Hi from Steve n Patty!

FREE and bargain travel TIPS

Steve & Patty say Bonjour! 

CHEAPSKATE'S FREE & BARGAIN TRAVEL

Greetings from Steve and Patty the 'Travelin' Tanenbaums
Authors of The Cheapskate's Guide to Cruises and The Cheapskate's Guide to Vacations (c) Tanenbaum  In response to many requests for details of our 'free travel' strategies we wrote the following in-depth 'article.' This article is a good starting point for those interested in 'Better than Cheap....Free Travel'

Enjoy our recent 2010 CTN edtions:
Fall 2010 edition:
http://ctnfall10.blogspot.com
Summer 2010 editions:
http://ctnsummer10.blogspot.com/
Spring 2010:
http://ctnspring10.blogspot.com/
late Winter (March 2010) edition:
http://ctnwinter10.blogspot.com/

Better than Cheap.....FREE TRAVEL!
©Tanenbaum 2010
 
Since our early retirement we spent six months per year, over seven years, globe trotting planet Earth.  Better yet, we can not recall the last time we paid for plane tickets. Nothing, but nothing beats FREE global travel! We truly believe that most everyone should likewise be enjoying the benefits of free airline travel to their domestic and exotic foreign destinations.

To this noble end here is our abbreviated ‘Primer’ on Free air travel.
Caveat: When is Free really Free? If I ask you to pay me ten dollars on condition that I will then immediately give you $50 I hope that when you are holding the $50 in your hand you will agree you have just been given a free gift of $40. If you agree then read on....
Our primary means of free travel is by using our favorite airline free travel program which is American AAdvantage. Over the years we have amassed hundreds of thousands of program miles. Best of all, we obtain at least 95% of these miles from sources other than airline flights.

Following are some of our recommendations for entering the world of free airline travel:

1) Call American Airlines AAdvantage department and open a ‘free’ frequent airline account. Call American at: 800-882-8880 or go to www.aa.com Note: Every adult in the household should open their own free account.

2) Start reaping FREE MILES NOW! You should next apply for a Citibank AAdvantage  Mastercard.  As of late Fall 2010 Citibank is once again WAIVING the Annual fee so that you pay ZERO for the card. Even better, one of the best of all time free miles give-a-ways is ongoing through February 28 2011. Apply for this card or even two cards from those listed, spend $4000 over SIX MONTHS (most all of us can do this) and receive 75,000 FREE MILES per card. Details are set forth in our Fall 2010 CTN edition. 


This type offer, though certainly not common, brings home the reality of FREE global travel even to the most skeptical.  Just think.... 75,000 free American Airlines miles is instantly good for BOTH a round trip domestic ticket to any USA lower 48 destination AND also one free round trip ticket (off season mid-Sept to mid-May) to Paris and most other European destination.  Or spend $5,000 dollars using your Citi AAdvantage card to increase your miles to 80,000 miles and your have TWO off season FREE  RT tickets to Paris, London, Rome etc.

All this 100% FREE.

  We recommend you keep one Citibank AAdvantage card for use as your primary card. The yearly fee, starting with year #2, is about $60.

Follow our CTN newsletter for all the latest deals. Our current Fall 2010 edition is found at:  www.ctnfall10.blogspot.com

BONUS FLIGHT:  Note that American Airlines, as part of its out of country award offers a BONUS FREE FLIGHT, when returning from abroad, to any gateway city. Gateways include such as NYC, LA, SF,  Chicago, Dallas

Miami and Boston.

International Example: We flew free to Paris and on our return flew FREE from Heathrow (London) to Gateway Miami before returning home to San Francisco. We love American.

Your initial $60 yearly fee has gotten you well on your way to your first free flight award.

 Forget using checks. Instead use the Citibank card for making all spendable income purchases, where ever and whenever possible. The only exception involves credit card abusers. If you can not handle the responsible use of a credit card then chuck this entire concept, it is not for you.

All others should, as we do, use your primary   Visa/AMEX or Mastercard for ALL PURCHASES you would otherwise be making using cash or personal checks including such as market shopping, gifts, home construction (big bucks), major home furnishings, school payments, donations, cell phone bills, education, health and doctor related bills etc. Every time you must make a payment ask yourself and ask the person or company involved if they accept your Mastercard. Consider that the average family spends at least $150 per week on basic necessaries. Also, most of you take regular vacations whether a weekend getaway, cruise or other vacation. These vacations are themselves a great source of more free miles. Simply pay for all hotel, car rental, end our cruise bills etc. on your World Mastercard.

 Realize the value of ‘buying’ program air miles. Let us use a NY to SF flight priced conservatively at $400 round trip on American Airlines. At 25,000 miles for this award we find that each mile is worth 1.6 cents. Example: Sadly, my recent dentist visit cost $1,000. The dentist accepts Mastercard but offers a 5% ($50) discount for cash. Using this formula we know that the 1,000 program miles are worth about $16. Another words I would have to pay $50 in order to receive $16 worth of airline miles. Not worth it...so I paid by check. This is an exception to the ‘ use your Citibank for all purchases rule.’

 Optional: Consider obtaining a second credit card that permits you to transfer miles to any of 30 airline programs. This will be discussed in detail in our next Winter CTN 2010 edition.

 Junk Mail we LOVE: Keep a sharp eye for Free airline travel deals and other ‘Free miles’ deals such as the common MCI bonus of thousands of miles for new home service customers. Recently, we replied to ‘junk’ seeming mail over two weeks soliciting new Visa/Mastercards or upgrades of excising cards. All told we spent a whopping $200 in annual fees on three new credit cards.

Why you may be asking? In return, we received a total of 50,000 bonus miles. Using our handy dandy formula these miles are worth at least $800 which is a $600 free airline travel PROFIT. Example: A 35000 mile American award is good for free round trip travel to Hawaii from any U.S. destination.

Example: walking through Honolulu terminal we spotted a desk. Seems Hawaiian Airlines was soliciting, you guessed it, their Visa/Mastercard. For the $50 yearly fee they offered 10,000 air program miles which happens to equal an interisland round trip flight. Such flights were once inexpensive but sadly now cost about $90 one way or almost $200 round trip.

 Special promotions: Keep an eye out for bonus miles offers. Some years ago Healthy Choice issued such a promotion. Every ten or so UPC codes from their products was good for free miles. The first month they DOUBLED all submissions. Some, like Patty and myself, found bargain stores that sold single servings of their chocolate pudding at just 25 cents each and EACH HAD A UPC code. We bought $600 of pudding, removed the UPC codes, donated the pudding to charity (yes, this was also a tax write-off) and collected, are you ready......265,000 American Airline miles! A gentlemen, written up by the Wall Street Journal and appearing on the Today Show spent thousands on pudding and obtained a record 1,250,000 miles! I should note we spread the word as to our pudding supplier so that family members and close friends also obtained an average of about 75,000 miles each. 

This past November British Airways issued a mega free miles give-a-way. Buy their $75 credit card (first year fee is $75) and they  gave you   100,000 miles. We collected 200,000 practically free miles. The offer was so popular that BA pulled it after only four weeks. The early birds often catch the free miles 'worm.'  

Regardless of whether you make further cash outlays for new cards the mere use of your single most important card, your Citibank AAdvantage card, on all your purchases will quickly permit you to amass sufficient miles to qualify for your first of many future FREE AIRLINE flights.

SWAPPING CARDS: For two or three years the two of us used our Citibank and spouse cards to amass miles. The original card was issued to Steve with free spouse card for Patty. All the miles amassed were placed in Steve's American AAdvantage account. When it was close to renewal time Patty applied for her own Citibank World Mastercard plus free spouse card for Steve and received her 10,000 miles new card holder Bonus. Then, Steve cancelled his Citibank card to avoid the yearly renewal fee. For the next couple of years the miles piled up in Patty's American Airlines account. This is good practice for the extra whopping Bonus miles and benefit to the psyche, each of us having roughly the same amount of miles in our account over time.

Best of all, we never make a time consuming crusade of all this. Mostly we dutifully make our mileage related credit card purchases but keep an eye out for those special offers. We also always PAY OUR CREDIT CARD BILLS IN FULL EACH MONTH thereby avoiding all interest charges..
Please DO IT and enjoy the world of free airline travel!
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