How We Achieved Southwest Companion Pass Status in 2019

Southwest Airlines and their branded credit cards offer an insane travel opportunity that make them worth their weight in gold. THE COMPANION PASS The Companion Pass stipulations per southwest.com “Companion Pass is the benefit that allows you to choose one person to fly with you, free of airline charges (does not include taxes and fees […]

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Big Island on a Budget

  Hawai’i is notoriously expensive but there are lots of ways to keep your trip reasonable, not limited to sleeping in your rental car, eating nothing but pb&js, and showering at public beach parks. PSYCH! Okay, we dabbled in those things. Greg and I just spent an awesome, like ready to move there, 8 days/8 […]

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40+ Ways to Travel More this Year

  I love helping people travel more. Not as much as I love helping people get their finances under control, because that always takes precedence over vacations, but almost. Obviously the Warckens love to travel, and we are massively fortunate to be able to do it so often. We make it a point to set […]

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Hilton Status Match Through 2019

  For a limited time Hilton is offering free status match to their Honors program. If you have elite status with any other hotel programs you can apply for a free match on Hilton’s Status match page. Chase IHG cardmembers get automatic Platinum Elite status and the past two years we’ve both used ours to […]

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New York City for (mostly) Free!

  I’ve written all about Southwest’s Companion Pass, and I earned mine February 2016, allowing G.Hammer to fly with me for $5.60 each way any time I fly Southwest through the end of 2017. In a nutshell, I had to earn 110,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards points in one year to qualify which I did by […]

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Missing money, Retention bonuses, DIY updates

  There are a few things I’ve tried and recommended lately to get and keep a few more Warcken dollars in our Warcken wallets. 1. missingmoney.com. In October I suggested everyone check out missingmoney.com to see if any states you’ve ever lived in owe you cash money. Of course I did this myself, and found […]

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Annual Fees and Credit Card Retention Bonuses

  Greg and I have a lot of credit cards, and most of them have annual fees. Some are a necessary evil for benefits the cards provide, and some annual fees actually pay for themselves. Depending on the card and its benefits, we’ll call when the annual fee is due and ‘threaten to cancel’ unless […]

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Amex Offers & Benefits

  Look, everyone knows G and I like free stuff. Everyone knows we like credit cards. And everyone knows we love combining the two. Like, did you know Bank of America and Merrill Lynch credit and debit cardholders can visit over 150 museums for free the first weekend of every month? American Express offers lots […]

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Airline Alliances

I talk about how great airline partners are all the time, but I wanted to simplify it for the generic public. Pretty well every airline you can think of a is a member of one of three worldwide alliances, with the major domestic exceptions being Alaska Airlines, Southwest, and Virgin. The three major alliances are Sky […]

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Things to Consider Before Applying for a New Credit Card

  Credit card sign up bonuses are a great way to travel on the cheap, but of course applying for new credit cards all willy-nilly can be a great way to get yourself in some hot financial water, too. If you think you’d like to apply for a new credit card, or especially several new […]

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