Travel with Credit Card Points: The Cards We Use

In this post, I discuss our current travel credit card strategy, including which cards we use, why we use them and how we use them to travel cheaper. Find out which card we used to get $8,000 worth of flights for free! I’ll also touch on the most important part of travel credit cards…how you use them to maximize your personal spend at NO additional risk!

Our strategy:

THE $8k business class tickets to Madrid from Boston

When it comes to travel credit cards, our main goal is to earn points to exchange them for flights. Since our most expensive flights are international, we usually build up points via our cards and use them in bulk. Generally speaking, we use cards with a large partnership network, so that we can easily transfer points directly to the partner airline and use them to book direct.

Our cards:

We’ve held onto our current two cards for almost three years now (which seems like a record for us). We generally switch them every couple of years to take advantage of the hefty sign-up bonuses. Due to finding a couple of cards with large partner networks and decent point bonuses, we’ve stayed put and racked up some serious “mileage” (You’ll notice that I use mileage and points interchangeably sometimes).

So which ones are they?

Earning those points back in NH!

• American Express Gold/Rose Gold Card ($250 annual fee)

  • This is hands-down our favorite card.

    • It gives you 4x points on both restaurants and supermarkets AND 3X points on airlines (1X points for everything else). We do this stuff A LOT, so our points build quickly.

    • Another huge benefit of the Amex Gold is that it currently has 17 global partner airlines . So that gives us huge flexibility in how we use our points, especially when traveling abroad (but for our American friends, Delta and Jet Blue are on that list!).

  • Currently, the card comes with a 60,000 point bump for signing up and putting $4k through it in the first 6 months.

  • It’s worth noting the $250 annual fee. While this seems like a lot on the surface, with our spending and our credit card process outlined below, we pay for this many times over. Our Spain flights alone were round trip, in business class, and would have cost us over $8,000! This is because points don’t necessarily have a dollar-per-point value. In some cases they do, but in others, airlines may give your points a much higher value.

Cathay Pacific first class upgrade!

• Alaska Airlines Visa ($75 annual fee)

  • We’ve hung on to this one as our “domestic card” for a few reasons.

    • First off, they give an annual companion fare for ~$125 instantly giving you your return on the $75 annual fee (and pre-pandemic we shot for at least one Alaska airlines trip per year).

    • Secondly, Alaska Airlines has 24 worldwide partner airlines where you can transfer your points. So this makes international flight exchanges available

    • Lastly, we live close to Boston Logan airport and Alaska offers several convenient, direct flights to most west coast cities, earning 3 points per dollar spent

  • The current sign-up bonus is 60,000 points, with $3k spend in the first 3 months

  • As a bonus for us: Pre-pandemic, we flew Cathay Pacific to Vietnam and back, leveraging our Alaska Airlines membership account and racked up serious mileage (20,000 points!) to combine with our already growing account

How we use our cards to maximize our personal spend:

One of our points flights to San Diego

I’m sure it goes without saying, but did you notice that I didn’t mention the APR %, or interest % in my benefits above? That’s simply because we NEVER let a balance roll over a given billing period. It would completely defeat the purpose of leveraging these cards for travel, since our interest payments would cancel out the value gained. So what do we do?

Our process:

1. Identify applicable charges: Anytime we spend money, we funnel it through our cards. The only exceptions to this rule is where you can’t use a card (ie mortgage) and recurring expenses where a fee is charged for using a credit card. When the latter is the case, we generally stay away from charging the card because the earned points are potentially worth less than the fee costs.

2. Setup autopay: We immediately connect our checking account to our credit card bill pay and setup auto pay. This will automatically pay off the statement balance whenever it is due. By automating this process, we don’t have to worry about timely payments, or even our own discipline to pay on time.

3. Earn: By automating the process, we’ve set ourselves up to start stashing away points for redemption. Then when we start planning a trip, we can research all of the partner airlines (directly on their site) to see how many points we need to pay for the flights. Note: in many cases, if you are short on points, you can either book points with dollars, OR purchase a few extra points to top off your account.

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Well there ya have it. I hope this helps provide a high level lens into the value of travel credit cards. While many blogs and websites out there will make it more complicated than it needs to be (you can go crazy with this stuff!), it really is as simple as 1. Choose a card 2. Setup autopay and 3. Earn/redeem

Keep living presently and traveling often,

Kyle

Greece by Ferry: How do we book?

One of the Blue Star “Slow Ferries” in port

Traveling by ferry seems like a right of passage for visiting the Greek islands. Who hasn’t seen those beautiful landscapes dotted with white washed buildings and blue capped churches? Well, that view can only be seen from one vantage point…the water!

Similar to our 2017 trip, we chose ferries as our primary form of transportation from Athens to the Greek isles and then inter-island during our recent adventure. We slept on a different island three nights in a row and used ferries the entire time. As I was sitting on the boat from Mykonos to Paros, I couldn’t help but think “man, this process is really stress free”. Maybe it was my third Mythos (Greek lager) of the day talking, but I’m pretty sure it was the process I followed to plan and book our ferry logistics.

So what worked for us?

Stop along the way through the Greek Islands

1. Leverage third party sites: I start with a third party ferry search flight like “Lets Ferry”. It allows you to search dates for the timeframe you are traveling and then gives the travel times across multiple ferry companies (Yes, like air travel, there are multiple companies that compete in the Aegean Sea!). Once you find the date and time that works best, take note of the company and move to step two.

2. Navigate directly to ferry company site: This one is self explanatory, but once you find your ferry in step one, you want to go directly to the website of that company. This saves you the admin fee of the third party site (and who doesn’t like savings?!).

3. Select your seat: This one can be a bit situational.

   1. Fast Ferries: On the “fast ferries” (generally any boat except Blue Star), there are two classes; economy and business. Honestly, business class isn’t all that special, but it generally comes with smaller crowds and a dedicated bar. If the extra cost is worth it to you, then by all means, splurge (we did during COVID and loved having almost NOBODY in our compartment and enjoyed a few Mythos).

   2. Slow Ferries: The “slow ferries” are a different animal. In my mind, there are really four options; private room/compartment, business class, airline seats and economy class. Let me break them down in order of general cost (most expensive to least):

      1. Private room/compartment: We actually did this on our first trip to the Greek islands because Kailah was pregnant. It allowed her a traditional private “cruise room” with beds to lie down in throughout the duration of our journey (Athens to Santorini is 7 hours on the slow ferry!). Since we had so many travelers, it wasn’t that expensive and we still had access to the business class restaurant/bar service.

      2. Business class: We went this route on our recent trip as it cut down on the crowds (for COVID) and it gave a relaxing full service restaurant/bar for the duration of the journey. The seating isn’t as comfortable however, as it is mostly chairs around a table. However, if the cost is worth it to you, we recommend this option.

      3. Airline seats: These seats are better than airplane seats as they provide a more reclined seating option for the longer duration ferries. If you are going to sleep on the trip and don’t want a compartment, this probably your best bet. They share the restaurants and bar with the economy seats.

      4. Economy: These are the “plain jane” table seats with a shared restaurant and bar. Cheapest, but the ship is so large you’ll have plenty of space to get up and walk around.

4. Buy through the ferry company site: Once you choose your seat, continue and purchase your tickets directly through the ferry company site. One important note that we found useful was that most ferry companies have a pretty flexible cancellation policy, in case something happens (or you need to cancel due to a global pandemic).

Our business class seats aboard superjets

That’s it! I hope this simplifies the Greek ferry process and inspires you to book with confidence. Oh, and in case you are struggling to find out the name of the Athens port, its called “Piraeus”. Yep, this one took me forever to find too!

Keep maximizing those experiences!

Kyle

Travel to Greece: Our First Experience Abroad Since 2020

Afternoon beverage by the sea in Mykonos

In October of 2021, we made a return trip to Athen’s and the Greek Isles, during what appears to be the end of year two of the COVID-19 pandemic. As passionate (some might say obsessive) international travelers, we couldn’t wait to get back over “the big pond” and Greece’s travel regulations and guidelines gave us the perfect opportunity to do so. The trip wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies however, so I wanted to write up this post to give insight into how we decided to go, how we actually managed to make it work and finally, how it went…

Our formula for making the go / no go decision:

First and foremost, traveling to Greece wasn’t an easy decision for us to make. There were so many thoughts creeping into our heads about going…What if we got stuck there? What if we got COVID and brought it back to our girls? Were restaurants and shops open? Was it even socially responsible to go?

So we did our research on the questions that gave us the most concern:

Rooftop of La Plaka hotel (Athens)

1. Could we get stuck in Greece? This was the toughest risk to take because technically the answer was yes. If we tested positive before returning home, Air France would not allow us on our flight. We would need to test negative before returning home. The girls would need child care…

2. Was everything open? Yep, sure was. (And as it turns out, it was a booming year for American tourists in Greece.)

3. Was it risky to bring home COVID? We decided to address this one from a couple directions. First and foremost, we watched COVID numbers in Greece and decided that a significant downward trend in cases would give us the green light. We also directionally followed Greek vaccination rates (71% at the time).

4. Was it socially responsible to go? Well, I guess it depends on which way you want to look at it. We are fully vaccinated travelers, obeying the rules set forth by governing bodies on both sides of the ocean (including mask wearing). So we decided that we could either set a great example of how we could socially responsibly travel (if this is truly the new way of life), or we could not go and leave it up to someone else.

And obviously, if I’m writing this, we decided to green light the trip. Throughout our trip, we wore our CDC approved N95s (on flights and in airports), ate primarily outside, upgraded tickets where possible to reduce crowds and obeyed the rules set forth by Greece. While I completely respect anyone else that wouldn’t have made the same decision, we are extremely grateful that we went.

Travel abroad is stressful enough right? (How we navigated this new travel experience).

Making the decision to travel was one thing, but actually executing on it was another. We’re used to the unpredictability and obsessive planning that international travel requires … outside of pandemic requirements. But this new age of travel brought on a whole new wave of hoops, jumps and side-skips to navigate. Here’s the detailed version of what we needed and researched to get to Greece, travel within Greece and then get back to the United States:

Kailah dockside in the old port of Mykonos

1. To get into Greece (and board the flight in the US): Vax card (fully dosed) or proof of negative viral COVID test 72 hours prior to departure, or a doctors note showing full recovery from COVID in the previous 90 days. (Please note that we traveled through Paris, as French requirements accepted vaccination to transit through their country at the time of our travel). Also, Greece randomly tests arrivals into the country with rapid COVID tests. If you test positive, you will be expected to quarantine. We did not get tested, but saw several travelers diverted to temporary testing booths.

2. Passenger Locator Form (PLF): this document is also required by Greece for entry into the country. IMPORTANT: you need to fill this our 48 hours before your departing flight (It might actually be 48 hours before arrival, but just play it safe). If you do not do this, you will not be allowed on your flight. Link to the form here.

3. Passport and surgical mask: Ah, yes the passport is still required. A surgical mask is also required during the flight. We chose the PurDefense N95 masks, as they are approved by the CDC for effectiveness.

4. Internal Greek travel: When traveling to the islands by air or boat, we had to comply with the same rules as in #1 and #3 above AND needed to fill out a passenger health questionnaire before boarding this boat. This was sent via email before departure from the booking company. An electronic version of this document was acceptable.

5. Indoor restaurant seating: On our first night on the island of Santorini we had planned to eat at our favorite Imerovigli restaurant called the Aegeon Restaurant. We had reservations to sit on the side of the caldera, in the open air. The October weather had other plans for us, so we were forced to be inside. The restaurant required a fully dosed vaccination certificate in order to sit down and be served.

6. Return trip to the United States: to board our flight back into the US, we had to fulfill #3, show a negative viral test within three days of our departing flight (specifically three days instead of 72 hours, as the US gives this flexibility in our policy) and fill out a passenger attestation regarding COVID. The attestation paperwork is handed out at the gate before the flight. Please note that a vaccination card is not sufficient to board your flight for the US. However, we found it EXTREMELY easy to find viral testing stations all over Greece. The process took a total of 30 minutes from test taking to results being received and cost us 15 euros a test (~$17). This is a European approved test and meets the requirements of the US.

Phew…that’s it? ;)

The famous windmills of Mykonos

Lastly, was it worth it?

If you are still reading, you must be wondering “Sooo was it all worth it?!”. The short answer from Kailah and I is that it was absolutely worth jumping through all of the hoops to be able to spend time together doing what we love. With that being said, I can easily see why this would be an incredibly stressful experience for some people and far from the relaxing vacation that they desire. After all, we LOVE planning, booking and experiencing. Not everyone loves all three.

So what went as expected and what didn’t?

What worked:

• All of our planning and research relating to COVID travel to Greece paid off big time. The transportation side of the trip went very smoothly (we had all of our documentation / requirements).

• Everything was OPEN. We didn’t experience any issues with businesses not being open while in Greece.

• Time of year. October was the perfect time to visit Greece. We loved the low crowds, slightly cheaper cost and still very pleasant temperatures (65-75 F the entire trip).

• It’s freaking Greece…it’s just a beautiful country, with incredible food and people. We can’t wait to be back and explore more of the islands.

What didn’t:

Naousa, Paros from our drone’s view

• Boston Logan economy parking is still completely closed (we had to spend significantly more to park in Central Parking last minute).

• Airport restaurants haven’t fully recovered / adjusted to the ever changing pandemic. For example, there was only one restaurant open at Boston Logan when we arrived for our 5:30 PM flight (we wanted to grab dinner before the 7 hour trip to Paris). Another restaurant finally opened up right before our flight, but they hadn’t even renewed their liquor license yet.

• We had a ferry cancel on us right before the trip (we assume due to the lack of passengers). It ended up being one of two ferries from Mykonos to Paros that day, so we ended up needing to take a late ferry to Paros and didn’t get to spend much time on the island.

Sunset from Imerovigli (Near our hotel)

All in all, this was another incredible adventure for us. The only problem is that it “scratched an itch” that only further fed our passion for international travel. It left us remembering how amazing the world still is (after being so isolated for so long) and finding ourselves constantly thinking about getting back out there and helping others do the same.

For those thinking about any COVID-era trip, I hope this helps provide a lens into the challenges, but benefits of getting back out into the world.

Cheers!

Kyle