Credit Cards, Hotel Cost, Travel, Travel Cost

Hilton Family
Hilton Family
One of the best ways to earn Hilton Honors points (which can give you free rooms at the Hilton Hotels and Resorts) is to to sign up for one of the two types of Hilton-sponsored credit cards.   American Express Hilton Surpass card   One Hilton-sponsored card is the American Express Hilton Surpass card.  It has a $75 annual fee.  There is usually a sign up bonus offered with the card; the bonus varies from 60,000-100,000 Honors points, which are credited to your account after you spend a certain amount within the first 3 months of card membership.   The American Express Hilton Surpass card has great earning potential: – Earn 12 Honors points per dollar spent at participating Hilton properties – Earn 6 Honors points per dollar spent at U.S. restaurants, supermarkets (unfortunately, warehouse stores are not considered supermarkets in this regard), and standalone gas stations – Earn 3 Honors points per dollar spent everywhere else  

You will also receive Honors Gold status for as long as you have the card.  If you spend $40,000 per year on the card, you will also receive Diamond status.  The loyalty rewards benefits for Honors are described on the Honors website. read more

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Credit Cards, Hotel Cost, Travel, Travel Cost

One of our favorite hotel credit cards is the IHG Rewards Club Select Credit Card from Chase, which is affiliated with the InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG) family of hotels including Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, Candlewood Suites, and other hotel brands.  If you do a lot of paid travel with stays at IHG properties, you can really enhance your paid and free stays with this card.  The card is currently issued as a MasterCard, with a $49 annual fee (the fee for which is currently waived for the first year). read more

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Disney Cruise, Flight Cost, Hotel Cost, Planning, Travel Cost

Our 7 Night Eastern Caribbean Star Wars Day At Sea cruise on the Disney Fantasy didn’t start out as one of our normal cruises.  As we discussed in our post about planning an off season cruise, we had originally planned to book our standard spring break cruise for 2017, but finances got in the way.  We instead picked a different destination for spring break, and in October 2015 we booked what we thought would be a standard 7 night Eastern Caribbean cruise on the Fantasy.  In January 2016, Disney announced new Star Wars Day At Sea cruises for 7 night sailings on the Disney Fantasy — and in March 2016, we received notification that our cruise had been switched to the Star Wars theme.  Interestingly, the price of the cruise almost immediately went up by 50%.  We weren’t upset that it got changed, but I probably never would have booked it for that price, even with the Star Wars addition. read more

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Flight Cost, Hotel Cost, Planning, Travel Cost

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We eagerly awaited the release of the 2017 Spring Itineraries from Disney Cruise Line.  We’ve taken Disney cruises for our past three spring break vacations and have always enjoyed them.  We haven’t been too adventurous with the spring break cruises: they have all been 5 night cruises on the Disney Wonder, with two sea days, and port days in Cozumel, Mexico and at Disney’s private Bahamian island, Castaway Cay. read more

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Disney Parks, Flight Cost, Hotel Cost, Planning, Travel Cost

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Before our summer trip to Universal and Walt Disney World, we started thinking about converting our Disney tickets to annual passes.  In order to justify the cost, we needed to see if we could add some additional trips in throughout the year.  One way we could keep the cost down for these additional trips was to look at alternate flying locations around Orlando that might be cheaper than flying to Orlando.  Thus was born the Jacksonville Special. read more

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Credit Cards, Hotel Cost, Travel Cost

IHG Website
IHG Website

We’ve previously discussed some of the many benefits of the Chase IHG Rewards Club Select Credit Card.  One of the best benefits to the card is the free night you receive when you pay the $49 annual fee for the card.  This night can be used at any IHG property, which includes the InterContinental, Hualuxe, Crowne Plaza, Hotel Indigo, Even Hotels, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Staybridge Suites, and Candlewood Suites brands of hotels.  As long as the property has an award night available, you can use your free night. read more

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