It’s called “Savvy Travel”…. Thousands of families are learning how to savvy travel their way to fabulous vacations every year by learning how to travel with reward points and miles! Many hotels and airlines offer great loyalty programs and it just takes a little time to learn about these and understand how they work. Learning how to travel with reward points and miles doesn’t have to only be for the corporate frequent flyer, it can be for your family too! You will be amazed at how much you can offset the cost of airline tickets, hotel costs, and theme park & tour tickets by taking the time to learn how to use travel reward points and miles. There are real life examples of how to use travel points and miles on our “Featured Trips“ page. Our current featured trips are to Washington, D.C., Maui, Hawaii, and Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida! You can view each actual trip and see examples of how to use points and miles in order to offset the cost of the trip. Each featured trip contains our recommendations on great family tours, free museums, family restaurants, great family beaches for snorkeling, what we loved about the hotels we stayed at, and suggestions on what to make sure you take on each trip to have an amazing family vacation.
How long have we been Savvy traveling and where have we traveled???
Our family has been savvy traveling for three years. We have flown to Maui, Hawaii to experience snorkeling with turtles, see color bursting tropical gardens, and swim at breathtaking beaches. We have visited San Diego, California for awesome boogie boarding and to experience cultural interactive trolley and amphibious sightseeing tours. We have flown to Orlando, FL to visit the exciting Magic Kingdom, Epcot Center, Disney’s Wild Animal Kingdom, and Disney’s Hollywood Studios and all by maximizing savvy traveling! We have also traveled to historic Washington, DC on a school tour, and I have mapped out how our family will go again in a couple years by savvy traveling and how yours can too!
What trip are we Savvy traveling toward now???
Our family is currently working on savvy traveling our way to see Pearl Harbor on the Hawaiian Island of Oahu. We are planning to stay at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort in Honolulu, HI for our family vacation of Summer of 2018! The resort features 5 pools, water slides, private lagoon, long sandy beach, 20 restaurants, and is located on a 20 acre property with lush gardens! It also features an outdoor Luau right on property! Stay tuned to see how it works out! Aloha 🙂
Who will this site be most helpful to? Is this site geared toward beginners and families???
This site will be MOST helpful to beginners who are just starting to savvy travel, and to people who have never heard of savvy traveling. It is geared toward families especially those with children, but anyone can take the knowledge learned from this site and build some amazing trips by savvy traveling. We created this site for our friends and family to learn how to savvy travel and thought others could benefit from it as well. Two of the people who contribute opinions and knowledge to this website are kids, Jessica is 14 yrs old and Emily is 10 yrs old, so they will gladly pass on tips to make your vacation with your kids most enjoyable! The other two people that contribute opinions and knowledge to this site are Mike (Dad) who is a seasoned firefighter for the US Forest Service, and Danielle (Mom) who is a stay at home mom with all the duties that entails :). We are on a limited budget and enjoy being VERY thrifty, so we are very streamlined with our travel. We like to keep things simple, and stress free. Even after three years of savvy traveling, we are still learning new things everyday and slowly add in what works for our family, with an emphasis on keeping things simple.
What are the featured trips???
Our featured trips are vacations that our family of four has actually taken and we include in each trip things we really enjoyed at each location and what we recommend to your family. Each featured trip lists a step-by-step easy to follow example of how to savvy travel the trip. We also include things to steer away from and why. We include our pick of best beaches for snorkeling and/or boogie boarding. We list our favorite tours, free museums, and not to miss things on each trip! And also include favorite restaurant suggestions!
Would it be easy to build my own trip by Savvy traveling???
Yes! You just need to decide where you want to go and what you want to do while you are there. You can then decide where you want to stay and research which travel cards and loyalty programs will help you reach your travel destination. The featured trips on this site are based at starting in the United States of America, but even it you are in another country you can use the knowledge from this site to build your trip and just adjust the air travel as needed. We go into more detail on how to plan your own trip in our free guide. It is really easy and actually a very fun and rewarding hobby!
What travel expenses does savvy traveling cover???
We travel savvy to help cover the cost of airline tickets, hotel costs, theme park admissions, and tour tickets. Our family would never have been able to experience these trips without learning how to use travel reward points and miles!
What does savvy traveling mean???
Savvy traveling basically is the art of learning how to travel using travel points and miles, along with learning how to maximize additional loyalty travel benefits that are offered by travel reward cards, airlines, and hotel loyalty programs. Credit card companies, hotel chains, and airlines are competing for your business so they are offering some very attractive sign on bonuses and other loyalty benefits these days. And for people who are paying attention and take the time to learn how to savvy travel, these bonuses, rewards, and loyalty benefits can be combined into some fabulous trips for your family!
You are being smart and you are only putting your usual monthly spending on the travel reward card. You are making sure to earn the sign on bonus within the required time frame, and you are maximizing the reward benefits offered by the travel reward card, airline, and hotel loyalty programs. You are doing your usual grocery shopping, filling up at the gas pump, and normal dining out and other shopping that you normally would do each month but you are doing one simple step first as you do it…. You are putting those normal purchases on the travel card first and then being responsible and paying off the balance of the travel card at the end of each month.
So in a nutshell:
- You are charging on the card your usual grocery shopping, filling up at the pump, eating out, etc.
- You are being responsible and paying off the balance of the credit card each month
- You are maximizing the loyalty benefits of the travel card rewards along with the hotel and airline loyalty program benefits & rewards
- You are charging on the travel card the spending requirement needed in order to earn the travel sign on bonus within the required time frame
How much does it cost to Savvy travel??? And is there a fee to use this site and it’s information???
There is absolutely NO fee to use any of the information on this site, it is all FREE and available for you to use and share with your friends and family (please share this site! 🙂 ) There is also NO fee to sign up for our free guide or to join our free facebook group to ask questions. Many of the travel cards offer no annual fee and personally those are some of my favorites. I have also found that it does prove to be worth paying the annual fee on some travel cards in order to take advantage of the travel card benefits, but that is entirely up to each person to decide.
For instance, this year we applied for a travel card that does have a $75/yearly fee, however the travel reward we earned can easily be turned into about $800 worth of free hotel nights + a free weekend night stay at a Hilton property after the year anniversary of opening the card! So in my mind the $75 fee is well worth it 🙂
How do we make money???
We may be compensated when you click on or are approved for offers from our partners through our affiliate links.
Why was this site created???
This site was created to help support our other website: www.CancerButterfly.com which is a site that shares information with Cancer patients on how to save money on their out of pocket cancer related medical expenses. Danielle is a breast cancer survivor and she learned several ways to save money on cancer treatment through grants and applying for discounts. She wanted to find a way to share the information she learned with other cancer patients. This site (through the affiliate links), helps to cover the costs of running the Cancer Butterfly site so that the information is available at no cost to the cancer patients. Plus, our family loves to travel and we wanted to be able to share this fun rewarding hobby with others 🙂
How do I start Savvy traveling???
Sign up for our FREE Savvy Travel Guide that gives step-by-step simple instructions so you can start savvy traveling your way to fabulous vacations!
Also, read over our featured trips and get inspired!
Questions??? Join our FREE “Savvy Travel Lifestyle” private Facebook group … 🙂
See ya in the group 🙂