My 2015 Wish For You

Last night, I had the privileged to be surrounded by family, as we saw our cousin marry her boyfriend of 10 years. The night was filled with food, we are Italian, dancing, again we are Italian, and lots of spirits. Around 12:30, while breakfast was being served, I wrote this message on my Facebook wall:

Wishing all my friends a family, a happy New Year! Make 2015 the year you reach for the stars. The only person holding you back is you. The first step is stating the goal out loud. The next step is making the decision to achieve the goal. It doesn't matter if you achieve the goal...it matters that you tried.

Next year, I am going to accomplish one of my biggest goals by visiting Antarctica. By doing so, I will have visited all 7 continents before turning 30. If you asked me 3 years ago if this was possible, I would say never. However, my goal is becoming reality. So, any goal you have can become reality as well....

Dream big in 2015, you be surprised by what you can accomplish...

Now half a day later, looking at this message, even with its grammar and spelling errors (I blame the open bar), its just as important: MAKE 2015 YOUR YEAR!

                                           

Somewhere in the past five years, Americans stopped dreaming. It could have been a direct result of the economic crisis with wallets being stretched thin. However, the economy is improving, so its time to put the nightmares to bed and start reaching for the stars.

As a travel focused blog, I hope your goals included travel. Have you ever wanted to go to Madagascar? Do you have a passport with no stamps? Do you have an aunt in Michigan that you have always wanted to visit? Well this is the year to start making these goals reality!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hopefully in the next few weeks, I will talk about how to make your goals a reality. For now, use the next few days to dream . . .

Happy New Year! You have a new set of 365 days to make it even better than last......

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Is 2014 The Deadliest Year For Flights?

July was not a good month for the aviation industry. In one week, there was three crashes of airplanes with hundreds of casualties. Of course, people have started to question the safety of airlines. I think people questioning airline safety is good.

One question that has come up is if 2014 is on track to be the Deadliest Year for Flights?

CNN and the Airline Safety Network have the answer: not even close. According to their analysis, 1972 was the worst year for airline casualties (2429) with 1985 being a close second with 2331 casualties.

 
With 761 casualties this year, 2014 is not even close to the deadliest. Last year, "264 people were killed in flight incidents - the safest year in aviation since 1945"was

How about the most crashes? Again, 2014 doesn't even rank in the top 10.

With 55 crashes each, 1948 and 1972 have the most crashes. As of the end of July, there has been less than 20 crashes this year.

Personally, I feel airline travel has become much more safer. Recently, a family member asked me if I am sacred to fly. My response was no. I come from the belief system that if something is going to happen to me, I can't stop it.

I am going to live my life regardless of what happens....

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My 500 Bonus Miles Post

In June, I was offered a chance to earn 500 bonus MileagePlus miles for completing 2 partner offers. I completed my 2 partner offers within hours of receiving the email.

The following month, I was received a similar offer. This time I decided to pass on the offer due to difficulty of the partner offers.

Last week, I received the 500 points in my United Airlines account. Score!

I forgot about the offer, but was pleasantly happy they arrived.

Did you receive your points yet?

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When Would You Pay For An Upgrade?

In June, I went back to Connecticut for a family picnic. I booked a combination of tickets on JetBlue and US Airways.

The trip is about 70 minutes long via airplane from gate to gate. Both airlines sent me emails suggesting I pay to upgrade my seat.

                                                                 JetBlue

JetBlue sent me the following email asking me to upgrade to "Even More Space," for $10:

                                                               US Airways

US Airways sent the following email inviting me to pay $95 to upgrade to First Class. Or better yet, be added to the upgrade list:

The question I asked myself, does it make sense to upgrade for such a short flight?

The JetBlue flight was 1/2 full. I had 4 rows of seats to myself; therefore, the "early access to overhead bin space" was not necessary. Therefore, my $10 would have purchased me only more legroom. On the other hand, the US Airways flight was oversold. The 2 free check bags is enticing. However, I only needed to check 1 bag and I used my US Airways Mastercard to purchase my ticket getting that bag checked for free.

Therefore, would getting more foot space be worth paying $10 or $95?

For me, not really. I can suffer for 70 minutes in typically coach.

Would you pay for an upgrade on this route?

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Wedding Challenge: Starting Point

Last week, I announced a challenge to earn enough miles/points to pay for a upcoming west coast wedding.

As a reminder for the challenge to be a success, I need to earn the following miles/points:


     1)     25,000 United MileagePlus

     2)     45,000 Hyatt (Gold Points)

     3)     Enough points for $100 gift cards


To ensure openness, here are my current balances of my accounts:

United Airlines:

Hyatt GoldPoints:

MyPoints:

SwagBucks:

Ultimate Rewards:

With my starting balances laid out on the table, the hard part starts now. I need to start earning.

As a reminder, here are the rules;

• No new credit cards ie no points earned from new credit cards can be used

• Can't buy points

• Have to earn the points by end of 2014

• Can use Swagbucks and MyPoints

• Can't just transfer miles from Ultimate Rewards; have to earn them from today on to transfer

Let's get earning.

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What's In My Wallet

Every once and while, I like to share what credit cards are in my wallet.

Since I have not applied for any credit cards since January, the two credit cards in my wallet are my Barclay's US Airways Mastercard and the US Bank Club Carlson Visa.

The reason I choose these 2 cards is that, first, I need US Airways miles and Club Carlson points. After liquidating all my US Airways miles, I would like to start building up miles and Club Carlson points are always great to have.

The second reason is promotions. Both cards are offering bonus miles for using the credit cards in July and August:

• US Airways Promotion: 20% bonus on all miles earned between July 1 and August 31st

• Club Carlson Promotion: 1 bonus point per dollar spent between July 1 and August 31st

Neither promotion is earth shattering amazing, but something is better than nothing. Therefore, until further notice, I will be using these 2 credit cards.

What's in your wallet?
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Wedding Challenge

In your 20s and 30s, weddings seem to pop-up on a non-stop pace. Your friends from high school & college, your cousins and co-works are all starting to walk down the aisle for the first or second time.

Photo Credit: http://www.onscreenweddings.com

Attending weddings is not cheap; especially, if you have to travel to the wedding. The costs of attending a wedding away from your where you live add up: airfare, hotel, rental car, food, booze, gifts etc. The cost only increases if you are a member of the wedding party. Last year, I wrote about Christopher Sledzik, "who racked up $10,000 in debt by attending 12 different weddings and being of 3 different wedding parties over an 18 month period."

10,000 Gs of debt from weddings. That's ridiculous. However, I can see how you can rack up debt by attending weddings. Its difficult to say no to a friend's wedding invitations. Your friends are getting married, your other friends will be there, and it you know its going to be an awesome time.  But I wonder is there a better way to reduce travel costs to weddings?

For this reason, I am coming up with The Wedding Challenge.

The goal of the challenge is to earn enough miles/points to pay for the airfare, hotel nights and a $100 gift for an upcoming wedding. Let's assume the following things:

• Wedding is located on the West Coast i.e. requires air travel

• 3 hotel nights 

• $100 gift - which I feel like is average wedding gift

Like all of my challenges, there are rules:

• No new credit cards ie no points earned from new credit cards can be used

• Can't buy points

• Have to earn the points by end of 2014

• Can use Swagbucks and MyPoints

• Can't just transfer miles from Ultimate Rewards; have to earn them from today on to transfer

Success on this challenge will be achieve by hitting the following milestones:

      1)  25,000 United MileagePlus 

      2)  45,000 Hyatt (Gold Points) - 15,000 a night or $200 worth of Hyatt GCs

      3)  Enough points (most likely from Swagbucks or MyPoints) for a $100 gift card to 

           some department store

My goal of this challenge is to show people that attending a wedding for cheap is possible not that I am cheap. For my friends and family, I would travel the world to celebrate their nuptials. However, the cost of attending weddings is one of the main reasons why people can't attend. 

Do you have a wedding you need to travel to in 2015? Join my Wedding Challeneg to see if you can reduce the cost of attending by earning miles & points.

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