Author: Kate
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How I Booked a $20,000 Luxury Trip to Paris for 93% Off
When I took my children to the post office to apply for their first passports, there was a poster in the window that featured a picture of the Eiffel tower. My son, who was six at the time, ran up to the poster and said, “That’s the Eiffel tower! I want to see the Eiffel…
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Booking First Class through Alaska Airlines
I live on the East Coast, so Alaska Airlines is not an airline that I had given much thought to. When I first got into points and miles, none of the major banks were transfer partners of Alaska. Though I would occasionally see some stellar-looking redemptions for Alaska points come up in search engine results,…
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Lounge Review: RDU United Club
My home airport of Raleigh-Durham International Airport, or RDU, is a mid-tier airport with just a handful of international flights and no Priority Pass or bank lounges. Today, however, thanks to the kindness of a stranger on the internet, I had the opportunity to try out the United Club lounge, one of three airline lounges…
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Family Trip to Boston: A Cash and Points Trip
I just returned from taking my two kids to the Boston area to visit our cousins. I booked this trip right after I started collecting points and miles, so I wasn’t able to do the whole thing on points, but I was able to leverage some of the techniques I’ve learned from award travel to…
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How Points and Miles Got Me to the Floor of the Eras Tour
I’m on my way home from a quick trip to New Orleans, where I had the great fortune to see Taylor Swift perform one of the last shows of the Eras Tour. Although I didn’t redeem points to buy my ticket, points and miles were the reason I was able to get a ticket, and…
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My First Redemption: New York City
My first sign-up bonus was 100,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points from the Ink Business Preferred. Here’s how I used some of those points (and a few others) to book my very first* award trip. There’s an asterisk* because although this was the first redemption I made, it wasn’t the first points-funded flight I got to…
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How the Heck Did I Get into This Anyway?
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…
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My First Three Cards: How I Bucked Conventional Wisdom and Why I’d Do It All Over Again
Given the plethora of travel credit cards on the market, it’s somewhat surprising that there is almost universal consensus among points and miles people about how people new to the hobby should begin. I’m leaving out a lot of detail and nuance here, but to simplify: I didn’t do it this way! Here are the…
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How I Used Points and Miles to Go to a Points and Miles Conference
Fall is conference season in points and miles land (and maybe in every other land, too?), and because I’ve fallen completely down the rabbit hole, I was itching to go to an event where I could talk to other people who shared my affliction. I settled on TravelMoreCon in Dallas because of its commitment to…
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3 Reasons Award Travel is Better than Cash Travel (Besides the Fact That You’re Not Paying Cash)
1. Award travel is more flexible than travel booked with cash. Although airlines have instituted more lenient change and cancellation policies since covid, most of us are conditioned to think of air travel as non-negotiable. Even now, in order to get the lowest fares, you usually have to book a non-refundable “Basic Economy” fare. It…
Kate's on a Plane 