She had been with her mom & sister to NYC for Christmas & thought our girls would love the lights, the decorations, and especially the shopping!
At the time, that wouldn't have been in the budget. Plane flights for all of us + hotels + taxis + food + shopping made me think it was more than we could bite off. We were in ministry, after all.
Once I was introduced to Travel Hacking and started earning rewards points, I knew this was the first place I wanted to take the family!
Like I recommend on this blog, the first card we applied for was the Chase Sapphire Preferred card (my wife got it first — click here to see why). We applied for several other cards as well, and with the welcome bonuses from those cards, plus the spend we put on those cards, we eventually had enough points to go to NYC for 4 nights FREE (well, free travel that is — we bought some toys along the way 😂 ).
I booked flights for the 4 of us @ 20,000 Southwest points/ea = 80,000 points
I booked the Hyatt Centric Times Square hotel (we loved it) at 25,000 Hyatt points/night = 100,000 points
And finally I booked tickets to the Rockettes for the 4 of us = 55,000 points (also free from points on a card)
We had an absolute blast!
Even if you’re in ministry and the budget is tight, a trip like this is within reach for you & your family too!
