We turned a classic California road trip into a family adventure — flying into San Francisco, driving the coast, and ending with Disneyland and Newport Beach before flying home. This itinerary gave us all the road trip adventure without 40+ hours in the car from Missouri. Flights & Transportation We used our Southwest Companion Pass […]

Disney & Universal Theme Park Tickets Using points and miles to pay for hotels, flights, and rental cars is just part of the expense when traveling to Disney and Univeral theme parks. Park tickets are a large expense that is often left over. Full disclaimer: I am not a huge fan of redeeming my points […]

When working with this family, we made ONE CHANGE to take their points and miles game to the next level. They were putting all their spending on a Southwest credit card. Yes, they were for sure racking up airline miles, but it wasn’t serving their needs to the fullest. Jen’s family opened a Chase Sapphire […]

Omaha is just a few hours from KC and a fantastic Midwest road trip destination. Flights / Transportation: This was a road trip for us, so no points were used, only earned on our drive. Stay: I booked Hyatt Place Omaha/Downtown-Old Market for 6,500 Hyatt points per night. I redeemed points from any of my Chase Ultimate […]

The Dillon and Keystone areas of Colorado are beautiful, and they are a great way to escape the Missouri summer humidity. Flights / Transportation: This was a road trip from KC. Stay: I booked Hyatt Place Keystone with two Hyatt Free Night Certificates. Check out my blog post to learn how to earn free night certificates […]

If you’ve ever dreamed of seeing the Pacific Northwest’s towering forests, misty beaches, and mountain peaks all in one trip — Olympic National Park delivers. My mom, my two kids, and I explored it as part of a 10-day semi–road trip through Washington, and it absolutely lived up to the hype. We flew into Seattle, […]

When I first started planning our trip to Europe, the first county I knew I wanted to go to was Switzerland. All the other destinations would need to fall in place around her. Here is how we got to one of the most beautiful places in the world on points and miles! Flights / Transportation: […]

Rental cars can be an expensive part of travel. Some sites like Autoslash and companies like Costco and AAA offer discounted rates. The NEA is a teacher union that provides up to 30% discounts on rental cars. Your company or industry may have something similar. Using your Capital One Venture X card, you can also use […]

We recently returned from an epic road trip through Arizona and Utah. Along the way, we stopped at Zion, Bryce, and Grand Canyon National Parks, tons of little state parks, and National Forest spots near Sedona, and on our way back to Las Vegas to catch our flight, we made a pit stop at the […]

I love two main annual fee cards regarding Hyatt stays on points: the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (or Chase Sapphire Reserve®) and The World of Hyatt Credit Card. I’ll go over this more below. Cards I hold for access and perks The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card has a $95 annual fee and allows me to […]