3400 in traveling purchases and one night, all free!! The picture below depicts the terrace of the room we stayed at in Paris. It was paid for almost entirely by our Hotels.com rewards program.
Sitting on the terrace of a hotel room in downtown Paris paid almost entirely by the Hotels.com rewards program.
Even better, during our recent journey, the points we received from booking the vacation and during the vacation were equal to over $400.
Points
What’s a “point” you say? It’s a system credit cards banks have set up that you can utilize, giving you money back. After any initial offer, it is set percentage amount of each purchase. There can be caveats, so you’ll need to follow their rules, strictly.
Points are amassed in different ways. You get them through credit cards, airlines, hotels, and even your electric provider. A lot of providers will offer “sign up” points, then points based on your purchases. Sign up points can be very lucrative. Others come with less stringent requirements. All offer points deals after the sign up. It can be a simple percentage of your purchases, or offer special deals for even more points.
Credit cards offer points through signing up, then on each purchase.
Purchases can include almost anything – contractors, daily expenses (gas, food, etc.), cell phone bill, as well as car and house insurance bill. We even paid our taxes that were due last year with the card! You can pay your electric bill, but they charge you a fee if paid by card, so that cancels out the points earned. The things you cannot paid with a credit card are – other card bills, school loans, mortgages, and any bank originated debt.
Credit card points are usually in the form of cash back. They can be redeemed for expenses on your credit card, actual cash, or purchases through their websites.
And this is just personal. If you have a business credit card, there’s even more available. Some offer as much as 200,000 points ($2,000) if you can meet the requirements.
WARNING – you have to be diligent and pay off your credit card balance on time each month, otherwise interest and late charges can easily add up to more than the point value you are trying to save.
Credit Card Examples
Example #1- our Capital One Venture credit card offered 70,000 points (aka $700) to sign up. Please note, they’re only offering 50,000 points ($500) now. Only. The caveat – we had to spend a certain amount in the first 3 months. From there, we get 2% on every purchase after that. If you book a hotel through Hotels.com/Venture, you get 10% back! The caveat – you must pay at the time of reservation, not at the hotel (simple though, right?).
Example #2 – our AAdvantage card gave us 50,000 airline miles tied to our American Airlines account. For context, a trip to Europe is 60,000 miles. The card also offers your first checked bag for you and up to 4 more people traveling with you for free.; The caveat – you must make one purchase and pay for it for the initial points, and you must use the card to purchase the ticket(s) of everyone looking for a free checked bag. The AAdvantage card also pays 3 times purchases at restaurants in their program. This requires more attention than normal because it requires you to constantly check to see if the restaurant is on the credit card’s list, and remember to use that card. Purchases not specific to the card’s focus are only 1% on purchases.
Programs
Programs are a little more vague. They are almost always tied to a specific vendor. You need to be diligent in tracking your points to ensure that the vendor is providing/applying them propertly as sometime they do not.
Some examples are as follows:
Airlines – American Airlines, Delta, Southwest, JetBlue
Hotels – Marriot, Hyatt, etc.
Restaurants – Starbucks/Dunkin Donuts, Black Friday discounts (10%-25% off if you pre-buy gift cards), Yelp (what? yep, you can get as much as 10% back!)
Energy providers – NRG gave us 10,000 American Airlines miles for signing up and 2 points for each bill paid.
Booking websites – Expedia, Booking.com, Hotels.com, etc.
Program Examples
Example #3 – Hotels.com/Venture until January 2020 offers a “two-fer”. The first is – after you stay 10 nights, you get one free at the average cost of the ten nights. So if you stay 10 nights at around $100 each night, you get a free night at $100. The second – if you purchase using the website and your Capital One Venture card, instead of 2%, you get 10% back. That’s like getting two free night nights for every 10 nights you book and stay!
Example #4 – if you purchase enough trips through Expedia, you can achieve Silver, or even Gold status, along with credits that can be used for future trips. For our trip to Cancun a couple years ago, just Silver status gave us an automatic free upgrade in room (suite instead of the standard room, with water view instead of internal view), alcholic drinks (not rail drinks) – included access to private bars which had upscale brands and snacks not available to others, and an expedited check-in with personal treatment including their signature drink.
These are but a few examples, there are a lot more out there for you to take advantage of!
Wrap Up – Things to Keep in Mind
The point is (pun intended), there are numerous opportunities for travel freebees. This article hasn’t even scratched the surface. Discover offers a rotating 5% points each quarter for grocery stores/Walgreens/CVS, gas stations/uber/lyft, restaurants/PayPal, and Amazon/Walmart/Target.
If you purchase items or travel for work, you can even rack up points even faster. That’s trickier, because you’ll want to follow work protocols, but if it’s open for you to use to your advantage, freebies can add up quickly, very quickly.
Perhaps most importantly, pick points and programs that work for you and stick to them. Hopping between programs should only be done if they benefit you.