Have I mentioned how awesome my husband is lately? Seriously, y'all, he is SUCH a smart guy, and because of his creative thinking, we have now booked a trip to Paris and Rome for absolutely
free. I know a ton of my friends are interested in seeing the world on a budget, so I convinced him to tell his secrets! Read below and take notes (believe me, you'll want to!):
About 6 months ago, Bailey and I decided that we wanted to
look into going to Europe. We had never been out of the western hemisphere and
wanted to visit two different cities while we were there. After looking through our options, we ended up deciding on Paris and Rome. It sounded like a great idea -- until we saw the costs. The
hotels in both of those cities were very expensive, as well as the flight over
there, between the two cities, and on the way back. After seeing the total bill of our dream vacation, we knew that we couldn't afford such an extravagent trip out of pocket. I did a bit of brainstorming and decided to make it a goal to fly to Paris, stay 4 nights, fly to
Rome, stay 5 nights, and then fly back completely free. A pretty lofty dream, right? Thankfully, it was possible because of credit card rewards. While we used these rewards to get
a free Europe trip, they could also be applied for a trip to any part of the world.
Note: The main way for this to make financial sense is to pay
these credit card bills off each month. You do not want to be incurring
interest charges from this! Also this will slightly hurt your credit score in
the short run (So you might not want to do it if you are planning on buying a
house in the near future), but after about 1-2 years it will actually
strengthen your credit score.
Most of these cards carry an annual fee, but the credit card
companies waive it the first year! You just need to cancel the card
before a year is up to avoid paying the annual fee (Around $60 for most of
them). With the right offer, credit card companies will pay for
large portions of your trip! Below are a few credit cards that you can use, and gain rewards from, with minimal
effort.
1.
The Hyatt Credit Card
The first credit card that we applied for was
the Hyatt card from Chase. It only takes spending $1,000 in the first three
months and you get two free nights at any Hyatt hotel in the world! We used
ours on the Park Hyatt Vendome in Paris, which typically goes for over $1,100 a night. We both got this card, so we recieved four nights free in total.
Total trip perks – 4 free nights
in Paris
2.
Marriott Credit Card
https://creditcards.chase.com/a1/marriottpremier/elitehppermv1/
The next card each of us applied for was the
Marriott Card. Using the link above, you can get 70k points per card if you
spend $2,000 in the first three months.
With both of us getting this card, it was enough for 20 free nights at
their lowest level hotels. However, the hotel in Rome that we wanted to stay in is extremely nice ($600+ a night), so we used our entire combined 140,000 points to stay for a total of five nights. Note- If you book consecutive nights with your Marriott points,
they only charge you for four nights!
Total trip perks- 5 free nights in Rome
3.
United Airlines Card
For our flights we chose United Airlines.
For us to fly from Atlanta to Paris, Paris to Rome, and Rome to Atlanta it
would cost us 60k United miles. (This is booked at their saver rate, which
needs to typically be booked in advance to avoid it being filled up).
We each signed up for the card in the link.
It will give you 30k United miles for spending $1,000 in 3 months. It will also
give you an additional 5k miles if you add an authorized user to your account
(we added each other to our accounts).
Total trip perks- 70k points out of our 120k points
needed for our flights
4.
Chase Sapphire Preferred
For this particular card, only I signed up. If you
spend $4,000 in 3 months, you get 40k points. Also, you get an additional 5k points for
adding an authorized user (Which I added Bailey). You also get a point for every
$1 you spend. All in all, we spent $5,000 on the card. The nice thing about the
Chase Sapphire Preferred card is that you can transfer your points to many
different awards. We transferred ours to our United accounts to reach the
remaining miles that we needed.
Total trip perks –Remaining 50k points of our 120k points
needed for flights
As you can see, these cards require you spend in the thousands to get the
bonuses. Below are a few ways you can reach that spending without buying things you don't actually need:
1.
Use your card for all of your spending- Use your
new cards for all of your day to day spending (Getting gas, groceries, or
going out to eat) Also look into paying your electric or water bill with a
card. It all adds up!
2.
Use your credit card for any big purchases- We
purchased our new fence using a credit card. If you have any big purchases
coming up, I would definitely consider putting it on the card to gain the rewards.
3.
Pay your taxes with a credit card- We were able
to pay our city and county property taxes with a credit card. These are usually
large dollar amounts, so if you are able to do this then it really adds up.
Also, the IRS allows you to pay taxes owed after you file with a credit card.
4.
Prepay your insurance or utilities- You can go ahead
and pay for your car or home insurance for the year with a credit card. Not
only do you get the spending for this, but you also usually get a discount for
paying in full up front! Also, some utilities companies will let you prepay
your utilities.
5.
Buy giftcards- If you are getting close to the
time frame that you have to reach your minimum spending by, you can buy giftcards to
reach it! You can buy gas station or grocery giftcards and use them throughout the year. You can also buy Visa or Amazon Giftcards. This gives you a way to extend the time frame for your
spending. If you still have $400 left to spend on a card and you are at the end
of your three months, you can buy a Visa gift card and spend it whenever things
come up and not have a time frame.
Our European adventure ended up being worth the
estimated value below:
Flight from Atlanta to Paris for two ~ $4,000
Flight from Paris to Rome for two ~ $500
Flight from Rome to Atlanta for two ~ $6,000
4 nights in Park Hyatt Paris Vendome ~ $4,500
5 nights in Rome Marriott grand hotel ~ $3,000
Total ~ $18,000
$18,000 trip COMPLETELY FREE with only three months of minimum work?! I'll take
it!
All in all, with a little planning and organization on what card you use on your spending, you can get any trip for free.
Happy traveling, readers!
