Free Plane Tickets & Other Freebies!

Today I’m sharing my 2019 travel hacking wins.  I know we’re still in 2019, but since I don’t have any more trips on the books for 2019, I’m going to share this year’s best wins including how I got free plane tickets for numerous trips and other freebies.

Moderate Travel Hacker At Best

I’m not a huge travel hacker.  I’m not even a moderate travel hacker.  In fact, I put very little effort into travel hacking at all.  I don’t spend a lot of money and don’t have a ton of monthly bills, so for me to meet typical minimum spends of 3-5K  takes some time or careful planning.  I did just get a new card for 2020 – IHG Premier with 60K bonus, but prior to this I haven’t applied for a card in a couple of years.

A Basic Hacker

Like I said, I’m what I’d consider a “basic” travel hacker for a few reasons:

1. It takes time to keep everything straight if you’re working on a lot of bonuses at once.  I just now did a spreadsheet with our current point balances that I’ll share later.   Organization is key and i just haven’t felt the need to be that organized with my limited amount of travel hacking.

2.   Because I don’t really spend a ton of money  there’s no way I could hit the minimum spend on more than 1 card at a time.    I knew that I’d have some large purchases with Christmas coming up so I figured it’s be pretty easy to hit a minimum spend at this time of year.  They IHG minimum spend is only 2K spend in 3 months, very doable.  One Iphone later and I’m well on my way!

3. I don’t maximize the cards that I do have as well as I should.  Unless I’m working on a minimum spend, I usually just reach for my Chase Sapphire or the Hyatt card because I like them the best.   I need to get better about using the right card for each purchase to maximize my earnings.  This goes back to organization.  Maybe a goal for 2020?!

I’m curious to see what I saved just by doing very minimal travel hacking.  Plus, I thought it’d be fun for you can to see how easy it can be for you to rack up some points & miles and score some easy wins of your own.

 

Break it Down

I’ll break down 2019 by month and share exactly what we did with points and miles each month to get free plane tickets and free hotel stays.   First off, you’ll notice that there’s nothing listed after the month of June!  Well, this is because the majority of our travel was done Feb-June.  When you’re college baseball fans, you travel in the Spring when everything’s happening!

We did do one road trip in rural Nebraska later in September.  I’ll be doing a recap of that wonderful trip in the next week or so.  I’ve been so darn busy I haven’t gotten a post up about it yet.  That trip was glorious, and almost FREE!  So be on the look out for a post sharing all things about my Sandhills trip soon!

Onto the 2019 Travel Hack Wins:

 

January 2019: 

In early January I came home from a vacation in the Dominican Republic.  We went the week after Christmas and stayed in an all inclusive resort in Punta Cana.  It was fun, but ever since then I’ve decided I want to focus on domestic travel.   There’s nothing like the USA!  Points related, we flew Delta from Atlanta to Punta Cana.  Our experience on the flight there was not good.   The flight was super late because the leg before had bad turbulence and people became ill on the plane.  So ill, in fact, that multiple people got sick on the plane so the cleaning staff had to take extra time to deep clean.  This put them even further behind schedule, so we departed Atlanta quite late.

Turbulence Happens ( And so does other stuff)

You have to know my oldest son, but if something weird is going to happen he’s usually involved somehow.  Well, he decided to ask the Delta desk attendant which rows the sick people were in.  Guess what?  They were sitting in the exact same row that my son’s seat was.  HAHAHA!  Not funny to him.  So when we got on the plane he was paranoid that there would be evidence of people getting sick.  He looked around quite thoroughly and didn’t find anything, so he was good to go.

My other son is extremely laid back and wasn’t too worried about anything disrupting his flight.   Half way into the flight from Atlanta the flight attendants brought out the drink orders.  My son put his tray down and guess what.  Yep!!!  Right there in plain sight was all the evidence we needed.  People on the previous flight really did get sick.  He was pretty grossed out, as you can imagine.  There wasn’t much to be done expect wipe down the tray and his arm rests.  He couldn’t move because the flight was full.  It was pretty bad, both he and my sister both said their row had a funky odor the whole way to Punta Cana.

The Delta Upside & Free Plane Tickets

The upside to the whole story is that I filled out an online complaint form on Delta’s website explaining the situation and expressing my dissatisfaction.  After all, the I had paid cash for these seats and they were not cheap!  Delta ended up giving us each 4000 points for the inconvenience with the flight.  So I’m well on my way to more free plane tickets.  I guess all was not lost.  But, then again, I wasn’t in the row that had the issues!

Also in January, I purchased an  IHG Vacation Club package for $299.  The package is basically a 4 day/3 night stay at an IHG property for $299 in exchange for listening to a 90 minute timeshare presentation.  I still have to decide where to go and get it scheduled.

Feb 2019

In February, we went to Del Ray Beach, Florida.  We spent 3 nights at the luxurious Hyatt Place DelRay Beach Florida.  I totally love this place!  The  3 nights were 12K points per night, which set us back total of 36k Hyatt points.  The retail price of the Hyatt Place in Florida in February was about $350 per night so this was a smoking deal.  Savings of $1050.

March 2019

Hyatt Place Boca Raton Downtown.  We stayed at Hyatt Place Boca Raton in March for 4 nights.  The location was fabulous.  I wanted to stay downtown by Mizner Park and this Hyatt was perfect.  We had a great stay!  There’s so many fun things to do in Boca Raton.  And awesome food!   You can see my review of the Hyatt Place here.

Here’s how the free nights broke down:

For the first night I used my annual free certificate.  Night 2, I used 12K points.  And, for nights 3 & 4 we paid retail price on Hyatt.com.  The total for two nights came to $475.  There were three of us staying together, so divided by 3, our cost per person was $166.00 for two nights.  Plus, we got free upgrade to a suite and free breakfast each day of stay.   The two nights we scored for free booked out at $475, so total savings was $475.00.  If I threw in the free breakfast, that would add atleast $10 per person as well.

I flew to Florida on using their points & cash rate.  This worked out to be 25K miles + $300ish.  The retail price of the flight was $450, so using miles, total savings $150.00.  Totally free plane tickets would’ve been even better, but I’ll take $150 in savings.

April 2019:

This month we stayed at the Marriott Renaissance Boca Raton.  My sissy had a boatload of Marriott points, so she picked up a few nights of the hotel stay.  Here’s how we paid for this stay:  One night we used her free night certificate.  Night 2 & 3 we used her points – 35,000 per night, so two nights were 70,000.  The 4th night we paid retail, which was $225.00.  Total savings was $675.00 ( 3 nights x $225.00).

We had an early flight out of Ft. Lauderdale, so our last night we wanted to stay close to the airport.  I had a small stash of  Hilton points that I hadn’t used, so we opted to stay at the Hampton Inn Ft Lauderdale Airport.  Unfortunately, I had to use some cash with this redemption because I didn’t have enough points to book using just points.  So using the cash + points rate, this worked out to be 20,000 points + 65.00.  Regular full price for our timeframe was around $235, so  while we didn’t score totally free plane tickets, I calculate total savings at $170.00.

May 2019

In May, we were in Biloxi, MS.  We had never been to Biloxi.  I highly recommend the shrimp known as ruby reds.  Yummo!  In Biloxi, we stayed at the Hyatt Place Biloxi.  The hotel was very nice, with a great pool.  And it was convenient to downtown, where we were for most of the time for baseball.  I searched and searched for the best deal in Biloxi – of course wanting to maximize the stash of points I had.  This place looked really fun, but I decided to use points since we had a lot of travel coming up.  And, I didn’t know there was a Margaritaville in Biloxi.  Maybe next time!!

I settled on the Hyatt because I had quite a few Hyatt points and they Hyatt looked like the nicest place in the area.  We were able to use the Hyatt cash + points so our stay worked out to be 30,000 points + $65 per night.  So our cash money used was $325.00 for 5 nights.  Had I paid the regular cash rate, it would’ve cost around $125 per night x 5 nights = $625.  Total savings was $300

For our flights to Biloxi, we had 50K Southwest Points from opening the Southwest Visa and meeting the minimum spend.  We used almost all 50,000 points for 1 roundtrip ticket!  I know it was so expensive!  Unfortunately, this trip was very last minute so we had to pony up the points!  (And cash).  I knew there was no way we’d get three free plane tickets out of this trip because it was so last minute.  Three of us flew, Omaha – New Orleans – the two paid tickets were almost $600 each.  So using the 50,000 points from Southwest for 1 free plane ticket, total savings =  $600.00.

 

June 2019

In June, we were in Athens GA, home of the Bulldogs!  This time only two of us traveled, leaving my younger son at home.  We stayed at the Marriott Courtyard in Athens.  From the map, it looked like it would be super convenient to the University of GA campus where our ballgames were being played.  Well, it wasn’t  as close as I thought.  Next time, we’d stay somewhere closer (and newer!).  We stayed at the Marriott Courtyard 3 nights.  For the 1st night, I used my Marriott free certificate that I get for being a Marriott cardholder.  And for night 2 & 3, I used  Marriott points for 22.5K each night.  Next time we’ll stay at Springhill Suites.  It’s a lot closer to the campus, plus it’s in a more walkable area downtown.

Thanks Marriott

I wasn’t thrilled with the Courtyard Marriott because it really wasn’t up to the usual Marriott standards.  In fact, it looked to me like they bought another hotel and slapped on the Marriott logo.  So I let Marriott know that this hotel needs some work and wasn’t worth the 22.5K points each night.  Marriott issued me a credit of 5000 points for my trouble.  Very classy, Marriott!  This goes to show why I’m a loyal Marriott lover!!

Had I paid cash for three nights, it would’ve set me back $125 per night, or $375 total.  Total savings using points = $375.00.

For our last night in the area, we opted to stay close to the airport at the Atlanta Hyatt Place.  This place was a gem for only 5000 points per night.  It was super nice and new, plus close to a lot of restaurants.  I’d definitely stay here again.  The only drawback was that we wanted to go for a swim and hang out by the pool, but the pool was closed the whole time we were there.  I complained about this, and was credited 1000 Hyatt points for my trouble.  Thank you Hyatt!  It’s little things like this that keep me loyal to my favorite brands!  Full price at this Hyatt was about $100.

So total savings using points = $100.

We flew into Atlanta on Delta.  I had 30,000 Delta points left from the signup bonus on the Delta Amex.  We used the 30K points + $265 cash for one roundtrip ticket.  For the other, we had to fork over $565!  Ouch!  I know it was expensive.  Again, last minute because that’s baseball–if you win, you keep playing!!  Total savings using Delta points $300.

This wraps up all the point & miles related travel I did in 2019.  Let’s calculate the total savings:

February:  Hyatt Place Del Ray Beach Florida = $1050  Hyatt Place DelRay Beach Florida. 

March:  Hyatt Place Boca Raton Downtown = $475        Hyatt Place Boca Raton Downtown

March:  Delta Flight = $150

April:  Marriott Renaissance Boca Raton = $675            Marriott Renaissance Boca Raton

April:  Hampton Inn = $170                                                Hampton Inn Ft Lauderdale Airport

May:  Hyatt Place Biloxi   $625                                            Hyatt Place Biloxi

May:  Southwest Flight =$600

June:  Marriott Courtyard Athens, GA = $375                 Marriott Courtyard in Athens

June:  Hyatt Place Atlanta $100                                          Atlanta Hyatt Place

June:  Delta Flight = $300

So that’s over $4220 in savings just by using a few credit cards.    Really, all  I did was open a couple of credit cards and buy what I was going to buy anyway.  Now we do have to take into account that each card has an annual fee.  The Marriott and Hyatt cards are both $95.  The Southwest card is $95 and the Delta is $195 because it offers a companion pass after the first year.  I’ll be taking advantage of that benefit this year!  don’t

Truly this is something that anyone can do with a minimum of time and money spent.  I really put forth very little effort in acquiring points or thinking about points.  Imagine what we could all do if we really focused on travel hacking.  For me, a little time spent to get free plane tickets and other awesome freebies is well worth it!