Travel is expensive. Yes, there are many ways to make it feasible and budget-friendly, but costs can still very much add up. Add in a family, and well, you could easily be looking at double or even triple the costs. Ahh, points and miles to the rescue. If it wasn’t for them, we would not be able to do 3 international trips with our family of 5 just in 2023. But there’s more – and here’s how we were able to let our wanderlust take over a little more this year.
In March during our older childrens’ spring break, we visited the U.K. Earlier this month, we took a trip to Lisbon, Portugal. And this upcoming Thanksgiving break, we are heading to Tokyo, Japan. I know what you are thinking – but how? At first, those were my thoughts exactly, but it took teamwork, planning, and strategy to make our travel goals a reality.
1 – Plan Ahead.
I simply cannot reiterate enough how important this is. The more people in your travel party, the further out you need to plan. The best deals are found early on, and the more award tickets you need – the harder the search can be. I plan 1-2 trips ahead, booking trips 6-9 months in advance, generally speaking. What does this mean? So while I may not know where our next trip will be, I am ALWAYS working on earning points and miles. It is a combination of leveraging our regular monthly spend (charging all expenses to travel-rewards earning credit cards, mortgage aside), maximizing the cards we do have, taking advantage of multiple card-less tricks, and keeping an eye out for current best card offers that could work in our award travel strategy.
Our Portugal & Japan redemptions were made possible because my husband and I took advantage of the Chase Ink Business cards when the bonus points offers were increased a couple months ago. I had no idea when I first applied last fall (there were multiple increased offers) how I would use the points earned. But there was one fact I knew: I love earning Chase Ultimate Rewards for family travel, and at the very least, I always need Chase Ultimate Rewards to transfer to my favorite travel partners, Southwest Airlines or World of Hyatt.
2 – Keep a travel budget, and aim to stick to it!
After flights and hotel stays are paid for in points/miles, there are ALWAYS additional travel-related expenses. At the very least, you have airfare taxes. Some additional travel-related expenses that can easily arise are: car rental, gas, food/groceries, dining, shopping, and excursions. Costs add up quickly for our family of 5, so we use points earned regularly from my husband’s Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card to cover eligible travel-related purchases whenever we can. Award travel is NOT free travel. There are ways to make travel more feasible, keep costs minimal, and overall, more budget-friendly. But remember, there are always additional miscellaneous costs that arise – we don’t want to just get to a place, we actually want to experience it.
While in Lisbon, we used the Bolt app to catch rides around town. It works just like Uber or Lyft, but we found it to be cheaper and it’s also what’s commonly used there. With the hilly terrain, some knee pain I had been having, and just the exhaustion of walking and having to push a stroller around town – we spent $200 catching rides. You can say we certainly didn’t anticipate that much! Luckily, I was able to get a credit for the $200 ride-sharing expense thanks to miles earned from my husband’s Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card.
3 – We cut down in other places.
For the last year, my in-laws were in the middle of a move and living with us. Being financially dependent, our monthly expenses were naturally increased. We delayed big expenses like buying a second car and other home purchases, because frankly speaking, we could not afford it all. This is just an example of when life is life-ing – how you can still make it work for you. We continued to keep our focus on earning points and miles on any and all additional monthly expenses, while holding off on whatever purchases we could. So when a deal to Japan came up unexpectedly, we were able to jump on it while not compromising our budget. (As a reminder, we had earned a good stash of points to work with prior; this goes back to tenant #1. Had we not, I could not have booked this deal.)
To reiterate, we carry no debt (except our mortgage), pay all our bills/expenses on time each and every month – NO EXCEPTIONS, and keep a monthly budget (that includes travel) like many other individuals and families. Each year of travel can look different, and our award travel strategy will continue to evolve, no doubt. But what remains consistent is our steadfastness in abiding by the three pillars of award travel, and generally speaking, the tenants listed above. Make your points and miles work for YOU – travel more, and spend less while doing so!
Picture: Lisbon, Portugal – June 2023
