It’s been a while since I last wrote a post. Not sure If I’m going through what fellow bloggers call blogger burnout or if blogging has just become a low priority in all aspects of my life.

Even if the latter was true, I find writing extremely fulfilling so maybe is just a matter of getting better at time management and not being so picky about the things readers might or might not find beneficial for them.

Not sure if this is what you’d call “having empathy” but too much of it could be detrimental and could lead to unhappiness. I’m not suggesting this is what I’m going through but certainly reminding myself why I started this blog in the first place has really helped.

Last night I was talking to my wife and asking her if she had any suggestions about a topic I should write about. The first thing she said was “what about travel”? My immediate response was “what about it”?. She then said… well, we’ve been getting all these credit cards to accumulate points to make travel easier and cheaper, why don’t you share details about recent trips as well as others we plan to make throughout the year. My final response … I love you babe!

We are not travel hacker experts but honestly, you don’t have to be one. Yes, there are a couple of things you need to know that could help you take advantage of all the perks that are out there but at the end of the day, you have to do what’s best for you and your particular situation. With that being said … let’s go!

Traveling

Traveling has always been one of the reasons we are pursuing Financial Independence. Collecting moments instead of things has become our way of life; however, we haven’t done a very good job in the past few years.

In 2018, we got the companion pass from Southwest Airlines. Getting the companion pass really pushed us to be more intentional and thoughtful about planning and exploring all the amazing places the United States has to offer; however, I felt we kind of underutilized throughout the year with making only 5 trips. My wife believes this is debatable.

Maybe she could twist my arm to say that at the very least we did ok, but this year we are off to a better start with 2 trips under our belt and 3 more already booked in the coming months. Recently, we visited Washington DC in March, and Portland in April. Next, on the schedule are Ft. Lauderdale, Boston, and Chicago. We have other destinations on the radar but things are going to get a little bit complicated with our oldest starting kindergarten in August.

Smart Traveling

Travel hacking is not new but I wish I would have known about it sooner. Both my wife and I have been working diligently to build an inventory of enough points to make travel fun but best of all cheap!. We’ve done this by carefully researching and signing up for credit cards that offer hefty signup bonuses in the range of 50,000-100,000 points when you spend a minimum of $3,000-$5,000 in a specific amount of time, usually 3 months. If you want to take a look at the credit cards we’ve signed up for check this post.

This all sounds good but it is important to follow critical rules. Below you can read elements of my mission statement:

• I will ONLY sign up for credit cards that offer at least 50,000 points starting with the ones that have no annual fees.
• I will use credit cards for fixed expenses, as there is no point in going into unnecessary debt.
• I will pay the statement balance in full at the end of the month to avoid interest or fees.
• I will be flexible in flight dates and times to maximize the valuation of points.
• I will try not to trigger Chase’s 5/24 rule by taking advantage of both personal and business credit cards.
• I will try not to cancel credit cards and instead have annual fees waived (where and when possible) or switch to a no-fee card.

Without further ado, let’s get into some of the details of our trip.

We left on a Tuesday night and got to Washington DC at midnight. Traveling with kids is not easy this late in the evening but flexibility is a must if you want to get cheap airline tickets and therefore use the least amount of points.

It was really cold but we figured it couldn’t be worse than Colorado (I was wrong). Besides, this was supposed to be low season in the area which also helped to get what I would consider a lower rate at the Airbnb we stayed at.

But how much did we spend on our trip? Well, I ran the numbers and we spent quite a bit of money.

Like I said we do have the companion pass but at the time of booking, my wife didn’t have enough points to pay for the 2 airline tickets. As a result, we ended up paying for them using the Chase Ink Business Preferred I had opened ahead of our trip. This is one of the best cards out there that offers 80,000 points as a signup bonus so I wasn’t feeling so bad about the whole deal.

Initially, we were thinking about using public transportation but the weather in March was still chilly. Imagine the wife, our 5-year-old, and 16 months old on a stroller in 40 degrees weather … recipe for disaster. Final outcome … we rented a car and it was the right thing to do.

Our stay also got extended with an additional 2 days due to a storm in Colorado. This was last minute so it definitely increased our overall spent. Regardless, I think we did fairly ok.

If you take a look at our top expense it was our stay at an Airbnb. If you think about an average nightly rate in the DC area at $200+/night then $123/night does not sound too bad.

All things considered, If I discount the Airbnb, Flights and Car Rental (including gas and parking) from the $3,350, we spent a total of $1,066. These results are not going to make the points guy or folks at Travel Miles 101 proud of my accomplishments but all in all, I’m ok with how we did. As Benjamin Franklin would state it …

By using the companion pass and Chase Ultimate Rewards points, I saved paying for an extra airline ticket valued at $250 and $230 for 1 night at the Hamilton hotel in DC.

Category	Amount ($)
Airbnb (9 nights*)	$1,105
Restaurants	$575
Flights (3 adults + 1 infant)	$500
Car Rental	$460
Groceries	$263
Parking	$143
ATM	$120
Gas	$76
Tourism	$44
Taxi	$38
Hotel (1 night)	$26
Total	$3,350

You might be wondering about the amounts we spent at restaurants and groceries. If the whole point of staying at an Airbnb is to have the flexibility to make meals, travel light (laundry) then how can I justify the numbers on those two categories? Well, I can’t. Washington DC is an expensive city. I was fully aware of it so our plan was to have breakfast before heading out and a late lunch and/or dinner.

That’s exactly what we did and still, we spent $838 🙁 .

We tried some really nice places like Union Market, Arepa Zone (twice), City Tap 901, Timber Pizza, Founding Farmers, and Blue Jacket. All these places were really good; however, I must say that Arepa Zone was at the top. Care to guess where I’m from?

If you take a look at the Table above you will also notice we spent $44 on Tourism but that was essentially paying for parking spots. Why did we pay so little? Well, as you may or not know, Washington DC is great because all the museums and monuments in the National Mall are free. The only thing that will work against you is time. You will need quite a few days if you want to hit them all.

We missed quite a few sites but we were still able to visit the ones shown below including a day trip to Baltimore thanks to our extended stay.

• Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center | National Air and Space Museum
• U.S. Capitol Building
• Arlington National Cemetery
• Lincoln Memorial
• Vietnam Veterans Memorial
• Korean War Veterans Memorial
• The Thomas Jefferson Memorial
• National World War II Memorial
• Smithsonian National Zoo
• National Museum of American History
• The White House
• Washington Monument 
• Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
• The National Archives & Records Administration Building & Museum
• National Harbour
• District Wharf
• Baltimore Inner Harbour

Take a look at some of my favorite pictures from our trip.

Lessons Learned

• Car Rental: We booked our car in Washington DC using the Travel portal in Costco. We got what was supposed to be an intermediate vehicle with Budget/Avis and when we got there they were trying to give us a Volkswagen Beagle!. We tried to upgrade and the cost was just insane. They didn’t have any more vehicles so I went next door to Enterprise and they took care of me. I’ve always had a great experience with Enterprise so next time I’ll just go with them.
• It’s not all about the money: I know the guys at travel miles 101 or the Mad Fientist who traveled the world for less than $1000 would corner me to say what the heck did you do? You spent way too much money on this trip!.  But you know what … Yes, I spent money (which is no little money by any means) but I enjoyed TIME with my family.
• Create memories: All the experiences we had during this trip were a perfect way to recharge and head back to work. The more we travel, the more we realize that we love collecting memories and experiences as opposed to collecting things. We are also trying to plan our next trips while being on vacation so it doesn’t get any better than that.
• If Southwest cancels your flight call customer service ASAP: We were supposed to head back on a Wednesday (7 nights total) but Southwest canceled our flight the day before our trip. We tried using their app to re-schedule our flight but with an infant and the companion pass, the app wouldn’t work. We called them 2 hours after we received the notification and by the time we got to speak with a customer rep, everything was sold out. The only option was traveling on Friday. I’m not going to complain about spending two extra days in the DC area but it turned into additional spending. Southwest’s policies do not allow for reimbursements, vouchers or covering accommodations so it was all on me. Moral of the story, get on the phone quickly!

Final Thoughts

• I have to do a better job at time management and more importantly, be a smart man and listen to my wife 🙂
• Traveling has certainly become an outlet for us as well as a source for recharging.
• We feel fortunate to be in a position to travel and discover amazing places that the US has to offer.
• Traveling can be expensive but it doesn’t have to be. There are ways to hack the system if you do your due diligence and are intentional about your approach.
• Travel hacking is the real deal. I’m not even close to being an expert in this subject but I’m trying to learn as much as I can so that we can take advantage of this strategy while continuing our pursuit of Financial Independence.
• We hope to continue to explore the US territory so the journey continues. Stay tuned for my next post on this travel series.

Until next time … JJ