Yo, drop some jewels on me about traveling when broke/how to travel as cheap as possible
If it matters, I live in Miami & interested mainly in Caribbean/Latin America/West Coast trips
Follow The Flight Deal on social media and their blog. They post flight sales. You can get decent round trips.
Buy flights from Expedia, Travelocity etc, but don’t buy hotels because you don’t get your hotel points.
Join airline miles programs and build up miles through their shopping portals if you shop online. Mypoints is good for that too, because you can use those points to buy United miles, or visa gift cards, or PayPal deposits
If you have good credit, get an airline card or hotel card or card that lets you earn points. Use it for everything and pay it off in full. Use it like you would use your debit card.
You can also do manufactured spending, which is buying a bunch of gift cards on the credit card just to earn the points or cash back, then use the gift cards. Only do this when there is a gift card promo. Staples usually has this. Also, people buy those $1 gold coins online with the cards, then cash them in at the bank, and deposit the cash into your checking account to pay the credit card.
Also, with any cash back, put it in a savings account to earn interest on top. This also works with the PayPal deposits from mypoints, ebates etc. Just put that money into a high yield savings to earn money on top of money. Every time you buy something online without earning a rebate, you are throwing money away, and so many people are too lazy to put the effort into signing up.
You can also print your grocery coupons from mypoints. You get 1 point for each coupon you print. (Print in black and white to save ink). You earn 10 points for every coupon redeemed, and if you use 10 coupons in a month, you get bonus points. You can load the digital coupons to your card on your grocery shopping app, and use the paper coupon ON TOP of the digital coupon. Again, so many people are too lazy to do this, and you can save money that can be used for other things.
Don’t spend a lot of money on hotels, because the purpose of vacation is to explore the area, not hang out at your hotel. Holiday Inn Express, Best Western, etc are perfectly fine and can get a room almost anywhere from $100-$150 a night.
Choose a hotel that preferably has:
Complimentary airport pickup shuttle
Free breakfast
Walking distance to restaurants and shops
(You can avoid renting a car)
It’s cheaper to eat at local spots and you’ll come across more interesting people, but if you do eat at the hotel restaurant, charge it to your room, so you get points.
I cannot stress the importance of building hotel points and flyer miles!!!! You’ll eventually earn enough for free trips. Ideally, you want to pay for domestic trips, and use your miles for international travel.
ETA:
Some of the hotel chains have promotions where you can earn a lot of points. For instance, Club Carlson (Park Inn, Raddison, etc) had a promo a few years back where you stayed one night, and earned 50,000 points. That’s enough for 5 cheap hotel rooms for the cost of one stay. I chose the closest location, made the reservation, checked in, and left. It’s called a mattress run. It’s similar to a mileage run, which is getting a cheap flight across the country, hanging out in the airport for a couple of hours, and flying back just to earn the miles. (Only miles fanatics with extra money do this)
Holiday Inn had a promo with MasterCard where you handwrote your name, address, email, Holiday Inn member number and any MasterCard number on an index card, and mail it in. You got an email a few weeks later with anywhere from 250-1000 points. I sent in the max cards which was 140, and got 37,000 points for the price of the stamps. I didn’t even buy index cards, I just cut a bunch of printer paper to 4x6.
@yinni ive been looking into going there how was the vibe and how do they treat black people there
