• 2024 Year in Review and 2025 Goals

    On this, the last day of 2024, it’s time to take stock of my year in award travel. My goal with this post is to be totally transparent about how I, a normal person, went from zero to $60,000 in travel in the space of less than a year. Here are all the cards we…

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  • How to Get Free Hotel Room Upgrades

    Room upgrades are a perk most commonly associated with elite status, but it’s possible to get upgrades even if you don’t have status. Ready for the secret trick? Here is it: Ask! Yes, it really is that simple. It won’t work every time, especially if you are traveling during peak times when the hotel’s occupancy…

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  • When Travel Hands You Lemons, Make Lemonade: Requesting Compensation

    Murphy’s Law states that anything that can go wrong, will. While I’m not so much of a pessimist as to apply this to travel writ large, it is true that the more you travel, the more chances there are for travel mishaps. Fortunately, there are things you can do to mitigate your losses when travel…

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  • Anniversary Getaway: Fort Lauderdale on Points

    My partner’s and my anniversary is in December, just a few days before Christmas. This is not an optimal time to celebrate. It’s cold here in North Carolina at that time, and we’re always too busy with holiday events to do much.  This year, we decided to take advantage of an existing winter break trip…

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  • Wellness on Points: Miraval Resort and Spa

    When you think of all-inclusive resorts, you probably think of unlimited piña coladas poolside with a DJ somewhere in the Caribbean. Most people will tell you that there aren’t any true all-inclusives in the United States, and that’s technically true. However, there is a small chain of domestic mostly-inclusive resorts that are very different from…

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  • How I’ve Made the Most of Positioning Flights

    The term “positioning flight” typically refers to a short domestic flight you take to get “into position” for a big international flight. I live in Raleigh, but if I’m trying to get to Europe, I’m going to have a lot more options out of a major hub like IAD, JFK, or BOS (although I actually…

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