The Joy of Traveling

First things first!

The first thing you want to think about is do you want to travel in the country or out? If it’s out of the country the first thing you need to do is get a passport, if you already don’t have one. If you do, you want to make sure it’s up to date. Passports have to be valid 6 months AFTER the date you plan on returning from your trip. For example, if you get back from your international trip on Jan 1, 2022, your passport must be valid until Jun 1, 2022. Anything less, you will not be able to get on the plane. Trust Me! If you want to stay within the country, you just have to think about, what you want to do and where can you do it!

I’m all about traveling cheap and luxury at the same time. Loyalty is the best reward. If you fly Delta, my personal favorite, you want to sign up for skymiles, their miles do not expire. If you fly American Airlines you want to sign up for AAdvantage program, but be careful their miles do expire. United, Southwest, etc all have programs. My advice would be to pick an airline and start earning miles. When you earn enough miles you can use those miles to get free flights! All of these airlines have credit cards too that help you earn miles as you purchase everyday items. Delta has a credit card and it’s the Delta Skymiles card by American Express. The earning opportunity is unbelievable. By having loyalty you earn miles and in turn you can use those miles to pay for your flights. with you skip around AND don’t start an account to earn miles on an airline you miss out. You want to do the same thing for hotels! There’s IHG hotels, Marriott Bonvoy, Hilton Hotels, Hyatt Hotels, and Choice Hotels just to name a few. Again you want to start an account because hotel points can lead to discounted nights or even better, free nights!

Buying package deals can save you money!

The “Big Three” of travel search is where you can find most of your deals. You have Expedia.com, Travelocity.com, and Orbitz.com. The news you may not have known is that Travelocity and Orbitz are both owned by Expedia and a slew of others, including but not limited to hotels.com, hotwire, and trivago, just to name a few. All of these websites are considered OTAs “online travel agencies”. Buying package deals will help keep your cost down. Package deals are flight and hotel, or flight, hotel, car, etc. It takes A LOT of research to find the best deals. A LOT. If you have time go for it, if not there’s always a travel agent. Buying package deals only is a good idea IF it’s MORE THAN ONE person! Please remember that.

DON’T FORGET!

Always start an account with airlines, OTAs, and buying packages can help keep your costs low.