Japanese Garden at Bosque los Colomos in Guadalajara, Mexico
Our most recent trip was to Mexico over the holidays. While most of the time was mainly spent visiting people there, there were a few sightseeing opportunities I wanted to add to the blog as well.
We flew into Guadalajara first and my favorite activity there was spending an afternoon at the Bosque los Colomos, a huge park right in the city. This part is so large and we only saw a small portion of it. It was a great place to picnic with a lot of grills available.
By far the best part of the park we saw was the Japanese Garden. It was absolutely beautiful! While the garden itself wasn’t overly large, it was a lot of fun to walk all around it and up and down the many bridges crossing the ponds. Right before entering the garden are several machines with food available to purchase for a couple pesos. The options and squirrel food and duck food and the squirrels live in the garden. It was so much fun feeding them right out of your hand! And the Koi fish will happily devour the food as well. We spent a great deal of time in the garden having fun with the squirrels before buying some duck food on our way out. We made our way over to the duck pond to try to feed the ducks and swans there, but they weren’t quite as excited to eat as the squirrels.
All around it was a really fun time and pretty cheap as well. I believe it was 6 pesos per person to enter the park and a fee for parking when you leave as well. The time of year we went was also perfect, end of December. There were a few mosquitoes, but not too many and the temperature was the low 70’s/high 60’s- very comfortable. Since I’m not a big city fan, I’d highly recommend a visit to this park for anyone heading to Guadalajara!
NOTE: THESE REQUIREMENTS CHANGE ON A REGULAR BASIS AND WERE LAST UPDATED IN 2015
When determining which airline will give you the best reward travel, it’s important to be familiar with some of the standard mileage requirements. For example, did you know that ANY domestic flight within the 48 continental United States will cost you 12,500 miles each way (25,000 miles roundtrip) in economy? If you’re looking to fly in First Class, the price doubles to 25,000 miles each way for 50,0000 round trip. Regardless of which airline you choose or your departure and arrival cities, anywhere in the lower 48 states will have the same cost.* Let’s look at a few examples for details. (Click on the images to view in larger detail- the text is small on some of them)
*The only exception to this is Southwest which I’ll discuss in further detail later.
Seattle to Orlando on united
Here you see United’s availability for a random date in May flying from Seattle to Orlando. That’s a pretty long stretch, so 12,500 each way definitely seems like a good spend.
How about American Airlines? Another long stretch is Los Angeles to New York City. I plugged in some random dates in July and availability also shows it’s 12,500 miles each way. Another very long journey that seems pretty worth it for the spend to me.
American Airlines from LA to NYC
But what about flying from Omaha to Denver- which is just a seven hour drive? You would think that could be cheaper than flying multiple connections all across the country. But again, here is American Airlines below and you can see it’s still the standard 12,500 miles each way. 25,000 miles for a trip from Nebraska to Denver definitely does NOT seem worth it to me. For 30,000 miles I can get to Europe one way! I’d way rather make a drive to Denver than waste miles like that.
American Airlines Omaha to Denver- not many seats available in July
Thankfully Southwest provides some excellent alternatives to avoid this inflated mileage costs for short routes. We’ll dive into those later in my upcoming Southwest series where you’ll see why I love that airline so much.
Ok, we’ve established that domestic travel within the U.S. is standard across the board. How about international flights? That’s where the rules change a bit. When an airline determines a mileage requirement it’s based on the departure zone and arrival zone. Typically these zones are split my continent. This means it doesn’t matter where in the U.S. you start from or which country in, say Europe for instance, you end up in. The mileage cost is the same, it just depends on your departure zone and arrival zone. Let’s look at an example of this below.
United charges 30,000 miles to get from the U.S. to Europe in economy class each way for a total of 60,000 miles roundtrip. Here’s a random date in July that I plugged in flying from Omaha, Nebraska to Prague, Czech Republic.
United flight from Omaha, Nebraska to Prague, Czech Republic
How about if we decide to go to London instead, which is considerably closer to the U.S. than Prague? Same date with United again and you can see it’s still 30,000 miles.
United flight from the U.S. to London
A comparison on American Airline shows similar results as well, and with a lot of open seats at the moment!
For the U.S. to Europe on both United and American Airlines, the cost is 30,000 miles one way. Does this mean all international routes are also standard when it comes to mileage requirements across airlines? Not exactly. There are some slight changes in requirements from airline to airline.
Here I did a search on American Airlines again, this time from New York, NY to Johannesburg, South Africa. A one way ticket in economy class costs 37,500 miles.
I searched for a United flight from the U.S. to Johannesburg as well, and you can see the mileages is actually slightly higher on United, costing 40,000 miles for a one way in economy and 80,000 for a one way in first class. Depending on how many miles you have lying around, flying first class on this kind of flight may actually be worth it since it’s so long. Especially if there are lay flat beds available!
So in the South Africa case, American Airlines is going to the better travel option. But for Europe, either airline could be good. Whenever you’re ready to start planning a trip, my first piece of advice is to choose your destination. You can then do some research looking online for which airline will give you the best deal in mileage to get there. Of course, sometimes the airline I use also depends on the current credit card offers out there- if one is offering a super high bonus then I may use that airline just because I have earned miles on it.
It’s always a good idea to do some research to be in the know of how many miles you will need. A couple other pieces to keep in mind:
1. Airlines do change rates for on and off seasons. So if you’re looking at specific dates, make sure to check in that month. For example, flights to Europe in the winter will be cheaper than flights in the summer. Make sure your estimations are accurate!
2. Within a continent, the travel zones can sometimes be split for mileage requirements. For example, northern South America is cheaper than the rest of South America. We booked our flights on American from the U.S. to Peru for only 17,500 miles one way! However this is very different than the flights we booked on United to Chile (definitely in southern South America) which cost 30,000 miles for one way. Another example is that flights on United from the U.S. to Beijing are 35,000 miles while flights from the U.S. to Bangkok are 40,000 miles. Southeast Asia is considered a different area than northern Asia.
It can seem a bit confusing an overwhelming at first, but a few basic guidelines will get you started:
Choose your destination
Do some basic research on mileage requirements to get there with the major airlines (like United and American Airlines)
Review current credit card offers on the market to see which airline you may be able to earn the most miles with. Also, check your current mileage balances in your frequent flyer programs and current credit cards.
Use travel blogs to learn about other, smaller airlines which also may have some helpful alternative options. We’ll dive deeper into Airline Alliance systems at a later date.
Here are some basic award charts for United and American Airlines. But it’s always safest to search yourself and double check that they haven’t changed the requirements. And as always, I’m happy to help answer any questions along the way.
How great would it be to fly in this seat for free?
Free flights sound great in theory- but one tricky part of navigating them is to find an open reward seats that fit your travel dates. This is something I always caution people getting excited about applying for cards and earning free flights. It’s never guaranteed that your exact dates, times and locations will be available for a reward seat. So reward travel does require some flexibility. Here’s my best advice to learn about how to make reward seats work the best for you.
Plan as far in advance as you can. Generally most reward seats on major airlines like United and American Airlines open up around 11-12 months before the travel date you’re looking for. People often laugh at me when I’m talking about planning a trip that is over a year out. But I have to do this if I want to be able to have the best chance at getting the seats on the days I want and be ready with all my information the day the seats open. Since I love planning the trips this is never a problem for me- I already have my dream destinations mapped out and am happy to start researching them over a year before we’re planning to go. Some rewards seats may last for a month, even 10 months, while others may disappear within 24 hours. The safest bet is to book the day they become available.
DO NOT BOOK ONE END OF THE TRIP BEFORE THE OTHER. Obviously your outbound flight will become available before you return flight. But DO NOT book the one right away without having the return available. You never know exactly which dates will offer reward seats and it would be a shame to find out there are no seats available on your return date and you’re already locked in to your departure flight. Usually you can notice some trends in availability. However, this isn’t an exact science- some dates just won’t ever have any seats available no matter what kind of patterns you’re noticing.
The more reward seats you need, the tougher it is. If you’re trying to plan a trip for you and your five best friends to all travel for free on the same flights, that might be tough. Airlines limit the number of reward seats they offer on flights. I’ve never had a problem booking two seats for myself and my husband, but I have heard of people getting frustrated when trying to book for their families. Again, book as far in advance as you can so that chances are higher of more seats being available
Have some flexibility in your dates if possible, even a day or two. When my husband and I booked our trip over Thanksgiving we were ideally thinking of leaving the weekend before and arriving back the weekend after. However, flights on those dates just never opened up. Instead, we’re leaving the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and returning the Monday after.
Holiday travel can be nearly impossible- How many people are looking at the exact flight you are considering on October 2nd? Probably a few. How many people do you think are looking for a flight home right before Christmas? TONS more. Airlines are smart about this and know they will most likely be able to sell out of seats around the holidays. This is where you REALLY need to be flexible in dates as chances of you getting the perfect flight to be home for Thanksgiving day probably are next to nothing. Your best chance at using your miles for free flights will be for vacations outside of holiday time travel.
This is a very basic introduction to how rewards seats work on flights. And of course there are exceptions. I’ll be explaining more of those details over the next few months.
This is my current travel style- for free it still looks good to me!
I’ve been asked by a few people now to share some of the travel hacking blogs where I get my all my insider info from. These blogs have far more detail than I do and it’s really where I’ve gotten my start in playing this travel hacking game. My eyes were first opened to the opportunities out there when I was on a business trip last January. I was sitting in a hotel room catching up on my email from earlier that day while I had been in meetings with clients, and I saw an email from a good friend of mine. She had run across a blog by a married couple who travels permanently- all year round, and they only spend $20,000. That means they’re living below the poverty line, money wise! But because of all their credit cards, they’re really living a life of luxury. I was hooked immediately and the insane hours upon hours of research began.
After that I’ve found more and more over the past few months and I’m now subscribed to them all. I receive the daily emails from them which always give me the first clues of new offers hitting the public. Sometimes I’m interested in the posts, sometimes not. For example, staying in luxury hotel lines is not as important to me as getting free flights. So I tend to ignore some of the posts about hotel cards and focus instead on airline info. Keep in mind, there are a lot of “travel blogs” out there- but these ones specifically are about using credit cards to travel for free.
Here are some of my other top recommended reads and subscriptions:
(this one does a weekly interview every Friday where they feature another person’s travel blog. I always find those emails super interesting in learning about new blogs or just different strategies.
This last year was the first one when we really started hitting the miles and points game hard. And boy did it pay off! It’s been a learning process along the way and there are things I would’ve done differently. But overall I am thrilled with the end result we now have. Below is a tally and review of our year in travel and credit cards.
Total Miles/Hotel Points Earned JUST from Credit Card Sign Up Bonuses: 465,000
I have no idea how many miles we’ve earned just from spending. But it has to be close to at least another 100,000. I am fully confident when saying we earned over a half million miles and points in just one year!
Destinations Visited:
Arches National Park, Utah
Escalante National Park, Utah
Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
London, England
Paris, France
Bruges, Belgium
Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
Fuessen and Munich, Germany
Prague and Brno, Czech Republic
Vienna and Salzburg, Austria
Budapest, Hungary
Bled, Slovenia
Cinque Terre, Pisa, Florence, Venice and Rome, Italy
Barcelona, Spain
Family in Massachusetts and New Hampshire
Guadalajara, Mexico
Chiapas, Mexico
Total Credit Card Sign Ups with bonus breakdown:
Kelly
Chase Sapphire Preferred:
45,000 points
Barclay World Arrival Plus
40,000 points
Chase Freedom
20,000 points
CITI Aadvantage Executive Card
100,000 miles
Hilton Honors
50,000 points
Chase Ink
70,000 points
U.S. Airways MasterCard
50,000 miles
CapitalOne Journey Card
No bonus
Partner
Barclay World Arrival Plus
40,000 points
U.S. Airways MasterCard
50,000 miles
Upromise MasterCard
No bonus
DiscoverIt Card
No bonus
At the end of the year after all these new credit cards, I’m happy to report my credit score is resting at a 750. It truly is a myth that having so many credit cards ruins your score. I’ve seen just the opposite happen and am living proof of it.
Additionally this was the first year of having my blog in place and it was exciting to see it come to a close with over 4,300 views from 31 countries. That’s not very high at all compared to a lot of other travel blogs out there. But to me that feels like a good start. I’m excited to share more of what I’m learning this year as well. Stay tuned for an overview of our travel plans for 2015- there’s a lot coming!
When I first got involved in credit card churning and travel hacking, I ignored anything I saw about business credit cards. I thought they didn’t apply to me since I’m not a CEO at some big organization nor a big entrepreneur. This was really disappointing since many business credit cards offer the best miles earning opportunities for what I’m looking for! But I continued to ignore them all.
I got in on the 70,000 offer for the Chase Ink card and miles are pouring in now!
That changed this fall when I was approved for my first business credit card that came along with a 70,000 bonus miles sign up offer! That means by the time I max out all the miles earning on this card, I’ll have 320,00 miles on it. That’s enough for two round trip tickets to Africa in first class! Or a whole lot of economy seats to multiple destinations. Clearly, business cards are valuable commodities.
Southwest has two business cards to choose from
Now that I wrote about the Southwest Companion Pass which allows free flying for 2 years, I’m getting a lot more questions on this deal. And part of it requires you to be approved for 2 credit cards from Southwest, one of them being a business card. For those of you out there who own your own business which supplies your primary income, this is not a problem. However, for everyone else who isn’t quite sure, read on about some ways in which you too can qualify for a business credit card.
320,000 miles coming my way from this baby
Chase offers the best Business Credit Card which is the one I have: The Chase Ink Plus. The Southwest Business cards are also through Chase. The biggest advantage is earning 5x points back on every purchase made at Staples with these cards. So when I buy $10,000 worth of visa gift cards from Staples each month for my Bluebird account, that’s 50,000 miles. The card does max out at earning 250,000 miles per year, but I’ll still take it! How can you get attain these powerful cards? First, let’s figure out what exactly a business is.
A business is an entity that provides goods or services to consumers. They are primarily designed to increase the wealth of their owners through profit- however this doesn’t mean you have to be earning a profit right this moment. Many startups take years to actually realize a profit and as most businesses are privately owned, this is quite common for credit cards. Also, many private organizations are based on a sole proprietorship- in simple English this just means it’s run by one person, no employees involved.
So, if you happen to be a dentist who owns their own practice, simple. That’s very clear and obvious and you can apply for a credit card using your dental office information.
However, say you’re thinking of starting up a business. My husband falls into this category as he’s involved with a group starting an investment club. While this is more of an official situation, you could also fall into this category if you’re thinking of starting an Etsy account to sell your homemade crafts. Or getting on ebay to sell your old clothes and other items. Or, maybe you’re a college student planning to sell back books on Amazon (a bit more of a stretch, I know). Maybe you’re a craigslist guru who buys and sells items at a profit. Maybe you’re going to have a yard sale and need to buy materials to advertise and refreshments to offer your customers. There are lots of ways to stretch it and make it work.
I’ve also heard that for Chase cards it’s possible to be approved even if the business isn’t started. It’s referred to as a start-up venture. I’ve never tried this personally, but it’s worth a shot. So if you’re getting ready to start buying fabric supplies to make blankets and baby clothes to sell but haven’t gotten there yet, you could fall into this category. You can explain that you are looking for a business credit card to separate those expenses from your personal cards. But since the rate of businesses succeeding in the first few years are so low, banks tend to be a lot tougher on approving credit cards in these situations.
Also, if you are licensed professional (realtors or graphic designers for instance) who are approved for consulting services, you may able to use this for your application.
So if you fall into any of the areas discussed above, even something simple like holding garage sales every few months, you may be eligible for a business card. You don’t have to be an incorporate company to apply, you could qualify under a sole proprietorship. Above all, just be honest in your application. Don’t make up some big fancy business that is bringing in multi millions each year- that will not bode well and could get you into lots of trouble. I used this blog as my business since next year I aim to try to get some advertising on it that could result in some $.
For any of you out there who are more interested in domestic travel than international, Southwest can be a great airline to build miles on! Chase cards transfer points directly to Southwest miles at a 1:1 ratio and that’s primarily what I’ve been using for flights home to see my family. Southwest is great for rewards flights because of two reasons. 1, they don’t have a limited number of reward seats on each flight where if you don’t book right away you lose out. If there are available tickets for the flight, there are reward seats available as well. 2, Southwest bases their reward seat miles requirements on the cost of the ticket. So while most airlines have established the standard that any domestic flight within the U.S. costs 12,500 miles each way, Southwest varies. This can be good or bad. It’s bad if you’re looking to book a really pricy flight since chances are it could cost more than 12,500 miles each way. But good in that short and cheap flights (like for me from Omaha to Chicago, Denver or Las Vegas) are often far below the 12,500 mile marker.
And above all else, Southwest offers the lucrative Companion Pass. It honestly sounds too good to be true, but it is. And now is the best time to get ready to pounce on it.
What is the Companion Pass: The companion pass allows a companion of your choice to fly for FREE for up to two years on any flight with you. They have to have the exact same itinerary as you, so they can’t meet you along the way. But it doesn’t matter if you use miles or dollars to book your flight, they get to tag along for free. During the time that you hold the pass, you can only change your designated companion twice. So pick someone who is really truly going to be your long term travel buddy! Obviously this works best for couples, but I’m sure there are some BFF’s out there too. The companion pass is good for up to two calendar years from the date you receive it. So if I was to receive it tomorrow, it will be good for the rest of 2014 and all of 2015, expiring on December 31, 2015. To take full advantage of this offer, you should aim to earn this pass in the beginning of the year so you get almost 24 full months of use. So, I will be hoping to earn it this coming spring 2015 so that I have it for all of 2015 AND 2016.
How do you get it: Any customer who earns 110,000 Southwest miles in one calendar year flying Southwest, receives the companion pass. Obviously this is extremely difficult to do for the average person who won’t fly nearly that much. You can’t transfer miles from Chase over to your Southwest account either and have it counted that way. Bummer. You can also take 100 one-way Southwest flights in one calendar year. Again difficult for the average person. The other option is to hit 110,000 miles through Southwest’s credit cards.
Southwest offers four credit cards, all through Chase (my favorite!): Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier, both personal and business versions and the Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus, both personal and business versions. For about 75% of the year, these cards have a sign up bonus of 50,000 miles each when you hit the spending requirements within the first three months. The spending requirements are usually around $3,000 on each card, so nothing outrageous if you’re maximizing Bluebird. These cards do have $69 or $99 annual fees attached, but they are completely worth getting 2 years of free travel! The best strategy to earn the Southwest Companion pass is to apply for one personal Southwest credit card and one business Southwest credit card. If you don’t have your own business, that can be a little trickier. But it’s not necessary to have a huge robust personal business to get approved for one of these cards. I was approved for the Chase Ink Plus earlier this year by using this blog as my business. I called ahead of time and asked Chase how I should fill out the application since I haven’t made any money from this blog yet this year. They can give you tips on what to do. Click here to figure out how to fill out business credit card applications.
Once you’ve been approved for two cards, you are now in position to earn 106,000 miles just from sign up bonuses and meeting the minimum spending requirements- and all those miles count towards the necessary 110,000 miles for the Companion Pass! Spending the last $4,000 shouldn’t be too tough especially if you just buy a few more Visa gift cards for your bluebird account.
When to do it: There’s no guarantees of when the Southwest credit cards will have the 50,000 offer. They showed up last month and I would guess they’ll continue through the end of December. I haven’t applied yet since I’ve already started so many new cards in 2014 and my credit score needs a bit of a break. I’m hoping that while it may disappear temporarily in January, it will come back again in February or March. If you do choose to apply for them now, that’s the safest bet. Just don’t make any of your purchases until January of 2015- this way all your miles and bonuses will post in 2015 and not 2014.
This deal is just too good to pass up. For me this would mean only paying half the necessary rewards when Pablo and I fly from Omaha out to Boston to visit my family.
Yesterday I wrote about the fantastic offer for the Chase Freedom card right now that has doubled their sign up bonus! While I highlighted some of the awesome benefits this card offers, there’s even more that you could get from that one, or just any card you use during your holiday shopping. Chase cards are my favorite and I have three of them which allow me to combine all my points together to use for travel. While travel is top priority for me and miles are worth more than the regular 1 cent per dollar on cashback, some others prefer to keep things simple and just go for cashback. Whatever your strategy is, read on for some extra benefits this holiday season.
First of all, there are a LOT of shopping portals out there which allow you to get extra rewards. Upromise is one that I use often when buying gift cards from Staples to upload to my Bluebird account (UPDATE: Bluebird no longer exists as an option). Upromise offers an extra 5% cahsback on all purchases at Staples.com. However, there are times when I do other shopping online and would rather earn extra miles than cashback. In those cases I use the Chase Shopping Portal. Sometimes the Chase Shopping Portal even offers higher cashback options than Upromise as well.
A sample view of the Chase Shopping Portal
Anyone with a Chase Credit Card has access to this portal. You can reach it by going through their Ultimate Rewards section and then selecting, “earn points”, “shopping”. You then can type in any website you’re looking to make a purchase from (Groupon is my favorite to use for this). If they are linked with Chase’s shopping portal, you’ll see their logo come up and the amount of extra points you can earn per dollar. Recently, Chase was offering 7 points per dollar spent through Groupon! A good deal for anyone out there looking to make some purchases anyway. By simply clicking on the link to Groupon and using your Chase Credit Card to pay, you’ll earn 7% rewards on the purchase. With Chase, these rewards can be used for travel or cashback, depending on which cards you hold and your preferences.
There are tons of stores available through this portal
The Chase Freedom card currently has the 4th quarter 5% bonus categories including Amazon.com purchases and department stores like JCPenney, Macy’s and Kohl’s. Anytime you use your Freedom Card at those stores or online from October-December 2014, you automatically earn 5% cashback. However, if you go through the portal on top of that, you’ll earn 10% cashback! If you’re planning on doing Christmas shopping online at all, this is the prime time to become familiar with these benefits!
Feeling a little overwhelmed on which portal to use? Can’t keep track of the details of which one has the highest offer? No problem. Evreward.com is the answer. Evreward compiles a list of all shopping portals they can locate so when you type in the store you’re interested in, they’ll give you a complete list. You can make your decision from there of where you want to purchase through.
Evreward.com sample
Lastly, I should also mention Chase Freedom’s sister card, Discover It. This is a very similar card in that it offers 1% cashback on all purchases and 5% on categories that rotate each quarter. It also has no annual fee and a side perk is that it includes an update on your credit score each month- a great benefit to have especially for beginners just starting out. I have a Chase Freedom Card and Pablo has the Discover It. The only downside of this card is that it can’t be combined with other points to use for travel. If you’re just looking for cashback, it’s a great option! And if you get declined for the Chase Freedom card, many people can still get approved for this one. So it’s another option to consider as well and Discover does have a shopping portal too. If the Discover It is a card you’re interested in.
Summary: Use shopping portals for any online shopping you do. It’s free extra money! Evreward.com can help you determine which portal is best for your needs
Chase Freedom is an excellent starting card with a $200 bonus right now! The main benefit is that points from this can be combined with other travel Chase cards so you can use them for miles instead of just the regular cashback.
Discover It: Use the private link above to earn $150 for signing up. While this card is only good for cashback earnings, it’s a great start if you’re declined for the Chase Freedom card or just need to get some more credit cards. It also includes your credit score on a monthly basis for free which I highly recommend.
Interested in getting into travel hacking? Or maybe just looking for a good credit card with cashback benefits and a sign up bonus? Or maybe you’re just starting to learn about credit cards and looking for advice on a first credit card to start with. If any of this applies to you, I always recommend the same card: Chase Freedom. And right now they’re offering a huge bonus to sign up!
This card has some fantastic benefits. It includes 1% cashback on all purchases, but the real perk is the 5% cashback categories they offer. These change each quarter, but always have good offerings. Take a look at what these included in 2014 and an example of what your cashback could look like from the 5% categories.
Each quarter you can only earn the extra 4% cashback on the first $1,500 you spend (a max of 7,500 points=$75). However you will always earn the regular 1% on all purchases above the $1,500 in the categories or any other purchases that don’t fall into the categories. Last year when gas stations were included in the quarterly bonus, I always made sure to use my Chase Freedom card at the pump. When we were approaching the end of the quarter (end of March for example) I bought gift cards to the gas station that would cover for the next quarter. I earned 5% on the giftcards and used those over the next 3 months when I could no longer earn the 5% with Chase Freedom. Once July hit, I repeated the whole strategy all over again.
Another big attraction to starting out with this card is that there is NO ANNUAL FEE! That means you can keep this baby in your wallet forever. It will build up your credit score since you’ll hold it for a long time. Additionally right now is the perfect time to apply as they’re offering 20,000 bonus points (which can be redeemed for $200 cashback) after spending $500 in the first 3 months. The spending requirement of only $500 is extremely low and shouldn’t be tough to meet if you put all your spending on the card. Click here to fill out your application! First quarter of 2015 categories were recently announced and are going to feature 5% cashback on groceries!
Finally, this is a good card to use for future investments as well. When you’re feeling more comfortable with the credit cards, you can apply for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card next. Read more about it here. The Chase Sapphire card allows you to transfer your points directly to airlines for free flights, which the Chase Freedom does not allow. However, if you hold both cards, you can combine your points and use them all for travel.
Bottom line, if you’re thinking about expanding your credit cards, this is the one and now is time!
Prague was extra fun because we met our good friend, Tom, there! It was good to see him again after he had moved back to Prague this past May. He was an excellent tour guide showing us all around the city and a huge help with the language difference. It was nice not to have to worry about it for once 🙂
So happy to see Tom!
We arrived Sunday afternoon and took in quite a few sights before calling it a night. Our first stop was a restaurant to get some authentic Czech food. I don’t even remember exactly what we got now, just that mine was something similar to mozzarella sticks. And it was really, really good- Pablo exclaimed he felt the most full he’d felt in a while since being on the trip.
Prague Castle and the view of the city
After we’d finished our food we headed up to see Prague Castle. I wanted to see it all lit up at night but also be able to check it out while the sun was still out too. We got there after the cathedral part had already closed, but still got to walk around the courtyard. It was actually good to have Tom with there to show us because it’s huge! It’s not exactly clear that THIS is the castle, it’s just one huge building. One guy even stopped right in front of it to ask us if we knew where the castle was. We thought he was drunk and joking, but he was actually serious and couldn’t figure it out! We pointed right behind us and all laughed. But the whole building and network of different areas is pretty crazy, including a million entrances, gardens and viewing points. We walked through the gardens a bit before getting kicked out when they were closing as well (probably around 6:00 if I remember correctly?). We did have some great views looking down on the city. Prague really is beautiful to look at from above with all the red roofs.
From there we headed to the old part of the town to see the Astronomical Clock. We wanted to be there in time to see it chime so the square area was pretty crowded. But we waited and were rewarded with approximately 30 seconds of noise and action. Then it was over. Honestly, not super thrilling to witness although the clock itself looks quite impressive. We wandered around the square for a while after that and Tom pointed out one of his favorite treats. Something like a long crescent roll wrapped around a long wooden pole. The pole is then rotated over coals until the dough is cooking and the dough is covered in sugar and cinnamon. I don’t remember exactly what it’s called but we bought some the next day and it tasted good!
Astronomical clock and yummy snacks
We also began our long search for a famous drink in Prague that is similar to Coca Cola but tastes completely different. KofolaWe searched high and low to find it although Tom was shocked at how difficult it was to locate. Although I passed on trying it, Pablo liked it. They couldn’t quite describe it, just said it was something totally different that he’d never tasted before.
Searched heaven and earth to find this drink: Kofola
We walked around another square for a bit but it was getting late and our feet were getting tired. I wanted to see the famous Charles Bridge, so we made our way towards that direction as our final stop for the evening. I’ve heard it’s very crowded during the day so it worked out nicely that we were there in the evening. There were still quite a few people walking about but we found it without any trouble and had a good walk. There’s a famous statue along the way and the story is whoever touches it will ensure that they return to Prague someday. We weren’t quite sure which statue it was but I think we found the right one.
Charles Bridge at night and during the day.
Tom dropped us off at a friend’s apartment after that where we stayed for the night (he was in the university dorm and said it was too disgusting to have us stay there haha). The next morning we had planned to check out Petrin Hill and maybe try out bobsledding. It was sad to see him go, but we hope to meet up again soon!
Prague Castle, the square by the astronomical clock and another square close by
Unfortunately we woke up the next morning to, you guessed it, more rain. The bobsled place doesn’t operate in the rain for safety reasons so that made an easy decision there. I really wanted to try it but it was located about 45 minutes out of the city so we were debating whether or not the trip would be worth it. Instead, we decided we would head to Petrin Hill and then out to Brno to visit another friend of ours, Radim! We had been hoping to see him but didn’t think it would work out when he wasn’t in Prague. However, since we’d already seen so much the day before and it was now raining, we gave him a call and were able to find a train time that worked to meet him. Brno is along the way to Vienna where we were headed next so it worked out perfectly.
Petrin Hill
Petrin Hill was fun, but again it was raining. We took the funicular up instead of walking all the way. It was included in our train pass anyway so we figured why not. At the top there are a few things to do like go up the Observation Tower (we didn’t want to pay for it) and explore a mysterious hall of mirrors place as well (this sounded intriguing but we didn’t want to pay for it and weren’t sure we’d have enough time). We looked around for a bit and then decided to walk down to the half-way point of the funicular where the café is. It was a nice 30 minute walk and was pretty but I was getting tired of walking through the rain. We also had gotten some good photos of the city the day before from the Castle so this wasn’t all that different. If the day had been nice and sunny it would’ve been fun to spend more time up there and maybe have a picnic. Oh well.
Brno
We headed back and caught our train to Brno next where Radim and his girlfriend were waiting to meet us. It was another fun reunion to see Radim again and he proved another great tour guide as well. He took us to the famous crypt in Brno with bodies that had been there for hundreds of years. And the crazy part was that nothing in particular had been done to preserve them! They had somehow just lasted all this time. On top of that, we saw the room that was full of bodies of previous monks who had worked in the church above the crypt. They were too poor for caskets, so whenever someone died, they would hold the funeral, then carry the casket and body downstairs to a room. The bottom of the casket was removable so that they could open it and dispose of the body in the room. Then they’d close the casket back up and re-use it for the next person that died.
Crypt in Brno
After the crypt we spent some time exploring a church and another tower we climbed to get some more good views. Brno is also very pretty, looking quite similar to Prague, just on a smaller scale. And minus the river going through the city. We only had a couple hours with Radim before we had to catch our next train continuing on to Vienna. But it was a very fun couple of days enjoying new sights with old friends.
Fire Round the World 