Cruisin'

I'd highly recommend taking advantage of my tips for free trips to Vegas or Europe. However, if you must spend money on a vacation I do recommend considering a cruise. You can find great deals on cruises and considering it includes food 24x7, travel between destinations and lodging it can end up being cheaper then a "free" trip where your paying for food.

Now how do you get there free? Thats tough. Marriott rewards offers a redemption option of 145,000 pts for $1k towards a cruise. Its not a bad deal, but unless your a business traveler spending lots of nights in Marriott its tough to get that many pts. You can use money from Ebates and credit cards like Discover that give you cash back.  However, usually u can find a cheap deal to do a cruise, b/c they make most of their money on booze and excursions.  So here are the tips you need to keep those costs down:

1.  Don't book excursions through the Cruise.  You can usually do them completely on your own for 1/5 of the price or through a private company for 1/2 the price.  The Cruise Critic Message Board is a great place to research any port you might be going to and find ways to do it on your own.  Also they have a roll call section which you should be able to find your actual cruise and meet people that will be on the same cruise as you.  Then you can make arrangements with people on your same cruise to split different private tours.

2.  Bring your own Alcohol.  If you do a princess cruise, must allow you to bring 1 bottle of wine per person.  Then its my experience you can continue to bring 1 bottle per person at each port.  Actually its my experience you can bring a lot more, but the policy is 1 bottle. Just make sure to pack a bottle opener or buy @ port.  The bottles will easily fit in your fridge and just call room service for wine glasses.  You can then drink in room and/or bring to dinner anywhere on deck and they will assume you got it at the bar.

3.  Utilize Casino as means to get more frequent flyer points.  Some cruise casinos allow you to purchase chips with your credit card without charging you a cash advance fee.  In my experience I have been able to do this at NCL and through Princess Cruises Poker table.   You can charge the money, get the chips, play a minimum amount and cash in the rest for cash.  Problem is then you have a bunch of cash you need to carry around and then deposit in a bank.  Its not always worth the trouble for just say 10k worth of points, but for example if you had signed up for the SouthWest credit card listed below - you could do this just to get your 5k spend and your $500 gift card.

Enjoy these great tips.  Keep checking back for more...

Vegas Baby!

Who doesn't love Vegas?  One of the greatest things about Vegas, is you can spend days there not spending any money just enjoying all the free sites (Bellagio gardens, Bellagio Fountains, Treasure Island Sirens show, Fredmont Experience, Circus acts at Circus Circus, the penguins at the Flamingo and the list goes on).  Well here is a tip of how to get there free.  Southwest is offering a 16 credits (enough for a free flight) and up to $500 gift cards for signing up for their credit card and spending 5K in the first 3 month and the annual fee is waived for the first year.  Southwest offers many flights to Vegas and with16 credits and $500 gift card you can make multiple trips there.

Here is how you can earn your $500 Gift Card.
 *Earn up to $500 in southwestgiftcards in the first three months just by using your card!
-You’ll receive a $100 southwestgiftcard once you have made $1,000 in purchase
-You’ll receive an additional $150 southwestgiftcard once you reach a total of $2,500 in purchases
-Then receive a $250 southwestgiftcard once you’ve made a total of $5,000 in purchases!

In total that is $500 in gift cards!

Here is the link you seek:
Chase Southwest - Free Flight & $500 Gift Card

For hotels, you can always use pts obtained from the SPG visa (See free Euro Post) to book one of their properties right off the strip.  

As for spending money, Ebates is your answer.  Ebates pays you cash for shopping at the stores you already shop at like Borders, Barnes and Nobles, Walmart, Expedia, Princeline, Old Navy, Victoria's Secret, etc.  Just by logging onto ebates and using their link to make your purchase ebates will cut you a check for a % of your purchase (e.g. Borders gives you 4%, Old Navy gives you 10%).  By using my link below you'll get $5 bonus after your first purchase.  I put my ebates checks into a separate savings account that I save for spending money when I travel.  If you need to make a spend requirement for a particular credit card you can buy American Express gift cards off of Ebates and you'll get 1% back.
Ebates - Get $5 free

Free Trip to Europe!

With my first post, I'm going to share with you the secrets for how you can get a free trip to Europe.  Here are the secrets u have been searching for.

1. Sign up for the American Airlines (AA) CitiBank Visa.   Currently they are running a couple of promos that are valid through 10/31/10 for 1st time Citi AA customers that can get you 75k or 100k:

*100,000 miles: 50,000 miles after $750 in purchases within 4 months, and another 50,000 miles after $10,000 in purchases within 12 months, no fee the first year
Citi Visa - 100k Sign-up Bonus
Citi Business Visa - 100k Sign-up Bonus

*75,000 miles after $1500 in purchases within 6 months, no fee the first year
Citi Visa - 75k Sign-up Bonus
Citi Business Visa - 75K Bonus

These offers are being sent via email and I have searched long and far for the links and have posted them here.  The details about these offers are not included on the links, but if you want to do further research check out the Flyer Talk Forum.
FlyerTalk buzzing over 75k AA sign-up Bonus

You only need 40K for Saver reward to Europe.  For 70K you can upgrade to 1st class on one leg.  Do this for you and your travel partner and you can get to free flights to Euruope from the US.

2. Sign up for the SPG Visa.  This is the best all around Travel credit card there is.  You will get 10k after your first purchase and an additional 15k bonus for spending 15k in six months (plus the 15k you earn for spending it). No Annual Fee first year.  If you and your travel partner both sign up and meet the spend requirement you'll have 80K in SPG points.  You can stay at some great resorts for only 10 - 12k points a night.  If you stay 4 nights the 5th night is free.  So for your 80k you could get 10 free nights.   SPG also allows you to transfer your pts to over 30 airlines.  Many of them offer 1:1 transfer rate plus a bonus 5,000 pts for every 20k you transfer.  Therefore you could transfer your 40k for an additional 50k AA miles if you choose.

SPG Personal Visa
SPG Business Visa

3.  Ebates.  Ebates pays you cash for shopping at the stores you already shop at like Borders, Barnes and Nobles, Walmart, Expedia, Princeline, Old Navy, Victoria's Secret, etc.  Just by logging onto ebates and using their link to make your purchase ebates will cut you a check for a % of your purchase (e.g. Borders gives you 4%, Old Navy gives you 10%).  By using my link below you'll get $5 bonus after your first purchase.  I put my ebates checks into a separate savings account that I save for spending money when I travel.  If you need to make a spend requirement for a particular credit card you can buy American Express gift cards off of Ebates and you'll get 1% back.
Ebates - Get $5 free

If you and your travel partner do what I have described above you should be on your way to a free trip to Euro.