As we’ve talked about in prior posts, one of the neat things about Jason’s job is it gives him the opportunity to travel. Sometimes he’s traveling with students, sometimes he’s traveling to students. When traveling with students, we’re always staying in hotels of various types because it’s just so much easier than trying to find some other kind of accommodation with enough space. But when he’s traveling to students, that’s a different scenario.

Most often, when Jason travels over the summer to teach his students, he’s in one location for a medium-length period, what we’ll call somewhere between 2 and 3 weeks. In our experience, there are two main choices when it comes to a temporary home for this length of time: apartments or hotels. Until this most recent adventure, he’s always stayed in an apartment, but that changed this time, as he opted to stay at a hotel the entire time instead. So, let’s talk about the pros and cons of each option, at least as we see them.

Apartment Living

There are lots of things to like about having an apartment in a new city, especially when it’s in a foreign country. Having a space that’s really all yours is really nice, especially if you’re coming back from a long day of work. Let’s talk about a few of those things:

• Space. More than anything, having your own apartment (or a flat, if you’re in Europe) gives you the luxury of space that’s all yours. Most often, Jason stays in a one-bedroom apartment, so there’s dedicated space to spread out and relax without feeling cramped. Of course, it’s helpful to keep in mind that ‘space’ is relative, and when you’re in Europe it’s good to know their apartments trend smaller than in the US. Still, having your own space is great.
• Kitchen. The kitchen area isn’t one that we use all the time, but having the option to do so is super important. When you travel, it often means you’re eating new things cooked in new ways. That’s all fine and well, and a big part of why we like traveling; however, it also disrupts your regular eating habits which can cause…let’s just call them ‘issues’. For instance, we tend to eat lots of veggies while at home, but that’s difficult to do when we’re abroad, particularly when we’re in Spain where the diet is heavy on meats, cheeses, and carbs. So, having a kitchen where we can cook our own food can be a game changer and help keep us close to our usual eating habits.

• Work Area. Because we travel most often for work, having a dedicated workspace is really helpful. Sometimes that’s an actual office, while other times it’s a desk or table in a side room or off in the corner of a living room, for example. Regardless, having a place where we can set up shop and get some work done is nice, especially when it’s not on a bed or couch (unless we want it to be!).

• Location. One of the neat things about apartments is they’re usually in more residential locations. That gives you a different perspective on the places you visit. Being in more populous locations has its benefits, no doubt. But there’s something nice about waking up, walking outside, and being in the middle of a neighborhood, or over a local coffee shop. More often than not, your apartment will be in a quiet part of town that has less traffic, and a very different feel than the more touristy parts of the area. And, if you pick the right apartment, it’ll give you all of this while still being close to local transportation options like train and metro lines.
• Privacy. Above all else, apartments are nice because it’s your space. Most of the apartments we’ve had do not come with cleaning help. Sure, that means we need to keep the place tidy, but it also means no one will ever bother us, come into our apartment, or anything of that nature. To be sure, some apartments will give you the option of visits by a cleaning company, but we’ve never used that option and so we’re relatively confident no one will be in the apartment other than us.
• Laundry. If you get really lucky, you can find an apartment with at least a washing machine available for use. This significantly cuts back on the amount of time you may have to spend washing clothes by hand if you packed carry-on only like we typically do. There is not always a dryer available, so you will be hanging your clothes to dry either way, but the spin cycle on a washing machine does allow them to dry faster than hand wringing before hanging. Toss you clothes in before you head out for the day and hang them up when you get back.

While there are lots of things to like about having your own apartment, there are a few potential drawbacks to keep in mind.

• Scams. More and more, you have to be really careful about travel scams. Our experience has been that the more popular services like Air BNB and VRBO are pretty secure, but we’ve heard about scams when booking on various platforms, or directly with apartment owners. What’s even more concerning is we’ve been hearing about scams associated with these platforms. For example, more than a few folks have said they originally started to book their stay on the platform but then received a message from the owner (or so they thought) outside the platform asking them to book directly, as it saves them (the owner) from paying the associated fees. Sounds great, until you learn it was a scam, so they get your money and you didn’t really book that apartment like you thought you did. All that’s to say, be careful and know what you’re getting into, and always only communicate through the platform you’re booking with.
• Fixes. Most of the time, our apartment stays are uneventful, which is to say, nothing goes wrong. But every now and again, something does. One time, our keys didn’t work. Another time the router died and so the Wi-Fi went down. We’ve had friends who had a water heater start leaking in the apartment, causing a minor flood in their kitchen. Regardless of what happens, when it happens you need to talk to the owner/landlord/management company, rather than calling down to a front desk as you would at a hotel. Even the more responsive owners usually take longer to get things fixed than your hotel, and depending on the fix that’s needed, that can get frustrating.
• Amenities. Most of the apartments we’ve stayed at have no amenities. No gym, restaurant, pool, coffee shop, etc. None of it. Think about it, do you have those things in your apartment building? If you do, you’re living your best life and we’re happy for you. Of course, there are apartments you can rent in buildings/places like that, but they tend to get pretty expensive.

The Hotel Experience

We generally prefer staying at hotels, especially when they earn us points we can use to stay at hotels again. What do we like about hotels? Lots of things, it turns out. Let’s talk about them:

• Location. Most of the hotels we book during our travels are in pretty neat locations. Sometimes they’re in the middle of a city, sometimes within walking distance of parks or neat monuments. Sometimes they’re in castles. Other times they’re in renovated historic buildings or landmarks. All that’s to say, it’s pretty hard to beat the variety of cool locations in which you can find hotels. Of course, that’s part of what you’re paying for, but if you really want that kind of experience and the ability to walk out your front door and onto the local metro, a hotel might just be your best option.

• Amenities. While your apartment might be pretty minimal, your hotel probably isn’t. Pool? Check. Room service? You bet. Concierge? Sometimes, yes. Daily turn-down service? If you like. Gym? Almost always. Different hotel brands will have unique amenities on their properties, but almost all hotels will have some kind of amenities included in your bill. So, if you’re looking for a bit of extra pampering, a hotel might be what you’re looking for.
• Certainty. Probably more than anything, when you book a stay at a hotel you usually have a really good idea of what you’re getting. We try to stay within the Hilton family of hotels as much as possible, both because we like their different hotels, but also because we always know what we’re getting if we stay at a Hilton, Hampton, Hilton Garden Inn, or something along those lines. Even when we stay at one of their unique properties in the Tapestry collection of hotels, we still know it’s affiliated with Hilton and know what to anticipate. That’s rarely the case with an apartment.

That said, there are also lots of reasons you might not want to stay at a hotel:

• Price. Obviously, a nice hotel can set you back a considerable amount of money for a medium-length stay, and this goes up dramatically as you increase the quality of the hotel you book. It’s really easy to find hotels in the $200 – $400 price range, per night. And if you’re staying for 2-3 weeks, that can get expensive quickly. That’s not to say it isn’t worth it, but when numbers get that high, it pays to be sure that’s your best option. However, we have noticed that house or apartment rentals have also increased drastically in price in the past few years, making them more equal to a hotel.
• Experience. If you want to live like a local, a hotel might not be your first choice. Then again, some hotels are nestled among apartments and houses, so it’s not impossible to have that experience with a hotel, but it might be more challenging to find.
• Space. Above all else, space in hotel rooms is a premium, especially when traveling to Europe. For example, during Jason’s most recent stay, he worked from a small loft area in his hotel room from a low-sitting couch and a coffee table. Had this been an apartment, there would have been a kitchen table or even a dedicated office space to get his work done. In an even more recent stay in Paris, we were both hoping to get work done for part of the day but our room was literally about a foot larger than the bed. Suddenly you find yourself turning you bed into a double office, which isn’t exactly comfortable either.

• Eating out. One of the biggest drawbacks of staying at a hotel is your inability to cook your own food. Again, during Jason’s most recent experience, he had no kitchen facility in his hotel room. In fact, he didn’t have a microwave or a refrigerator either. There was a minibar that had a small refrigerator, but it was really small and didn’t give him the option to store his own food. Even if he could have, there was no way to reheat things in his room. That means he had to eat out for every meal, every day. That might sound cool, but eating at restaurants every day can get old (and expensive) fast.
• Laundry Facilities. Rarely will you find an apartment style hotel accommodation with a washing machine available. Most hotels have some sort of laundry service you can use for a fee, but we often resort to washing a few things at a time in the sink and hanging to dry overnight. This typically means you wash and hang things almost every night as part of your daily routine. You could also try to locate a local laundromat but sitting and watching your laundry spin while you’re on vacation is not exactly my idea of fun.

In the end, you know your travel style and life habits better than anyone, so do what makes the most sense for what makes you comfortable. Sometimes we like the apartment option, while other times we prefer a hotel. It just depends on the kind of experience we’re after and how expensive it’ll be to make it happen. And yes, there are other options out there aside from apartments and hotels, but these are what have worked the best for us so far with the type of traveling we typically do.

Happy tavels!

The post Medium-Term Travel: Where do you stay in a new city? first appeared on The DeBode Way.

In prior posts, we’ve talked about different things we do to try to keep some of those costs down, like traveling with carry-on luggage only as often as possible. One of the other ways we’ve managed to keep our costs down is through the responsible use of travel-focused credit cards; we’ve also talked about these in a handful of other blog posts. And while there are plenty of travel-related benefits that come with those cards (e.g., airport lounge access, waived baggage fees, point multipliers, hotel & airline credits, etc.), the most lucrative is one we have yet to discuss, so let’s remedy that now.

As we’ve mentioned before, the main reason we use travel credit cards is because they accrue points (e.g., our Chase Sapphire Preferred card) or miles (e.g., United Club Infinite Card), both of which can later be exchanged for actual travel benefits.

Free Stays with Hilton

For example, our Hilton Honors American Express Surpass card rapidly accrues Hilton Honors points every time it’s swiped or tapped (12X the points of any other card at Hilton hotels) and we use those points for free hotel stays, which is exactly what we’re doing to head to an all-inclusive resort in Mexico next month. To build upon this, we are ALSO part of the Hilton Honors loyalty program (you should be, too; it’s free) which keeps track of the number of nights you stay with Hilton and rewards you for your loyalty (right now we’ve managed to maintain our Diamond status for the past 3 years and yes, it’s as fancy as it sounds). Status can net you some pretty snazzy perks, like free room upgrades, free breakfasts & drinks, and access to more private parts of the hotel. Our Hilton Surpass card automatically awards you Gold status with the loyalty program without having to accrue all those nights on your own, giving you a helpful boost toward earning that top Diamond status. However, we originally earned Diamond the hard way by accruing nights in the loyalty program, during a pandemic that still had us on the road for work. Don’t be us. Get the card and use the perks.

Free Flights with United

Similarly, our United Club Infinite Card earns, as you might guess, United Airlines frequent flier miles. As with our Hilton card, the miles we earn with the United card earn us both status (which can get complimentary upgrades for you and others in your party, among other perks) and free flights. Every time we use that card to book a United flight, we earn 4X the miles with United than we would with another card. Miles = free flights. We like free flights. This obviously requires loyalty to a certain airline to work in your favor. Lucky for us, United is usually a great lower-priced option from Springfield with a quick layover in Chicago on our way to Europe, Denver on our way West, or Houston/Dallas on our way to Mexico.

So, the benefits that come with these cards are pretty great, even if there are annual fees you have to cough up to have them, most of which range from $95 – $700 each year (but it’s really not that bad; see a prior post about how we offset the annual fee for our United card). But how do we actually accrue those points? Well, there are two main ways.

Gas = Free Hotel Stays

First, we pay attention to how we can maximize our point accruals with our regular spending. Let’s say we’re on the road a lot and so spend more than our fair share on gas (story of our life). If that’s the case, then we’d look at the point multipliers for our different credit cards, see which has the highest multiplier for gas stations, and use that card for gas. Currently, for us, that’s our Hilton card at 6X the points at gas stations, aka Hilton points. Gas = free hotel stays. Often those multipliers on various cards can be 3-10x your purchase. So, if you spend $50 on gas, you can sometimes earn 150 – 500 points (but check your specific card’s terms to be sure). If you buy $50 worth of gas each week, every week of the year, that adds up to 7,800 – 26,000 points, and that’s just for your gas and probably just for one car (friendly heads up, if you get gas at a station affiliated with another kind of store (e.g., Wal-Mart), the gas charge isn’t always categorized as gas, but might instead show up as coming from that store, in which case you don’t get the multiplier – do your research before you choose where to fill).

We take a similar approach with most of our usual monthly bills so we can maximize the points we earn on each of our different cards. Importantly, this is our regular spending; we’re not buying new TVs every other day just to get the points, as that would be reckless, and are we reckless? Definitely not.

Still, through careful diligence and planning, earning points the normal way can take a good bit of time to accrue enough for a free vacation. Fortunately, there’s a way to supercharge your point accruals: the sign-up bonus. Let’s explain.

The Sign-Up Bonus

Most of the cards that carry an annual fee have what’s known in the business as a sign-up bonus (SUB). Each card has its own requirements for this, but the general process is that you need to spend a certain amount of money on that card (usually $3,000 – $5,000) in a certain amount of time (usually the first 3-6 months you have the card) to be rewarded with a huge chunk of points. You’d be surprised, as most of these are completely doable. For example, let’s take our first and favorite card: the Chase Sapphire Preferred. This card has an annual fee of $95 and is commonly considered among the best travel-focused credit card for most people. It has tons of great benefits, many of which we use all the time. Right now, this card has a SUB of 60,000 Chase points, which is great because Chase (like AMEX) points are super flexible because they can be transferred to Chase’s partners (like airlines, in which case they become frequent flier miles) or you can use them in Chase’s travel portal (which gives you a discount when paying with your points). To earn that SUB, you need to spend $4,000 in the first 3 months of having the card. That calculates to just over $1,300 for each of the first three months you have the card. If you’re currently spending more than this each month on another card, you can shift that spending to this card, if only temporarily, to earn the SUB and then change back. And remember: this is your usual spending, not anything new.

Similarly, the current SUB on our Hilton Honors American Express Surpass card ($95 annual fee) is 130,000 Hilton Honors points. To earn this, you need to spend $2,000 on the card in the first 3 months you have it; that’s less than $1,000 per month. And, just for another example, the current SUB on our United Club Infinite card ($525 annual fee) is 100,000 United Club miles after you spend $5,000 on the card in the first 3 months you have it. These are all enough points for multiple flights or hotel stays when planned carefully.

Have a Strategy

Just to tie this all together, let’s suppose you applied for and were approved for all three of the above cards in the space of a year (there are reasons why you’d want to space this out; we’ll talk about this in a different post). As a reminder, here are the details for the SUBs:

• Chase Sapphire Preferred: 60,000 Chase points after $4,000 in 3 months.
• Hilton Honors American Express Surpass: 130,000 Hilton Honors points after $2,000 in 3 months
• United Club Infinite: 100,000 United miles after $5,000 in 3 months

In total, you’d need to spend $11,000 on the three cards to earn the above SUBs. Okay, first yes, that’s a big chunk of change. But again, if this is over a year, that’s less than $1,000 per month. This is how we’re able to fit these cards into our regular spending, as we spend well over $1,000 each month on our cards.

But the points are in three different places, how is that helpful? You might ask. Well, that’s only kinda correct. The nice thing about Chase, or one of the nice things, is they have a ton of transfer partners. One of those transfer partners is United Airlines (sadly, not Hilton hotels). So, you can move those 60,000 Chase points to your United account and now you have 160,000 miles to cash in on your next trip (note that these transfers are one-way; you can’t transfer United miles to Chase and convert them into points). You also have 130,000 Hilton Honors points, which means you’re likely flying United to get where you want to go and will stay at one of the many Hilton properties across the world. Oh, and as an added bonus you can book a regular room with Hilton and because this card also gives you Gold status, you get complimentary room upgrades, space permitting.

Reminders

So, by using certain cards with your regular spending, you’ve earned a free or heavily discounted vacation. Not too shabby, right? Right. Now for a few reminders:

• The above cards do have annual fees. If you got all three of these cards, you’d spend $715 in annual fees alone. That’s not nothing, but again, if you can divert your regular spending to these cards and it results in a free vacation, you can consider that vacation as having cost you $715. That’s still not too bad. Oh, and that’s assuming you don’t use any of the other benefits from those cards, which would be silly. Those benefits pay for the cards. Again, it’s important to have a strategy here.
• As we’ve said repeatedly in this post, and this is important so worth saying again: we advocate for the responsible use of these cards. As we said above, we’re not reckless. Spending beyond your means is a great way to get both yourself and your credit score (which you’ll need to get these cards) in trouble, and that’s a loss regardless of how nice the vacation is. We’ve found ways to leverage these cards and their benefits in our regular spending, so they don’t cause problems for us. They are paid off every month and we never pay interest. We’d encourage you to do the same, even if it takes a little longer to get that vacation.
• As with many things, when you move from one to multiple cards, things can get complicated (hello, spreadsheets!). There are behind-the-scenes rules that can make getting more cards more challenging, and sometimes impossible (we’ll talk about these in a different post soon). So, if that’s your plan, make sure you start with the card with the highest benefit for you.

Not sure where to start? Fortunately, our friends over at 10x Travel have done most of the hard work for you and have been a tremendous help to us over the years, so make sure you check out their website. We’re always happy to answer questions, too.

Happy traveling!

The post Using Points and Miles to Get You that Free Trip first appeared on The DeBode Way.

Let me elaborate.

Last December and January at the very start of this blogging journey, you may recall that we took two trips to Mexico. One, to spend a week with Jason’s parents and grandparents in Cabo, and the second, a short trip to Akumal for Jason’s cousin’s wedding. Both were fabulous trips but that resort in Akumal, that’s all I’ve been able to think about since we got back when I imagine a beach somewhere. It was completely amazing, and we were spoiled rotten. Much to my dismay, when we tossed around the idea of going back for Christmas, well, the price…it’s insane. Like, my entire travel budget for the year type of insane, and since it would only be January…that’s a no. My how things have changed in a year. Yay inflation.

After spending two days staring at their brand website (for which we, unfortunately, have very minimal points), adjusting our dates, looking at other resorts in the collection (at this point, we just want to get away and don’t care where), considering JUNE (ha – jk, kinda), and checking for the best deals on plane tickets, I gave up. It’s just not in the cards this year. Christmas and the New Year are one of THE most expensive times of the year to travel and it just so happens, that’s when most people have the availability to do so. So unfair. No wonder so many people are missing out on the opportunity for an education in world culture. Sad.

So, I had a pity party and thoughts of just driving to the mountains and hiding in a cabin or at my uncle’s for a week. Truth be told, this option is still highly appealing to me. Snow softly falling, soaking in a hot tub, by a fire, reading my book. Mmmmm yes. We’ll revisit that.

Wait. Points…

Lightbulb moment – I’ve been hoarding Hilton points for two years and jumping on every promotion they advertised. Is there anything I can work with there? Enter the Hilton Resorts Collection – lo and behold an all-inclusive gem is discovered in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico! And guess what – we’re going for free! Cue the fiesta! Major bonus, I even have half of my points left over! Hello Spring Break week! Ok, probably not but a person can dream.

But, there are rules for this trip. No computers, no searching for wi-fi, no prepping for classes, no answering emails, no filling orders, no ordering inventory, no scheduling social media, no blog writing, no taking on new jobs…do you think we can do it? I have my doubts. We haven’t taken a day off since starting our third business 2 years ago. Owning your own business is a wild ride, never mind two or three. My vision for this trip is of beachside massages, ocean kayaking, strolls through the village, eating entirely too much, and ordering room service to accommodate a lazy morning after said activities…for free. Ok the massages aren’t free, but just let me have this one.

So now, we return to our annual argument about where we are spending Christmas and playing catchup from a life on the road this past year. We’ve truly enjoyed sharing our experiences with you and are preparing for another year of the same. But first, my tub needs to be scrubbed, I should probably do something about cleaning up the garden, I need to power wash the boutique rugs after months of heavy show traffic (yay!), make a store run to replace inventory from Black Friday and get the oil changed in my truck. Today. Endless…

Watch for a review of our highly anticipated (by me) Puerto Vallarta trip in February and Happy Holidays. We are truly thankful for you and love having someone to share our experiences with!

Cheers!

The post Searching for a Magical Holiday Travel Experience, sans Meltdown first appeared on The DeBode Way.

What we eventually found out was that there are better ways to book travel plans. To clarify, by ‘better’ we don’t necessarily mean less expensive, so if that’s your main goal then perhaps stick with what works best. However, after traveling a bit, we found that the actual travel experience can be better when you book directly with different companies. Let’s go through a few quick examples.

Hotels.

Like most of our friends, we used to be pretty loyal bookers on Hotels.com. We could typically find a low-cost, no-frills room wherever we wanted to go. Then, on our first trip to Scotland, we befriended a hotel manager who got a disappointed look on her face when we told her our process when she asked how we found them. Yes, we often got the lowest price from Hotels.com (or other, similar websites), but she told us they take a pretty high percentage of the booking, so the hotel itself made less on the sale than if you book through them directly. We also learned that many hotels, particularly smaller and independent ones, don’t put their better rooms on those websites, specifically because they don’t get the same return on them. Plus, we’ve found that if you book directly and something happens, the hotel staff are more likely to work with you than if you book through some third-party site.

The same goes for major hotel chains. A few years ago, when the Pandemic was really revving up, we started noticing what people were saying about their experience with major hotel brands, specifically if they needed to change or cancel a reservation. Many hotel brands weren’t exactly open to working with people when life happened, and so in many cases they were out of luck when trying to make a change. Or, if a change was possible there were always fees charged to do so. Except one: Hilton. (Disclaimer: there were probably others that took the Hilton approach, this one just stuck out to us) Not only did Hilton not charge cancellation or reservation change fees (unless you cancel or change within 24 hours of your stay as a loyalty member), but they were also really easy to work with to make those changes. In fact, most of the time you can do everything you need through their app, it’s super easy and user-friendly, no hours on hold required. So, we started being more intentional about staying with them when we travel within the US and stay in major cities abroad. During 2020-2021 Hilton made it easier to earn and maintain their Diamond level of status, which has all kinds of perks we find valuable and so we’ve stayed with them since. Could we find less expensive rooms through third-party sides like Hotels.com? For sure. But we’ve found the folks at Hilton are happy to help, and more so when we book with them directly rather than third-party and being a loyalty member often gets you a great room at a discount price. Plus, we’ve racked up a pile of loyalty points that we can’t wait to use on a free vacation, we get free breakfast or hotel credit for food, and a plethora of other perks. Just something to consider.

Flights.

Just like with hotels, there are loads of third-party websites you can scan to find rock-bottom prices on flights. In a prior life, we did that, too. Trouble is, that often means you’re flying with different airlines. Sound familiar? That, in turn, makes it very difficult to earn status with any one airline. By ‘status’ we mean being able to use your frequent flier miles, become eligible for upgrades or perks, fly with free checked bags and so on. I’ll say that again: the more you fly with multiple airlines, the harder it is to earn status with one of them. Makes sense, right? As with hotels, it’s also true, at least in our experience, that airline customer service agents are more willing to work with you (and obligated, in some cases) if you’ve booked with them directly rather than third-party. That comes in handy if your flight is delayed getting out, causing you to miss your connection.

So, after a while of buying tickets third-party, we started paying more attention to the experiences we had during our flights. As it turns out, we enjoyed our experience with United Airlines more than anyone else. Because of that and where we live (often flying to their Chicago or Houston hubs), for most of our travels that’s where we head to book our flights: the United website. Can we find less expensive flights from third-party websites? Absolutely. But again, the benefits of booking directly, accruing miles, earning status, and having better customer service are worth the sometimes slightly higher price we’ll pay to book directly with the airline.

As a sidenote: interested in jumpstarting your status with your favorite airline? You might consider checking out cobranded credit cards (a regular card like Visa that gains you points with a particular company, in this case an airline). Want to learn more? Our friends over at 10X Travel will be happy to help.

Overall.

Much of the information we share on this blog is focused on saving money while traveling internationally so we can do it more often. That’s something we’re passionate about and want to share with you. At the same time, there are times to focus on hunting around for the best deals and there are times to recognize when there’s value in paying a little more and booking directly with companies to get the discount or loyalty points in the long run. We do both because that’s what helps us travel the way we like best.

Just so we’re all on the same page, our goal is to share our process with you, not tell you what you should or shouldn’t be doing. So, if your goal is to save as much money as possible and booking through third-party sites works for you, then keep on keepin’ on. However, if you’re open to unlocking the value of booking directly with companies, even if it’s a little more expensive in the short term, we just want you to know about the option. And as G.I. Joe says, ‘knowing is half the battle.’

Happy travels!

The post Pick It and Stick (with) It – When Loyalty Matters More first appeared on The DeBode Way.