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How I Booked a Flight from Canada to Mexico, Colombia and back from Bolivia for $27

by Matt 8 Comments

One of the major powers of travel hacking comes from high-value redemptions and I decided to get really creative with our (my wife and I) points for our upcoming five-month trip to Mexico and South America.

After racking up a little more than 500,000 frequent flyer miles in 2013, I had to start putting them to good use. Since we were already planning to go to Mexico for our wedding, we decided to continue south and backpack through a good part of South America.

Using Aeroplan, the cost for a return-trip to Mexico City in economy class is 40,000 points. However, it’s only 50,000 points to go to Colombia, Ecuador or Bolivia. Peru is 60,000. Because the flight is international, Aeroplan allows one free stopover and one free open-jaw. Another bonus, though they won’t tell you this, is that you can have a couple of layovers in cities on route as well.

Let the travel hacking begin.

I did all the research I could do online via Aeroplan.com but because the trip involves an open-jaw, I had to call in and book through an agent, which costs $30 per person. No biggie.

I told the agent where we wanted to go and had them research the same itinerary that I had already researched online. We wanted to fly to Cartagena, Colombia with a six week stopover in Mexico City. From Cartagena, we wanted to do an open-jaw and fly back to Canada from Bolivia rather than Colombia. This would give us almost four months to backpack down through Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia without the need to come all the way back to Colombia.

As I had already researched this part, I knew it was viable. We didn’t have many options for the return date from La Paz, Bolivia but we made it work. I’m not sure why Bolivia is less points than Peru but I’ll take it!

After getting the itinerary sorted out, I noticed that the return flight from Bolivia had a connection in Mexico City. Thinking it would be nice to see my family-in-law one more time before heading back to Canada, I asked for a 21-hour layover in Mexico City on the way home. When I made the request, the agent told me I would lose my stopover. Luckily I knew this wasn’t true and I was able to tell her that this wasn’t the case.

I explained that a layover is less than 24 hours and thus, not considered a stopover. I also told her that I did this before with a 23-hour 57-minute layover in Chicago on a previous trip.

Suddenly, it became possible and we had our 21-hour layover in Mexico City on the way back.

It was settled.

zihuatanejo
Looking down over Zihuatanejo, Mexico from an infinity pool

We booked the flight departing from Calgary, Alberta to Mexico City where we would stay for six weeks. During this time, we will visit family and drive to the coast to get married on the beach. We will then leave Mexico City and fly to Cartagena, Colombia where we will then spend almost four months backpacking through Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia before flying back to Calgary from La Paz, Bolivia in late June. To sweeten the deal, we were also going to be taking a 21-hour layover in Mexico City on the way home, which was enough time to say hi and bye again to my family-in-law and pick up anything we left behind. We’re pretty excited about this trip. We’ll be hiking to Macchu Picchu and eating delicious Peruvian food, hiking to the lost city of Colombia, scuba diving in the Galapagos, and volunteering at an animal refuge in Bolivia. This is going to be a trip of epic properotions.

The total cost for myself was 50,000 points + $327 in taxes and fees. I used 50,000 points from my Aeroplan account and then paid the $327 with a Scotiabank American Express I received a few weeks before. What was cool about this particular American Express is that it came with a $300 statement credit after spending just $100 on a travel-related expense. It also included 15,000 “Scotia” points, which were worth another $150 in travel credit.

Since taxes and fees from a flight is travel-related, I passed the $100 threshold and then called to have the $300 statement credit used towards the bill.

$327 – $300 statement credit = $27 out of my pocket.

That same card also came with 15,000 points, which in this particular case were worth $150 in statement credit. I used this credit to help pay for my $27 and the rest towards Karla’s ticket.

All in all, I used an array of credit card bonuses and travel hacking to get this incredible trip for just $27. Actually, with the bonus points, my flight was not only 100% free but I had $123 leftover for my wife’s taxes.

I’m writing this post from Mexico City at the moment. Next weekend, we’ll take a road trip to the beautiful beach area of Ixtapa, which is where we are getting married. After that, we’ll come back to Mexico City and probably drive down to Oaxaca to see another amazing city in Mexico before heading to Colombia and continuing on our South American journey.

That’s it!

Have you ever travel hacked your way to a cool destination? Let me know about it in the comments below.

If you’re from Canada, I’ve created a membership site just for you that not only teaches you everything there is to know about travel hacking but also sends you all the deals for earning points so you don’t have to do any research whatsoever. It’s been featured in the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail. Check out Canadian Free Flyers by clicking here.

If you’re from the U.S.A, I’m currently working on a guide that will teach you everything there is to know about travel hacking from America. Click here to sign up so you can be notified when it’s ready and get an exclusive discount for being first in line.

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If you liked this post, you’ll probably like:

  • 10 Tips for Traveling the World with No Money
  • How to have 1-Full Year of Travel for $1500 per month

How to Have 1 Full Year of World Travel and Adventure For Less than $1500 Per Month

by Matt 3 Comments

Last year, my soon-to-be-wife Karla and I spent 10 months in SE Asia and 2 months in Mexico. We travelled from Canada to Mexico and back to Canada for our big departure overseas. We had about $30,000 for the both of us and came back with basically nothing.

We spent less than $1500 per month each (including all our flights) but had the time of our lives. We spent thousands on world-class scuba diving and didn’t hesitate to spend money on any experience we felt was special.

The most amazing and life-changing travel is cheaper than living an auto-pilot life in a developed country.

The cost of a car can send you on a thrilling adventure all over the world for three years. The cost of a house can send you all over the world for the rest of your life. Crazy right? [Read more…] about How to Have 1 Full Year of World Travel and Adventure For Less than $1500 Per Month

Travel Hacking with Mom & Dad

by Matt 2 Comments

taxco, mexico
Looking down on Taxco, Mexico with Mom, Dad, and Karla

It’s been a dream of mine for sometime to be able to pay for a trip for my mom and dad. I always thought it would be a really cool gift to send them somewhere unique and different from anywhere else they have been. Unfortunately, as a student/shoe-string online entrepreneur, buying plane tickets for other people is a difficult task.

Thankfully, I began to get really involved in the ancient art of travel hacking last year. I had always been the kind of guy to look for special deals on travel, but had always looked the other way with airline reward programs. Luckily, that all changed when I began to take it more seriously.

The world of reward mileage is not the same everyone. The U.S. has the best programs of all and is insanely easy to get enough points to never pay for a flight again. In Canada, it’s a little harder but I quickly found out that it’s still possible to get 100,000 points or so each year. Of course, this number can even be higher with the amount of time you put in.

For me, my deepest interest was credit card deals since they seem to offer the best bang for the buck. I did some research and ended up finding 3 cards in particular that allowed me to earn thousands of points quickly, with almost no fees what so ever. 2 of the cards allowed me to earn a total of 45,000 Aeroplan points with no added fees. That’s already enough for a round-trip to Mexico. Another card allowed me to earn 25,000 points for just $75. Not bad for a round-trip anywhere in the U.S.

After earning all these points plus dabbling in other deals, I began to realize how awesome it really was. Before I knew it, I had gathered more than 80,000 points in about 6 months. I now had enough points to bring my girlfriend and I to Mexico.

But I still wanted to get my parents to Mexico as well and show them such a unique and different place than what they were used to.

So I began to tell them about all the deals they could participate in to earn the points I had earned. At first, they scoffed at the idea and told me it must be some sort of scam. I kept on telling them it wasn’t a scam. Sure, it seemed to good to be true, but in this case, it was real.

Finally, I managed to talk them into one credit card. Once they reached their bonus points, I talked them into another, and then another. Before they knew it, they also had over 80,000 points each.

Voila, we were all going to Mexico. I offered to pick up the taxes, and just like that, I had achieved a dream of bring my parents on a trip for nothing. All of us were booked and heading to Mexico City to visit my girlfriend’s family and to see the amazing history that the city and surrounding area offers.

They were pretty amazed that these trips were paid for in points that took almost no effort to earn. The only thing we needed to pay was taxes of about $125 per person. I took care of that for them and also coached them into a free stopover in Vegas on their way home to see a beautiful cirque du soleil show.

After booking the flights, other friends and family began asking me about the deals I had found and how to go about earning points more actively. So, I thought I should create an EBook for Canadians. Chris already has one for Americans (affiliate link) but I wanted to create one specifically for Canadians since our deals here are so different. It’s still in production mode, but if your interested in buying a copy, sign up here and I’ll notify you upon it’s release. If your signed up and choose to buy, you’ll also get $5 knocked off and some other goodies.

If you’d rather get started now or simply do it on your own, here are some great travel hacking sites to check out:

  • Frugal Travel Guy
  • One Mile at a Time
  • View From the Wing
  • FlyerTalk

That’s a good start. These sites are great and are packed with lot’s of information. A lot of it is geared towards Americans but it can definitely still help you out.

Happy travels,

 

 

How to Fly Around the World for Free!

by Matt 2 Comments

view from the window seat

(This post is now being updated)

Being able to fly around the world for almost free has been truly life-changing. How in the world would I have been able to get on a $15,000 one-way flight with my own suite and on-board shower if it wasn’t for learning how to master the world frequent flyer miles? Instead of $15,000, the flight was $89 plus points. I’ve also flown around the entire world in business class, along with my wife who enjoyed the added comfort and pampering.

This is not some scheme. It’s called travel hacking and it’s the simple art of mastering the frequent flyer mile industry. If you learn the tips, tricks, strategies involved in becoming a pro travel hacker, you will be flying around the world for next to nothing. Guaranteed. All you have to do is learn the steps and then make it a priority. I have a number of articles that are free for you to read.

Sheraton Vancouver
View from the Balcony of the 4-star Sheraton in Downtown Vancouver. Just $80 CAD!

If you want to take it more seriously, I also offer some paid courses, offering you 10-100x the value of what you’ll pay. If you’re Canadian, you’ll want to check out CanadianFreeFlyers.com, which is specifically designed for Canucks. You’ll learn everything you need to know to start earning hundreds of thousands of miles each and every year and how to redeem them for world trips. If you’re not Canadian, I recommend my other course Zero to Dream Trip (www.Zerotodreamtrip.com), which teaches the same things but focused more on American deals. Whichever course you choose, you’ll be able to make your dream trips happen for a fraction of the price, each and every year.

 

Talk to you soon,

Happy Travels,

Matt

 

 

 

 

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