Jen always has her "Frugal Friday" posts on her blog (http://www.jcatanzarito.blogspot.com/) where you can learn to save a dollar here and a dollar there...so I thought I would chime in on some of the "bigger purchases", and currently for us, that is our vacation to Florida.
First off, we are going to drive down which is a 2-3 day adventure. To save money on the way down and the way back, we will be using the travel club "Priority Club" (http://www.priorityclub.com/). They have their own VISA card which for signing up you automatically receive a free hotel night for using the card just once. So every 6 months, we sign up for 2 cards each (one for personal use and one for business...magic for me, crafts for Jen), use the cards once, and cancel right away. So that gives us 4 free nights, and based on the places we will stay on this vacation, each night is worth about $175.00...so for 10 minutes of our time (sign up, use, cancel) we make $700.
Currently there is a promotion for 1 card use, you get a $50 gas card. I used all the cards in 1 gas station stop (put $3 of gas on each card) and just today our $50 gift cards came in the mail as well as the free nights posted to our account. So, again for 10 minutes of our time, we got $200 in free gas!
Finally, the best part about the cards...when you activate them, they BEG you to sign up for "Credit Protection" as well as "Payment Protection"...we always refuse both, because we've learned that a month after you sign up $20.00 checks come in the mail to join "Credit Protection" and $10 checks to join "Payment Protection". Both these programs cost $9.99 a month, but since we cancel our cards within the first month it automatically cancels these protection plans as well and we are never charged a dime. So in the next month we'll get $30 of free money per card or $120 total.
It is also important to use the travel sites that are out there. For Disney, we used http://www.travelzoo.com/ and got the deal of 3 free nights + 3 free disney passes with the purchase of 4. If you've been to Disney, you know how much money that is!...in our case (for 2 adults) it saved us about $1500 which allowed us to upgrade to a nicer resort and still save about $1000! I also used a travel site for our other week of our trip (which I can't talk about because it is a surprise for Jen)...but in any case, it saved us about $500.
So to recap:
Free Hotel Rooms: $700
Free Gas Cards: $200
Free Checks: $120
Travel Sites: $2000
TOTAL SAVINGS = $3020.00!!!
If you want to go on a "free trip", it's easy. Sign up at http://www.prioritycard.com/ for the travel club, sign up for the credit cards, use them once and cancel. Within a month, you'll get your free hotel rooms (4 nights), $200.00 in free gas cards (they are gift cards in the amount of $50 each to be used at any Shell Station), and $120 in checks. So your gas is covered, your hotel is covered, and you even get $120 for meals. What are you waiting for?!?
5 comments:
I think I understand now why our economy is what it is and why these companys all need bailed out!!! (Ha, Ha)
Just remember, if you are looking to purchase a major item, ie. home, car, boat(? he he), this process lowers your credit score. If these purchases are not in your near future no problem. Everytime you sign up for a credit card a hit is on your credit score and will lower it. Our mortgage company called to see if we could lower our rates and to check our credit rating, it lowered our score 8 points on that one hit.
Jerry
I think I agree with Dana on this one (HA!) but you guys DO amaze me with your free things!!! oh my. I can't even compete - you're way out of my league!!
It would be interesting to see what would happen if all 200 million adults in our country did this. Just the "free checks" in the mail alone would cost over $20,000,000,000.00 to the credit card company!
I meant to put that "warning" on that Jerry did...any time you take out a credit card it lowers your credit score for up to 6 months...so our credit score probably went from around 800 to 770, but in 6 months will be back to 800. BUT, forget the car and the boat the only thing you should ever take out a loan for is a house. Pay cash for the rest or don't buy it!
Wow! I'm with Dana too!!! You guys amaze me! I won't be partaking in that b/c of the hits on the credit score...we don't need more strikes! Plus, our luck, we'd forget to CANCEL in time! DUH!
Your trip will be more enjoyable knowing all the money you saved for it!!!
Good job Mike! :)
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