I Love Free Travel and I Was Asked to Share

Happy New Year to you all!  With the new year comes new dreams, goals and plans.  Often times those dreams include travel.  After strong encouragement by friends, I am putting together an intro blog to share what I've learned about travel.  This blog is a little lengthy, but I wanted to give real information so it would be tangible to you, the reader.

As many of you know, Stephanie and I love to travel.  Locally, domestically, internationally...it doesn't matter.  The privilege of seeing new places, experiencing new things and, above all, meeting new people, is a great joy.  We have been blessed to do this most often when coupled with ministry which makes it all the better.  What you may not know, is that much of our travel is done for free.  Yes - FREE. 

It is this way in which I've earned free travel that I'll share in this intro blog.  So, if you're interested, read on.  By the time you get to the end of this e-mail I'll show you how we planned the resort portion of a 5 night stay in a Mexico Westin Resort hotel for free.

As you're probably aware, every hotel and airline has loyalty programs.  These programs work fairly simply.  You stay so many nights or make so many flights with XYZ company and they'll give you so many points or miles.  Most of us don't take these points or miles very seriously because when we figure how much time and money it will take to generate enough of them for a free "anything" it doesn't seem worth the effort.  

But, what if I told you that Stephanie and I generated over 825,000 miles/points between July 4-Dec 31, 2013?  

No, we didn't stay in a hotel every night.  The ONLY THING we did differently is change the way we spend the money we were already spending every month.  You know, the regular monthly expenses - groceries, gas, mobile phone bills, utility bills, dining out and so on.

TO THE POINT: We simply started placing all of our possible spending on a credit card.  
(NOTE: IF YOU'RE NOT DISCIPLINED ENOUGH TO TRACK YOUR MONTHLY SPENDING AND PAY OFF A CREDIT CARD MONTHLY THEN PLEASE STOP READING.)

• We didn't go into debt.
• We simply bought our groceries within budget on our credit card and then paid the credit card bill out of the grocery budget.
• We paid our mobile phone bill on our credit card and then paid the credit card bill out of the mobile phone budget.
• We purchased gas on our credit card and then paid the credit card bill out of the gas budget.

You get the idea!

The quickest way to earn points and miles isn't by staying at hotels or flying on airlines.  The quickest way to earn FREE TRAVEL is by taking advantage of credit card bonus offers and channeling your everyday spending.  There are so many card options out there that it's no wonder we can travel for free.  Let me give you real examples of our free travel just from the month of November 2013:

• 2 hotel room suites (1 for Stephanie & I and 1 for the 3 kids) for 3 nights in a Holiday Inn Express where the average nightly rate for those rooms was $179 each.  Our savings $1,074 + tax.  That's right - we paid $0
• 1 hotel room as a gift to our friends and their children while they were traveling.  The average nightly rate for that room was $129.  Our gift savings $129 + tax.  That's right - we paid $0
• 1 hotel room suite for Stephanie and I when we traveled to another city/state to visit an old friend (my favorite kind of trip).  The nightly rate was $105.  Our savings $105 + tax.  That's right - we paid $0
• 1 full size rental car for the entire family on a 12-day trip.  The total cost of the rental car for 12 days - $612.48.  Our savings $612.48 + tax.  That's right - we paid $0.

For November, that was a total of 8 hotel room nights and 12 days of rental car for a total of $1,920.48 + tax.  WE PAID $0.  IT WAS ALL COVERED BY POINTS/MILES generated through regular spending on a monthly basis.

So, to finish up this blog.  You ask, which card do you start with and how does that really work?  That's a really great question.  In my experience, the best card to start with is the American Express SPG Card.  SPG is Starwood Preferred Guest.  They have the family of Sheraton, Westin, Element, Aloft, Le Meridien, St. Regis & Four Points Hotels.

Here's 4 reasons why this card is so valuable and should be the 1st one you start with if wanting to use your miles/points for a vacation or air travel.

• This card earns you 10,000 points after you use it once & 15,000 points after you spend $5,000 in 6 months for a total of 30,000 points. (25,000 in bonus points and 5,000 points for every dollar you spent to earn the bonus points)
• The SPG group of hotels do NOT have blackout dates for redeeming your points!  If you want a nice hotel in St Louis or Seattle on Valentine's Day and the hotel isn't sold out - you can use your points.
• The SPG points can be transferred 1 to 1 to almost EVERY MAJOR AIRLINE IN THE UNITED STATES.  If you transfer 20,000 SPG points to an airline, SPG generously adds 5,000 more points to your transfer.  For example: I transferred 20,000 SPG points to American Airlines and my AA miles account was credited with 25,000 miles courtesy of SPG.  (transfers are FREE and you can transfer in increments of 1,000 points)
• When you use your SPG points for a hotel stay your 5th night is ALWAYS FREE.  Stay 4 nights with points and the 5th night is free.

Remember the 5 night stay in a Westin Resort Hotel in Mexico that I mentioned at the beginning of this email?  Here's the real example:

• The Westin Resort Hotel in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico takes 7,000 SPG per night for a stay.
• 4 nights requires 28,000 SPG points (4 x 7,000 pts.)
• Your 5th night is free because you paid for 4 nights with points.

This one card with it's bonus was enough to earn you a 5 night stay at a nice Mexico resort and you still have 2,000 points left over!

This, plus all the other reasons I mentioned above are why this card is the one I encourage everyone to start with when getting into the miles/points game.  If you're ready to get started, I've included a link to the BONUS APPLICATION below.  If you have questions, feel free to email me.

IMPORTANT: NEVER apply jointly!  By applying individually (one spouse at a time) you can double up on this bonus.  Stephanie and I applied a few months apart and earned 60,000 points as a result.  Oh, by the way - the SPG program also allows spouses to transfer points to each other for FREE!  One more reason this is the best card to start with.

American Express SPG - Spend $5k in 6 months - earn 25,000 bonus points + 5,000 for the money you spent to earn the bonus= 30,000 points

Here's the link to apply for the card and get the bonus mentioned above->>>

Starwood Preferred Bonus Application

(Disclosure:If you've found this blog helpful and choose to pursue the SPG card, your application through the link acts as a referral for Stephanie & I. We'd really appreciate it!) 

Please share this blog with friends and family if you'd like.  I'd be glad to answer their questions as well.

Thanks for reading and Happy Travels! 

Joel & Stephanie