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Hooray for Trip Delay: A Chase Sapphire Reimbursement Story
Tom’s description of using the Chase Sapphire trip delay insurance One of the joys of point and miles travel is the flexibility these bookings can offer. Many airline programs allow you to book flights on points and cancel up until boarding time and essentially get your points and taxes/fees back. Additionally, many premium travel credit…
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Embassy Suites Aruba: A Great Family Resort
I don’t hate winter, truly I don’t. However, even I enjoy a little sunny respite to get through the cold, dark months. My favorite time to escape is around January 41st, right around the time when Pittsburgh’s third polar vortex hits. Last year we didn’t plan a winter sun escape and I solemnly swore to…
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Madrid and Beyond: Family Reward Travel to Europe
Earlier in the summer our family took a two-week trip to Europe that involved lots of moving parts with people joining at different times, a tight schedule of dates we needed to work within, and varied accommodations in five different cities. If you had told me a few years ago that I would be able…
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A Once in a Lifetime Trip to Hawaii?
Not long ago, taking our family on a trip to Hawaii seemed like a pipe dream. The expense made it feel like something completely unattainable; thus I convinced myself I didn’t really want to go there anyway. Enter: credit card points. Now we’ve just returned from a fantastic trip enjoying the island of Kauai, and…
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Maximizing Value and Offsetting Annual Fees
In 2024 we paid a pretty hefty sum in credit card annual fees. When we first started maximizing our points and miles, I was very hesitant to spend money on annual fees – the whole point of this was to save money, right?? As time has gone on, we’ve come to find that between the points…
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2024 in Pictures and Point Totals
We had a great year in points and miles – more adventures than I thought could be possible when we started this crazy hobby. The thing that continues to blow my mind is that there are still more sign-up bonuses to be had and ways to cycle back through earning these points all over again.…
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Alila Ventana Big Sur: A Luxury Retreat Worth Every Point
Does the internet need yet another swooning review of Alila Ventana Big Sur from a points and miles enthusiast? Probably not. Is the internet going to get another swooning review of the Alila Ventana Big Sur? You betcha. Tom and I had the opportunity to spend two nights at this resort earlier in November, and…
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October Surprise: Aeorplan Card
Here’s one we didn’t have on our 2024 BINGO card of credit cards to open: the Chase Aeroplan Mastercard. Aeroplan is the rewards program of Air Canada, which we have used from time to time, but we didn’t decide on it because of our hopes to fly to Vancouver more often (though that might be…
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Mistakes Were Made
Updated from 3/3023 Whether you are trying to hack one big trip, or you’ve jumped into points and miles with full abandon, you’ll quickly find that it is a game of rules, details, and a lot of fine print. As Tom and I got more into travel hacking, we found ourselves learning from small mistakes…
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Visiting Yosemite on Points and Miles
Last month we pulled off a really fun five night adventure to Yosemite National Park. Even though Yosemite has been one of the top places we’ve wanted to visit for years, we kept over-analyzing when the best time to go would be. Peak summer: too hot and not enough waterfall flow. Late May: perfect waterfalls…
Pittsburgh Travel Hackers
