Travel hacks
Normally when I travel, I like to go outside and stay outside. Or I like to go to places that are a bit more off the beaten path. Countries people might not known how to locate on a map. Places like the Fareo Islands, El Salvador, or Ecuador.
Sometimes, though, it’s fun to go to a place that everyone has heard of and really make the most of it. That place happened to be Italy.
We went there last fall and had an absolutely amazing time. The sights, the food, the vino, and the locals were all exactly what you would have expected and hoped they would be. Highlights included exploring the Renaissance-steeped Florence with it’s remarkable Duomo Cathedral and tootling around the Italian Riveira / Cinque Terre and basking in the Mediterranean vibe.
We also managed to do some trekking in the Italian Dolomites, though a shoulder season snowfall put a damper on the last day we were out there.
The one downside of traveling to Europe? It’s expensive! That’s where a little travel hack called credit card churning came in. We covered 7 nights in a hotel + a rental car for the whole trip via credit card reward points. How? Using the sign-up bonus from my Chase Sapphire Reserve card.
The CSR is undoubtably one of the best cards out there, with redemption values that are 1.5x better than competing cards all while earning 3x points on travel spend. The sign-up bonus alone gets you up to $750 in free travel. We used it strategically for the aforementioned trip to Europe.
The other nice thing about taking a bank up on a big referral bonus - you get to stick it to the big banks, all without hurting your credit score!
Intrigued? Check it out! (full disclosure: referral link)
I always get card offer envy when I look at all the bonuses offered on US cards vs Australia :(
No good bonuses down under?
There's the occasional tasty frequent flyer points bonus after signup and a minimum spend, but usually, you are ineligible if you have already held an account/card with the bank in the past 24 months. So with only 4 major banks to bounce between, "card churning" is not quite as lucrative.