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8 Actions to Get Started

Lesson 3 from: Make Your Dream Trip a Reality

Chris Guillebeau, Stephanie Zito

8 Actions to Get Started

Lesson 3 from: Make Your Dream Trip a Reality

Chris Guillebeau, Stephanie Zito

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Lesson Info

3. 8 Actions to Get Started

Lesson Info

8 Actions to Get Started

It's been amazing couple of days when we started out on tuesday with the big live kickoff, talking to our in studio audience, talking to everybody out there in the world about identifying your dream destination and saying, ok, where is it that I want to go in the world and even put up some stickers on the map representing our in studio audience? We heard from other people that plans to go everywhere. I hope if you have a map at home, if you don't and you're planning your dream trip it's actually a great idea to tag it up on a map. I wanted to go to the maldives forever, and I just have a map above my desk, and I had a star on it, and I always focused on it. I think it's a good way. Absolutely. Just visualize it and make it happen. So speaking of making it happen, you know this this course is called make your dream trip a reality. It's not actually about dreaming so much, though it's much, much more about doing. We start with the dreaming. But then all through the six weeks it's very, v...

ery practical it's helping people earn all the points and miles they need put them to good use, actually book those flights, booked those hotels upgrade the experience very, very practical throughout, so it was great to kick off, and yesterday we talked about travel profiles might come back for those a little bit today heard from all kinds of people out there there's, a facebook group in which we now have several hundred people who are actively contributing, we saw all kinds of great conversations. Yeah, I talked to a couple people who are watching from singapore this morning. I was really excited because I travel hacked in asia for a really long time before I moved back to the states, and if you're in singapore, stay tuned, we might you might even be there on our own little dreams, global tour of meet up so something that made us super happy to see it was that lots of people are actually helping one another. Lots of people have the same kind of dream trip ideas or they have their own experience, which is great cause we've been filming all day way do this live session, but then we filmed all the way through the rest of the morning and afternoon, so we're not always able to be there, but other people are helping out and answering things and posting things that's great, I think we also saw that maybe american airlines has been watching the live broadcast noticed yesterday that american airlines launch their own dream trip bonus and you can actually write if you're watching this live right now don't do it right now or maybe you wouldn't in the browser but um they're offering a thousand miles if you watch six really short videos that are under one minute each and you have to answer a little trivia question but a thousand miles so if you if you never earn points in miles before right now or right after this project you earn a thousand of them we actually shared thiss what is it a tip a deal this exciting exciting information? We shared it through the travel hacking cartel this morning it's also in the facebook group I'm speaking of that throughout the course we talk about lots and lots of links and lots of resource is there's so much going on? So if you want some help keeping up, just go to travel hacking dot org's slash dream trip you can find a lot of information there we're actually going to take questions there will be responding to them there's a special offer their whole community from there I believe our community manager for the travel hacking cartel the adventures are taller too boring will be joining us at some point way on in less than twenty five and then speaking of the facebook group how do we find it travel hacking dot org's slash fb dream trip or you can just search creative live dream trip as well on facebook it's a great group there's. Lots of people in there. I saw a couple other people who wanted to go to bora board today. I think I might actually have, like, a summer meet up in bora bora next year. So okay, great that's, right? And everyone from creative life is gonna be oh, so that's awesome. We'd love to know in a moment where are where the online audiences is watching from s o if you want to share your answers and that but just briefly yesterday we talked about these dreams travel profiles. This was one of the funniest things for us. We commissioned these great illustrations from doug meal a good friend of ours, and we ask people like, what kind of trouble profile are you and there's a travel hacking approach and there's a travel profile you put these together to create your dream to travel profile. So we heard from people who said they were enthusiasts vacation ist for example, we heard from people who said they were out of control backpacker and the reason why we have these profiles we talked a lot about it yesterday you could go back and watch it, but your travel hacking approach and your travel profile will determine, among other things, how long it will take you to earn the miles and points too hey that dream trip so if you're not in control backpacker could happen really quickly ah lot of people actually identified with this one rockstar backpacker which is kind of our profile as well. So rock star backpacker is someone who's willing to be a little bit aggressive if you're not totally out of control but you're willing to put in some time and effort and energy toward finding deals and what is backpacker mean? It means you're you're a little bit flexible in your style of how you travel you know you don't mind if someone carries your bag for you and you get to stay in a nice hotel with the amazing bath soaking bathtub but you can also you know, stay in the hospital if you need to that's what you do all kind of things you like nice things but you like when other people pay for them exactly exactly a lot of courses about so we're gonna go into today's goals in just a moment but I'd love to know where people are engaged yeah let's let's take a look we have heo is from holland way have sherry bear in austin, texas who has joined us quite a bit thank you for joining us again we have I'm about I'm a robot how do you pronounce this in india um shan drill so thank you for joining us from india we have scotland, vancouver island a number of people here from vancouver, which is awesome. Jeff watching from florida, I want to earn miles to join my wife on her work trip to korea also later this year. Eugene, oregon, chicago, illinois and they keep coming in awesome this's playing this is rebroadcasting all through the night, which is really great for people who aren't in time zones that people don't want to talk in the morning, you know, so okay, so every lesson that we look out throughout the whole course has three goals. If you have your workbook, we're on lesson three, I believe it's page nine is that correct? Yes, page nine. Awesome. And if you don't have a workbook, it's okay, you're more than welcome to follow along with us and just write down. But our three goals for today are to understand points in miles basics to take stock, take inventory of your current assets any points and miles that you may already have. Maybe you've even forgotten about them. We've been here with our in studio audience for a few days, and a couple of them have said they went home to their hotel at night and they looked up some old old accounts I think it was bill said he found forty thousand miles. Hiding under the mattress somewhere something so it's a profitable course for him you've got some miles hiding under the mattress so take stock it's okay if you don't have anything and then we're gonna help you sign up for some initial accounts they're going to be working with for the rest of the course these air free accounts he's their free science will tell you how to do that if you're an apprentice this's perfect for you because this is really where you start out if you have no knowledge make sure you pay a lot of attention today if you're kind of out of control rockstar you might have done a lot of these things already but it's also a really good chance may be to go back and organize some of the things I know a lot of the stuff that we're sharing I've been doing this for a long time but there's some pieces I could go back and, you know, clean up and get in my house in order so I'm more effectively using my miles absolutely and throughout the course we'll be sharing things that are for beginners are for intermediate people in our firm or events but our first action today we're just going to kind of go in order is uh what is this adopted mindset of earned and burn? It means I think it's a great place to start because it's really foundational two points to using your point smiles and so many people just think about earning miles. This is all just about earning miles, but the real thing, the rial concept behind travel hacking is you earn a lot of miles, and then you spend them. We hear stories all the time. In fact, after our last creative live, somebody e mailed us and said, this is really great. I've earned six hundred thousand miles, and how do I earn more? I want to earn more. There were only questions, questions like what's. Next time I'm gonna earn more miles, and so we're back, and we said, well, where have you gone? And they're like, I haven't gone anywhere yet, right? And so the purpose of this course is to not earn a lot of miles it's to earn them and burn them, and miles are for spending, and we're going to talk a lot more about that in all of a week. Three when we talk about getting the the plane tickets you want, something will come back to it, and lesson ten. We've got all kinds of stuff about that number two, this is more of a conceptual thing, but I think it's important to understand why loyalty programs exist loyalty program started in the eighties and nineties, and initially they were essentially about rewarding a pretty small and narrow group of customers who flew certain airlines frequently, but these have greatly greatly expanded across every airline now across every hotel elsewhere in the consumer industry and loyalty programs have really evolved to being a huge business themselves. Loyalty programs actually earn million sometimes billions of dollars for travel companies, so this is something that is not going anywhere people often think well, like I think it's going to disappear I think my miles and points are worth something and we're going to address that throughout the whole course, but just so you understand, like it's a it's a big business for airlines, hotels, banks, it's definitely gonna be around for a long time and there's certainly things you could do to learn to take advantage of it for your benefit. We're gonna teach you all about how to get all those big bonuses and in week two, so I think a really important thing is to understand why miles and points don't work for everyone. I think a lot of people think, oh, well, I could get these points, but every time I've done that and tried to use it or my friend tried to do that and, you know, she went to book a flight and they said there was nothing there there's no seats available, I have all these, you know, united points, and I called to book a ticket, and they said, there's, nothing there or have to wait till, like, seven years from now, I think that's uh, that's a big misconception, and I think we've all probably seemed the capital one commercial, right? Jennifer garner has great hair in that commercial, and she talks all about, you know, blackout dates. Capital one is the only way you can get a flight without blackout dates. Well, that's not true points and miles really don't work for some people because they don't understand a lot of the basics that we're talking about. They don't understand how you can best put your points and miles to use how you cannot just fly with that airline that you have your miles with, but you can fly with partner airlines, there's a whole world in a whole way that you can use those miles and we're gonna talk ah lot about that all through week three and then I mentioned profiles briefly on I mentioned the goal of the course briefly, I don't think I described it very well. The whole goal is in thirty days to take you from where you are to the destination of your dreams, so it's not just about gaining information it's really about, like, totally putting it toe toe work, and we understand that everyone has different needs. Everyone travels differently. Everyone like you from a different place. They might be more conservative or more aggressive in terms of earning miles. People ask us all the time one of the questions that we get is what's the best airline. What is the best airline is not really a best airline, right? Like the best airline for you might not be the best airline for us and actually there's best airlines for different kinds of trips, there's all this kind of stuff and sometimes it's actually best to not be loyal to any specific brennan. You know, he talked about loyalty programs. We're going talk about elite status and upgrades as we go along, but actually sometimes it's best to just say here's my trip what's going to serve my needs the best, or here is my travel plans over the next year, so it's all about determining what works best for you, and we're going to apply that throughout the rest of the course. I think one of the principles that's really important is to learn how the award charts work. And yesterday, after we showed all those beautiful pictures of the studio audiences dream destinations with the numbers of how many miles it was gonna cost. We had a lot of questions in the facebook group and set everyone said how did they get these numbers? They're gonna teach us how to do this and so I want to look at the next side I showed you this slide for my dream trip to bora bora I mentioned that to get to bore bore from the us it would cost about seventy five thousand miles and this is how I figured it out. I know that most of my miles personally are on american airlines and so I went to the american airlines website and looked at their award chart and you could do this just by googling award chart and whatever airline you have the miles in and I learned by looking at this award chart that fly from north america to the south pacific it costs seventy five thousand miles return or thirty seven thousand five hundred one way if you're from europe and you can look at that same award chart and you'll see that it costs ninety thousand miles and we're gonna look at this in a lot more detail. This is just really a gn intro to get your head around how many miles you might have to earn so you can apply this as we're starting to think about in week two howto earn these bonuses just a little bit of a framework and in less and ten I believe we're actually going toe look in depth at these award charts how to figure out exactly which award chart you need to look out. We're going to show you some tricks around looking at regional award charts vs distance based award charts so you can save miles when you're planning your travel, and we're also going to look at some tricks from the award charts that you could maybe fly in business class or first class for cheaper than the price of a coach ticket. We even have a lesson on airline secrets, all the things that the airlines don't want you to know some of these things are things that a lot of people haven't heard before, so that's going to help you as well. Oh, and whatnot on the facebook group, I don't think we told people exactly where to go to it earlier, so if you wanted to be a part of the facebook group, if you go to travel, hacking got orig slash f b dream trip that will invite you to that it's, an open group for everyone, and while we're jumping in with links, um, if you've taken advantage of the thirty day travel hacking cartel. Offer that you can get teo at travel hacking dot org's slash dream trip there's a lot of there's a whole knowledge base in there and a whole lot of tutorials on some of these very basic items if you're impatient and you don't want to wait till next week when you convince watch the course that's right? Maybe even talked about bench watching that we might come to that at this point but we're gonna come to our first activity here in a moment this is to inventory or take stock of any existing miles and points a zeiss ed I know people come to this course from a variety of backgrounds which is kind of good to come to know where we're starting from s o for our online audience who's watching maybe even love to know you know as you take stock what programs are you a part of? Do you have any miles or points hiding under the mattress like down the other day? And if you have the workbook here there's an activity says take stock of the points of miles you already have as I alluded to actually love to go around the room here with our in studio audience, I'll begin on my right here with lin wei talked bring me the other day about your initial experience with points in miles but if you're comfortable maybe just tell us what points and miles you already have okay, I think we have thirty to forty thousand each with alaska and delta and probably another forty thousand points through chase sapphire card um I have two hundred thousand airplane points and I have fifty thousand merit hotel card points, great airplanes, the program for air canada and marriott hotels one hundred forty four thousand with alaska airlines and another I think about one hundred thousand maybe ninety thousand chase sapphire ultimate reward points we are in seattle and our hovis alaska and we've been using a lot of them so we've probably had about thirty thirty thousand that's great turning and burning thank you said the other day that you've been booking flights for friends as well you've actually given to me you're miles away so also great you know you should use some for yourself I didn't really think that I had many and then I looked after we spoke yesterday and I have quite a lot so I have ninety thousand aven chair appoints how is the ibc in canada and I have fifteen thousand like abby on points in with rbc and then five thousand from australia so I have like wait one hundred thousand points last night way haven't done anything you have a lesson on earning miles while you sleep and this wasn't what we're intending apparently talking about hurting small bonuses but yeah, not fast track the process and learned a lot so well done I have about fifty thousand arab plan points and about thirty to forty thousand starwood points and I think about twenty thousand american express it's uh eighty thousand points on a credit card and three thousand points on delta. It was actually a hundred twenty thousand one hundred twenty three thousand that I found seven minutes since this's incredibly before just in my more of on british airways account, which is now very live again. I also have one hundred forty seven thousand on membership rewards, and I just forgot I gave away one hundred eighty thousand to somebody that worked for me before when I was still in the east before I moved to portland, who's needed to get his family to a funeral in puerto rico, so so I was hard to give up, but it was for a good cause. Yeah, definitely got that I have about seventy five thousand on united and I think about ten thousand on virgin in sixteen thousand on dalton, I'm about bout close to sixty thousand american airlines um working on forty thousand for ultimate rewards in about thirty thousand for southwest. Excellent, we've been able to find something thousand three days that's amazing. So how about people watching online? Absolutely, we have tania who says and couple people were chatting about hbo's okubo says the british airways program okay, I wasn't sure what that one iberian together they're the same program okay, cool, gracie says I don't have any miles or points not part of any miles programs yet wayto lesson number seven number seven allison says I'm signed up for a ton of hotel programs but never get enough to use for anything we'll talk about that so well week on hotel programs on dh and my favorite thing about that was thatyou can you don't have to stay in the hotels necessarily to get those hotel points are going to be cool to learn for alison um uh rita, I am complete amateur and have a few points on capitol one visa and some s s points about twenty thousand miles soon I will have some loo times of miles to sew a combination of people starting with nothing tio some people who are on their way even those people who are watching who have zero miles right now within the ten minutes I can assure you that you could have a thousand american mind, so we're multiplying miles all over the world that's one point lots of other deals have been coming out it's actually a really good season for deals for everybody who's watching a lot so for a drink and I think gracie, if I'm not mistaken mentioned that they don't have any miles they're just getting started so here's what you can do this is point number seven exactly so I think just to start out it's really good to have one or two or three programs that you're registered in for airline miles, so my recommendation is that if you're watching from the u s sign up for one program in each of the airline alliances tomorrow we're going to explain what airline alliances are so if you don't understand what that means just do what I'm telling you and then tune in tomorrow and we'll explain exactly why you did that but I recommend sign up for united program sign up for american and sign up for delta and when you sign up for that american mileage account, click on that bonus it's posted in the facebook group and it's also posted in the travel hacking cartel on that free offer you can get that and just start there if you're from canada, maybe you also want to sign up for air a plan as well. I'm sure you want to sign up for our plan as well maybe sign up for that instead of united because they're also in the same in the same alliance and so and if you're watching from a different country, I would recommend sign up for the national carrier in the country that you're watching from here in germany make sure you've signed up for the lipton's a program if you're in thailand make sure you sign up for the thai airways program here in singapore singapore airways program absolutely so you probably don't want to go out and sign up for thirteen programs or something like that. We really want to focus the course on helping you in the points and miles for that dream destination, but I do think it's helpful to have atleast one account in the major alliances against stephanie said, don't worry about that just what that means for internet right now, just sign up if you haven't, and you said if people in the us, they should sign up for a united american and delta, but I think maybe even if they're not in the u s actually might be good to do that. In addition to signing up for their national carrier, because the u s airlines aren't always the best, but the mileage programs, the loyalty programs often tend to be quite favorable, and you can sign up for those and earn miles and points from anywhere in the world that american not airlines deal, for example, anyone could get those thousand miles, I believe, so we definitely recommend on redeem those miles from anywhere in the world. In fact, for a long time, when I lived in asia, I had it, I didn't have the united the count, I had a thai airways account, and I primarily kept to my miles for star alliance in that tire weighs accountant there's all kinds of things you do you can do, but you need the accounts first it's all free to do this there's no commitment or you'll have to use your credit card or anything and you have a place to put all the miles that you learn in week two exactly when you find miles into the mattress here's where you could so while you're signing up for things maybe not right now maybe like right after we finish the broadcast or in your other tab, you also want to get registered for at least two hotel loyalty programs. So when we went around the room here, a lot of people in the studio audience talked about having marriott points or having starwood points or something else, so it's good to have both airline points and hotel points and some other points too, but we'll come to that later come in here and just ask, could you just explain what points and miles are and what's the difference between prince and miles? Because we actually got that question a couple of times in the facebook group? Yes, yeah, yeah that's a great question something that we don't think about essentially they're interchangeable I mean it points in mile the words are interchangeable not not the points about themselves, but the words are interchangeable miles tends to refer to airline miles points tends to refer to the currency that you used for hotel there is some variation and interchange of that like obvious is called obvious points even those air used even though those who used for flights so more or less when we say points or miles we're talking about this anything so while you're signing up for points in miles accounts, you can go and get registered for two hotel loyalty programs as well if you already know what you want to do with that that's great, but we also have some just in general recommendations we talked about starwood briefly starwood is a global brand or global hotel group with a very large footprint properties all over the world we probably recommend just about everyone to sign up for that unless you have some reason not to and we're gonna explain this more in week two but starwood points even though they're in a hotel group are actually really valuable for purchasing flights, you can kind of turn those into airline miles that's, right? So points in miles can't always be transferred but there are some exceptions and starwood is a great one, so we definitely encourage everyone to sign it for that and then we would encourage you to pick one of the other four got hilton, mariott, ty, h g and hyatt you could pick more than one, but again we're not trying to tell people to go nuts here unless you're out of control profile that way have more pick one that's more relevant to you if you know of another hotel group that's not one of these that's absolutely right so for example, if you live in canada or maybe in parts of asia the fairmont brand might be a great one to sign up for if you look somewhere else and there is a local group, then that might also be good to sign up for but the ones we mentioned in the beginning they really have this broad global footprint there actually relevant to people everywhere so we recommend he would sign it for starr, right? Maybe at least one more and after that you're kind of on your own and then there will be a lot more information in week for us in an entire we talking about hotel groups and properties and how to stay for free in week four so absolutely yeah, well and so this may be leads to a common question since we talked about signing up for all these different things right? Should you earn miles and points in more than one program? And I would actually love to ask our in studio audience we've been with them for a couple of days now they might have different answers, so maybe we should ask them we could actually throw that out online as well be curious to know if people are just I want to do one program if they want a kind of diversify I won't talk about that so should you earn miles in more than one program casey yeah I'm personally like you because I feel like it's um I could diversify my traveling and you know I feel like with multiple counts or might be multiple offers or promo that are going on that uh that I can crew mileage overtime so I think it's better I mean just me personally to diversify my account so I'm not solely waiting for one airlines or no hotel yeah well said anyone else think for me it's it's it's scary to do too because you don't want to be like oh I have all my miles in this one and like all but the flight that I want it in this one I guess that's all about planning but a big thing for me is like my dream trip which would be awesome but also like trips home to see my family and so being able to diversify with that because they both don't not the same program so that's I think I would like to try and go in in a couple different directions with so we gotta yes we gotta yes scott for me I like building miles and points in the alaska airlines program because I'm pretty much embedded in that and in addition earning the miles I get this status which is also important but the other program that I really like is thie chase sapphire preferred because I can move those points like I did for our hotel stay here at a whim and so they are very flexible. I really appreciate that flexibility so that helps maybe a couple of programs that's an interesting strategy especially because scott's located in alaska and it really works well for you live so focusing most of your earning on one program and then having your other program you're focusing earning on being one that's really flexible so you have one that you know you can use a lot and gives you great benefits that you need and then one that you can use to move about for your other trouble it's a great strategy yeah it's almost like a savings account you know, like if you have a savings account you could have an emergency savings. You know, you could have a holiday shopping savings like like a sub preserve, you know, you could have long term savings so you have this one thing that you're focusing number then you also have something else. Yes on that is many of us in alaska do regard our alaska airlines mileage accounts as a savings account particularly for lastminutetravel get out to see family medical emergency kids write all that stuff so that's that way do you is that that's great savings accounts I just I like to think about when we're earning miles and different programs, I kind of like to think about it, like you're putting miles into different banks and one of the things that we don't actually address in this lesson here, but I think is really important to understand when you're starting out when we talk about this more in in actually tomorrow's lesson, but you actually can not combine the miles that you're putting in these different bank accounts. So that's one thing just to keep in mind as you're signing absolutely good point, and kendrick say something, uh, originally I was just with airplane, but after learning from everyone here and you guys, I learned that if I were to go with alaska airlines as well and start accruing points with their program, I could actually think some domestic flights that's cheaper and an airplane so that's one benefit the other thing is that with airplane, you can only use american express cards and not a lot of places take those. So if I were to try with alaska airlines, I can get a mastercard, and I can use it in other places so I can maximize my my points, learning by doing that that's fantastic, any comments from watching online, so money don the musical, saying I would like to see stay loyal to a few programs debs is saying I'm signing up for multiple hotels and airlines already have united a couple of credit cards of earning miles on let's see tracy dee says we have one airline, one hotel chain and one generic credit card, but I'm interested in diversifying for sure and shandra l have only starting I've only just started collecting miles so I don't have multiple plans yet and probably a lot of people like that that's why you're in the right place that's that's great clarifying question for you so stephanie, you just said that you can't combine them from different programs but then previously like the star would you khun transfer, can you just talk about the differences? So we're going to talk a lot more about kind of these flexible programs that air managed mostly by banks we're going to talk about that in week two, I believe lesson seven and there are programs like starwood in the chase program that scott mentioned you're earning those in a bank program like american express. A lot of people are familiar with membership rewards. Those programs have transfer partners so you can you earn them in a program like ultimate rewards and then you can transfer them whenever you want into any of the mileage programs or hotel programs that are there that that are their partners, but if I have if I'm earning miles in delta and miles in united, I can never put those miles together to earn a ticket to get a ticket, so if I have forty miles forty thousand miles in one place and forty thousand miles in another place, even if those airlines air in the same alliance, I can never combine those miles to have eighty thousand okay, so maybe the best answer is maybe perhaps, if you're very miles and points in more than one parking my generally think it's good, I love cases point about diversification and greater options. That's what that's, what I do know that's, what you do is well, I would say it just remember yesterday, though, where are you? What is your profile? What is your speed? You might have heard someone here say I've got three hundred thousand miles and I have these seven programs I'm so far behind. Well, if you have one or two programs and you're focusing on that, that might be the right thing for you if you're a vacation ist and you're just trying to earn one urn miles for one specific vacation you don't need to run all over and chase deals in every single program, you might just need one hotel program and won airline program into put miles in the ones you need so it's all about you. That's, right? We often hear questions about people feeling overwhelmed, and I would rather people if they're facing that, I would rather than just earn miles and points in one or two programs for this trip that they have in mind take that amazing trip, maybe later they can upgrade their experience, you know, and also don't worry about missing out, maybe that's another good point? That hasn't really been in our slides, but there are always more deals, they're always more offers, you know, you don't have to feel like I have to I have to be part of everything. I have to take part of it, you know, because these programs are huge, we seymour deals every week if you missed something this week is probably something great, and I personally curate all the deals for the travel hacking cartel, and so I actually do every deal that's out there just because I make sure it works for everyone. She has a lot of miles, you have a lot of miles in points, but I know there's a lot of things out there, and I know that there's always new things coming up, so if you miss something today, don't worry. If you missed something this week, don't worry there's going to be new, exciting deals and things happening. So before we go to the dream trip challenge every day has it as a challenge for the online audience, we'd like to ask our in studio audience as well as anybody watching online. If you have any questions about what we talked about thus far, just keep in mind that there's so much more to come a lot of questions are you asking about details and such? But we still have to help anybody getting started with these eight actions. Yeah, we do have some questions coming in and and again, I just want to address that some of these questions will be answered as you watch the boot camp as we go forward, but some of these air some good basic ones to know, so that you're you'll be sure to tune in. So we have my name is in a hall, and I want to ask, what are your thoughts on working these strategies beyond america? I mean, as I'm asian, I'm an indian, so I'm also twenty one I'm working towards my first abroad trip so again outside of the u s I think there's definitely, um, there's definitely ways that people outside of the u s can earn miles I know we had a number of people in the facebook group asking the same question and kind of linking up with other people from their own country. I think that's great. There are lots of ways like chris just mentioned when we talked about signing up for programs air india is in these star alliance, I believe and, you know, so signing up for united's program might actually be really strategic for him based in in india because he could be earning miles through a lot of these online deals now and in india, I also believe there's a number of credit cards that are available as well as a star would actually has a really great program in india, and I think I actually tell some tell you the story and in the hotel lesson about how I might have moved teo teo sometime to take advantage of a great program there. So there definitely are deals related specifically to different countries, and we do a dress actually a lot of international deals in the travel hacking cartel. We will address a lot of those international questions in the facebook group, too. So maybe the point about the deal for india was it was actually a better deal india was in north america s o so there are some times that it actually advantageous to be in india or somewhere else any questions from the in studio audience we have more coming in on. Okay, let's, wait for a couple of days, they're way cool. So the question is, I want to manage mine and my wife's miles, are there ways to consolidate or are we always treated separately? Boom! There are not ways to consolidate for, say, but this is actually to your benefit, because you could earn twice as many points to miles if you're doing this with a partner, espouse your traveling companion or just a friend, all the offers that we talk about, you know, could be signed up for individually. Yeah, double up you can double your bonuses now in terms of maybe not consolidating are combining their certainly ways of tracking them together, and we'll be talking about that and a couple of ways, of course, especially towards the end. And if you download on our our speed, p page there's, a downloadable work shape the seven habits of highly effective travel hacking couples, and they talk about how they manage their miles together in some tips for earning miles as a couple. And I will also say that the only exception to being able to combine your miles is british airways. They offer family account, so if you're traveling as a couple or family, you can actually put everybody together in a household account. Rations maybe the last point on that is if you have miles or points in your account you could use those miles and points to book flights or hotels for anyone else we've heard from some of our in studio audience cherie was saying she would have had a lot more miles if she hadn't booked flights for other people so that was kind s so you don't have to worry about earning all the miles for yourself not the other person during all the miles for themself if you have more if they have more you can kind of work things together you just can't combine them directly okay that is great great notes we do have a couple more really good questions if that's alright okay uh do you recommend setting up a single email address for registering for travel hacking for like all of the deals perhaps they were worried about your thought I'm not the greatest female manager I have a lot of people come in to my same account probably worse in chris I think that it really depends on what your email what your email hi jane is how you set up your own in a creative way of course about managing your e mail address that it might be it might be you might like set up a folder or something I personally use my main an email account but I also kind of do trouble hacking for part of my living so maybe I have a bigger interest if you're out of control maybe you don't mind that your whole email address your inbox is full of things, but we also talk about this a lot let later in the course but sometimes you might actually set up a second email address and you can take advantage of multiple different kinds of deals once or twice or get the same deal and get miles for different partners so great. All right, we've got a question here and then I have one more for the internet email addresses I realised that through my main on address that I use for myself go daddy, I have the ability to set up about one hundred different forwarding accounts and they can all end up in a bucket but you're it makes it much easier to think of it, you know? So I was even debating now you know should I have one for each airline group you know, like star alliance you can buy your elder cam, that kind of thing. Okay, so great. So you can add a bunch of autism called daddy from female is, well, it's a different thing sheriff, I personally was going to say about email I love seeing the subject line go here for kind of inspired very motivating for me that's good thanks for jumping on you not forget this psychological aspect of all of this is right could be kind of fun to get miles so all right, so final question in this live less and three if I'm in the first year or two of self employment I'm a designer artist do you think travel is something I should hold off on? I feel like I could wait forever but if I wait when I travel when I when I sorry but when I mentioned travelled to some people I get raised albert I'm rows in terms of like how are you able to go travel now you're working for yourself that type of things that are interesting interesting who is this class for? And should anybody be waiting well, that might be raised eyebrows of jealousy you don't sit in a cubicle and you want to do design work from bora bora stuck in this job so actually no I don't they should wait forever it's a hard question let me think should they wait forever? No, I don't think so. You know I get from people sometimes that get stuck because you're like I want to take this I want to go somewhere but I don't know where to go that's what we talked about identifying your dream destination and really just have to go somewhere look, I've got five options you know? How do you choose if we got five options you just pick one right, because you can always go back, you know, you can always go to other places, so I don't think I think what I would suggest is as someone who does freelance work, if she's just starting out, maybe a good thing would be teo, you know, pick a destination and go for, say, two or three weeks that's not a huge amount of time and it's not a short amount of time, but that would be a really kind of good litmus test if working on the road is something that she would be able to dio so it would kind of test the waters, and she could see if it's longer term travel while maintaining her freelance lifestyle worked for her great question. We'd love to noah's well, from our in studio audience, I know they've been with us for a while, so they may already know a lot of this, but what's the most important thing that you learned through this lesson of this experience? Yes, jim, uh, that you can't combine your points within alliances that you have to be able to just do one and put everything into that little bucket there. Anyone else? I'm so excited to know that it may be cheaper to get a business class that is great weight even know where we're going to talk about exactly how to do that anyone else think it's important for people to realize, just kind of come to agreements that you're not missing out. I think a lot of people feel like, you know, if I don't travel by a certain time or a certain age, like I'm missing out on dh that's, not the case. It's, it's at your own time and your own convenience.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

40 Ways to Use Ultimate Rewards Points
Dream Trip Workbook
7 Habits of Highly Effective Travel Hacking Couples
Dream Trip Credit Card Tracker
Upgrade Unlocked Sneak Peak
10 Tips for Travel Hacking Families

Ratings and Reviews

GratefulSoprano
 

Highly recommended! This is one of the best CreativeLive courses I've ever taken and a great value. There's a lot of excellent information here, presented in a fun and accessible way. The CL "boot camp" approach was perfect for this topic because it dispenses the material in bite size pieces with very doable action steps along the way. The corresponding Facebook group adds even more value and camaraderie. It's a great place to clear up any questions or confusion that may come up. What an amazing resource! By the end of the course, not only will you have learned a tremendous amount, you will actually have something tangible to show for it!

a Creativelive Student
 

This is a fabulous course. Stephanie and Chris are both so knowledgeable, helpful, and easy going. They clearly love and practice what they're teaching. And they're open to learning from the students too. The course is packed with information, delivered in an immediately useful way. In fact, they emphasize again and again that the point is to USE the information to REALLY take your "Dream Trip" soon! The Facebook group is the best I've ever experienced with an online course. Stephanie and Chris are remarkably present, responsive, understanding, and generous with their knowledge and experience. I highly recommend this course.

Student Work

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