Before I go too much further into posting of the many trips I have been on, I wanted to touch base on a few things that you need to know about and be aware of as a new traveler, especially if you are a young traveler but especially starting out.
First and foremost is to sign up for every airline's frequent flyer mileage clubs, whether you think you will fly with them or not, do so, as long as it does not cost you anything to do it.
Second, sign up for every rental car agency's frequent renter clubs as well. No matter how expensive their cars are to rent or not, again, so long as it does not cost you anything, then do so.
Third, yes, time for the hotels too. Find a hotel chain that you really like and try to always stay with them as much as you can but still, make sure you are a member of all the hotel frequent stay clubs.
When starting out in life, you want to do this right away, especially if you are just becoming an adult and have not really travelled yet. It's very important as it may not seem like you will ever rack up enough points to gain any benefits but you would be surprised how fast they can accumulate. Sometimes you may get a job that will require you to travel and that's when you want to take full advantage of trying to stay as much as possible at the same chain and rent from the same car rental company and fly the same airlines.
Some good ones that we have used:
Airlines
Southwest--They have an excellent frequent flyer mileage club and you can get free flights easily! The further in advance you schedule your trip, the less points it costs. The only fee you would pay would be the tax and it's normally $5.00 a leg. (A leg is from one point to another) They will also send you free drink coupons in the mail and send offers if you want to see them for various trips. Their site is also one of the best and easiest to look to see how much it might cost for hotel and car rentals. Definitely the most user friendly!
American Airlines--They also have a great frequent flyer mileage club but they are more difficult to earn free flights, however, they DO go overseas.
United Airlines--Good program but still hard to accumulate enough points for free trips.
Each airline will also have other incentives and ways to earn those mileage points and some of them are to apply for one of their credit cards. Be forewarned here as I will be talking about credit cards as well, they usually have annual fees just to have the card and a high interest rate.
I'll go over credit cards here in another post.
Car Rental Agencies
Dollar, Budget, Enterprise, National and other local car rental companies, are going to normally be your cheaper ones. Each one has a nice program to where you can earn points and you can also get emails for specials they are running or coupons for free upgrades, etc etc. And yes, you can earn enough for free car rental days and just pay the taxes.
Hertz is probably one of the more expensive but they are also have very nice cars and take care of their frequent customers with class A service. The others will too, but you can tell Hertz is just one of the bigger and more expensive companies.
Most of these car rental places will try to sell you the insurance and it really jacks up the price. This is one of those damned if you do and damned if you don't type of deals because you never know when you might get into a car accident or some fool hits you and it's not even your fault. Many of your own personal car insurance policies do not cover the rental cars so you have to really make sure they do and how much and know what is and isn't covered before you roll the dice and take your chances.
Also, they will try to have you rent a GPS so it's best to have your own handy and they are cheap enough these days with a lot of great features and becoming familiar with it, you can personalize it and make it your own and save special places.
Hotels
Find one that isn't too terribly expensive and yet offers nice upgrades. We really enjoy the Holiday Inn chain. The hotels are clean and nice and many include continental breakfast and as you stay with them more often, they do offer points for free night stays and they have many specials for bonus point opportunities throughout the year. Once you become a member of the Priority Club, many times when you check in, the front desk will have a special welcoming goodie bag with water, crackers or special coupons for thanking you for checking in with their hotel. Not all of them will do this, but it's nice when they do. They also at times, will upgrade you for free up to a nicer room or even an executive suite! One hotel we stayed at in FL, upgraded us up to the Executive level where we had are our own special area for breakfast in the morning and every night at 10pm, they would bring up fresh out of oven baked cookies and cold milk!! Talk about spoiling you to death!! You had to have a special key to get up to that level of the hotel too! Holiday Inn owns several different named hotels and some suite hotels such as Staybridge and if you stay there, its like a mini apartment! They are just gorgeous and come with a complete kitchen and washer/dryer, big screen tv, Jacuzzi tub...the works!
What else is nice is that when you accumulate so many points, you can actually book some nights for your friends to use as they don't normally require you as the member, to be the one to check in.
Hilton is another that has frequent stay programs but they are very picky about who can use the free nights and only allow the member to be the one to check in. It's harder to get the free nights as well.
Best Western is another hotel similar to the Holiday Inn and their hotels are fairly nice.
I have also stayed at the Ramada but I am not too familiar with their frequent stay programs.
Sometimes this information seems to be one of those lost, unspoken secrets because yes, it CAN be free! :) Because of our jobs, we have been able to get a lot of points and used them for free trips to Vegas, FL and even overseas and just paying for the taxes. Also free rental cars and so many hotel stays it's not funny!
So why would they do this? To reward you for your loyalty with that particular company. You could choose any different company but you chose theirs and if your stay or flight or rental is so great, you are going to recommend them to your friends, word of mouth can be a powerful advertisement!
Don't forget, sign up with them all! :) You just never know!
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