Go Somewhere: Volume 18

A good question to ask yourself: What feels like work for most people that is play for me?

➡️ For me, it’s planning travel & scanning for deals/hacks.

I’m not sure why, but since about 15 years old, I’ve been obsessed with cheap flights.

I get a high from booking a trip. I actually think booking is as exciting as the actual trip sometimes.

So I’m getting more serious about my travel hacking consulting business, this newsletter, and my LinkedIn presence.

What better to focus on than what feels like play for you that’s work to others?

Follow along with me daily on LinkedIn (thanks for getting me to 3k)!

Essential travel hacking tools.

There’s no such thing as too difficult a job, there’s only not having the right tool.

For anyone who’s ever looked for business class availability for award flights, you know what I’m talking about.

I have spent 30 minutes straight on Virgin Atlantic’s website looking for premium cabin availability and not found anything.

If only there was a tool that scanned every single airline program I liked and found the very best deals without me having to individually check every program…

Hint: there is.

Visit Seats.aero.

This is the most helpful tool out there to find award flight availability.

Here’s an example of a quick search I did of Virgin Atlantic from flights from Atlanta to Europe.

I found tons of business class availability at only 47,500 points one way!

You won’t believe the one-way cash prices…

Stop spending hours searching for availability. Use seats.aero.

I’m using the free version above but there is a paid version that lets you see availability farther out into the future - certainly worth it!

My next tool I can’t live without is the *Google flights of points/miles*.

I get asked all the time, “What’s the best way to get from X to Y using points?”

Well, one way to figure that out is to literally check EVERY program you have access to, which would take hours.

Or, just plug it into point.me.

I pay for this. And it’s totally worth it.

Let’s say I really wanted to fly to Mexico City for Easter Sunday (actually a dream of mine).

If I want to know the BEST way to get there the day before Easter, point.me will tell me quickly.

You can sort by point.me picks, low—>high prices, and shortest flights.

The cheapest flights for this itinerary are actually American Airlines at only 11,000 miles one-way, however, I - and most of you, do not have any American points.

This is an invaluable tool that turns hours into minutes for travel hacking. Start using it today!

It even gives you instructions on how to book.

If you want your hand held through this, point.me is amazing.

I am also more than willing to hold your hand if you pay me:)

This is the first you’ve heard me talking about this hotel chain.

Marriott.

It’s fancy. They own a ridiculous amount of hotels.

But their award program has always seemed pretty *meh* to me compared to Hyatt.

So I haven’t paid them much attention.

But things change.

Their newest offer has me thinking.

5 free nights for signing up for a hotel card with a $95 annual fee.

That’s pretty amazing.

You also get:

➡️ One free night every year anniversary.

➡️ 3x points per dollar earned on the first $6k spent in major categories like groceries!

➡️ Silver Elite status.

Now, you can’t stay at any Marriott property with these free night awards, unfortunately.

They need to be priced at or below 50k points per night.

Lucky for you, there are some incredible properties in that category.

For example, the Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort & Spa in Honolulu.

This property can be booked for just under 50k points per night in May.

So for one $95 annual fee on a credit card, you could get 5 free nights in Hawaii on the beach.

Worth it? YES.

Here’s a solid list with 21 more hotel options you could book with this card’s offer.

Don’t sleep on Marriott.

Bonus: If you and your spouse are really wanting to spice things up in the points department (every married couple is), get this Marriott card and have your spouse get the Southwest card to get a companion pass.

I can feel the spice already.

You can thank me later.

Thankful for you all who at least open this email weekly. Substack tells me 70% of you do.

To the rest of you - I haven’t lost hope in you. Maybe you’ll make it down here this week.

My only ask? Share this post with friends and subscribe if you haven’t.