As a recent graduate from a master's program these past two months have been especially painful on my wallet as both my graduate and undergraduate student loans have come due after their six month grace period. Most would think that this has nothing to do with travel, mile and points, but for me it has EVERYTHING to do with it.
The combination of student loans and living in a high rent city means that I had had to develop a strict budget that I have to stick to, and that includes a travel budget. Formulating that budget for the first time was very painful for me. Before the start of the year I was all over the place on travel and miles. I had this aspiration in my mind that I had to be the highest status level in every hotel, airline and car program. But I quickly realized that as someone who doesn't really travel for work that often, reserves my vacation for long stretches of vacation so I can maximize my time off and doesn't have the ability to spend more than $200-300 per month on travel that I would need to reevaluate and change my points earning strategy.
As I entered the new year I realized it would need to be a new start for me. I developed my travel budget and promised myself that I would do the best to stick to my $200-300 per month budget while trying to obtain my goal of requalifying for United Silver status. This means not jumping on absolutely every flight deal that comes out and picking my battles to really get the most value out of my travels as possible.
So far I have done a decent job of sticking to my budget, going over a little, but not too bad. It's a challenge to not jump on everything as people build the buzz. But here in a few weeks I will have about 19,000 PQMs on United under my belt with an average cost per mile of around .3 per mile.
The reason I wrote this piece was a little bit of a pat on my back for sticking to my budget and not going out on flights of whimsy (haha unintentional travel pun for the win), but as a way to show that travel on a budget IS possible for anyone. It may not be the highest level of travel and you may not qualify for the top levels of status like others. But if you don't have the time to be searching all day for mileage run possibilities or if you don't have the time for mileage runs ever other weekend you can still make it happen if you pick your battles and have a goal in mind. If I would have had a goal in mind last year and stuck to a budget I would have had a much more strategized approach that would have saved me money. Instead I spent extra money on flights that got me no closer to status and just put a dent in my budget. But everyone can do this if they put their mind to it. Don't view the budget as something that is keeping you down, instead it's something that is keeping you in line so you can be smart about your travels and reach your travel goals!
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