Kate's on a Plane

Before I had kids, I loved to travel. I studied abroad in college. I traveled for work. My partner and I met in North Carolina, but I am from California and he is from New York, so we traveled to visit our families at least once per year. 

When our son was born, we tried not to let parenthood slow us down. I took my son along on three work trips before he was six months old. He flew (relatively) happily as a lap infant on our annual trips to California and New York. Then covid happened, and no one went anywhere. Then our daughter was born, we were overwhelmed, and we waved the white flag. Travel just wasn’t appealing when we were barely holding on, just being stationary. 

When our daughter turned three, it started to feel like life was getting more manageable, and maybe family travel was once again possible. With both of our children now on a traditional school schedule, we suddenly had all kinds of teacher workdays and school breaks without childcare. Why not use that time to go somewhere? The time seemed right to wade back in.

Except…going anywhere, even on those familiar trips to New York and California, now required FOUR airplane tickets. And because we were traveling with young children, we were reluctant to book the 5am departures, the itineraries with two stops, the four-hour layovers. These tickets weren’t going to be bargains. And did I mention that we needed FOUR of them?

In a single month, we spent $3,200 on airfare–$2,000 for four round-trip tickets to Colorado, to see friends and celebrate a birthday, and $1,200 for just my son and I to travel to California. I was flabbergasted. How did people do this? How were we going to do this? How were we going to maintain relationships with far-flung friends and family if that’s what it cost to see them?

By pure coincidence, someone in one of my parenting-oriented Facebook groups mentioned a points and miles website (10x Travel). I started reading the website, listening to their podcast, I took their free course…and I was hooked. It was so clear that using points and miles was the solution to my dilemma. It helped to realize that I already held a premium travel credit card. I had been earning these points on my Citi Premier, my one and only credit card of 15+ years, all this time. I just hadn’t known how to leverage them. I opened my first new travel card in March, and by April I was booking my first trip: a modest redemption of two flights to New York and one night at a hotel in Manhattan, for my partner and son to go see a Broadway show with my partner’s family. 

I went down the rabbit hole and now I have a blog. That escalated quickly.