My intended audience is people who are infrequent travelers. People who, in the ordinary course of business, spend less than twenty nights a year in hotels and may only fly once every couple of years. That's me. Yet, in the last two years, my wife and I have travelled to London and Prague in business class, have stayed at great hotels without paying for rooms, and have stayed in suites for the price of the cheapest room.
What's more, in the next six months I'll be taking my father on a transatlantic business class trip, and my wife and I will be travelling to Europe in first class. All this is possible without being wealth and without getting in up to your eyeballs in credit card debt. As a general rule, Heinlein was right when he wrote that "anything free costs twice as much in long run or turns out worthless." TANSTAAFL is the law of the land, and even points and miles have to be earned.
Consequently, I don't think of award travel as "free" travel. It isn't. Earning status or points and miles without actually spending money on airlines or in hotels takes a little time and effort. But, sometimes it's very little time and effort! Like anything else at which you wish to be successful, it is important to set a goal for yourself and work toward it.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Wee, I'm a blogger!
First blog post, first blog. This blog will be focused on earning and spending frequent flier miles, hotel points, and other loyalty programs.
For the past several years, I've been learning how to take advantage of loyalty programs to earn free or low cost travel. I've learned a lot, but I'm still a novice in many ways. I started my quest because I love to travel but hate to pay for it. I've been a member of a few loyalty programs for years. The first was Delta which I joined around twenty years ago (ouch). But like many other people I just didn't travel frequently enough to build up much of a balance in any one program. Then, a few years ago, I began pursuing points and miles in earnest and learned that, with just a little thought and effort, it was possible to earn enough miles to take me to the places I wanted to go.
In this first post, I'd like to acknowledge some great folks who I've learned a lot from. The first is Randy Peterson, the founder of Flyertalk.com. Flyertalk is an invaluable resource and my first piece of advice is to sign up for a membership there. There are also three great bloggers that I check almost every day: Rick at the Frugal Travel Guy, Gary at View from the Wing, and Lucky at One Mile at a Time.
For the past several years, I've been learning how to take advantage of loyalty programs to earn free or low cost travel. I've learned a lot, but I'm still a novice in many ways. I started my quest because I love to travel but hate to pay for it. I've been a member of a few loyalty programs for years. The first was Delta which I joined around twenty years ago (ouch). But like many other people I just didn't travel frequently enough to build up much of a balance in any one program. Then, a few years ago, I began pursuing points and miles in earnest and learned that, with just a little thought and effort, it was possible to earn enough miles to take me to the places I wanted to go.
In this first post, I'd like to acknowledge some great folks who I've learned a lot from. The first is Randy Peterson, the founder of Flyertalk.com. Flyertalk is an invaluable resource and my first piece of advice is to sign up for a membership there. There are also three great bloggers that I check almost every day: Rick at the Frugal Travel Guy, Gary at View from the Wing, and Lucky at One Mile at a Time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)