5 Benefits Of Signing Up For Free Travel Rewards Programs

TTT 52 - Rewards Programs
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Jenn: hey everyone. Welcome back to the Travel Mug Podcast. This is Travel Tip Tuesday, and I am Jenn and I'm here with my partner in podcasting. Meggan, how are you today?

Meggan: I am just dandy. What are we chatting about today?

Jenn: This week I want to talk about those free rewards programs that airlines and hotels offer. So I am definitely not one of those travel hackers. I know they're out there. I am fascinated by what they do but I find it really overwhelming and I know that it can seem like you'll never get enough points to actually get a free flight. There are so many things that you have to do and so many moving parts, but there are other benefits. Besides accumulating enough points to get a free night stay or a free flight. So for example, I am an Aeroplan member with Air Canada. This is the airline that we end up flying most often, and just by being an Aeroplan member, it moves me up a boarding group. And I didn't figure this out for like a couple of flights because I never put Ryan's Aero plan number In for whatever reason, only my own. And so we were always in different boarding groups, and then I was like, like, well, I'm getting on the plane. Bye Um, then you can also use the points to bid for, uh, or to get in flight wifi or bid for seat upgrades as well. So you don't need, necessarily need enough points for a free flight. You can use a little bit of points for that. For hotels, when you sign up for their free program, you often get access to cheaper prices. So like why wouldn't you sign up for an email list? And then you can also get features like mobile check-in free wifi, which you should get free wifi anyway, but that's beside the point. it's often, there are more just for the regular base program. So I actually recently stayed at a Best Western back in, I guess the end of May when we went to New Brunswick and I got a $50 gift card just because of a promo that they were running. I didn't even know about the program and it was because I was joined their rewards program. So.

Meggan: Nice.

Jenn: And then we also joined, the free rewards program for Avis when we were renting a car. And it enabled us to skip a very long line and go right to.

Meggan: I love that.

Jenn: We love skipping a line. So of course if you travel enough or you get the right credit cards, you can earn free flights and hotels and upgrades and more.

But I really wanted to highlight that there are benefits just for joining the base program and not like stressing yourself out about travel hacking and all those things. So Meggan, do you join these like rewards programs or do you even like earn enough to get free stuff?

Meggan: Yeah, I mean, I have in the past, especially when I worked in the travel industry, I had more than I do now. Honestly, we don't usually stay in like traditional hotel chains, so that isn't necessarily a benefit, but not that I wouldn't in terms of joining their rewards program. What I have, I would say is Avion points with Visa.

I haven't used them yet because of course, COVID hit and I've just kept accumulating. I'm gonna be around the world twice by the time use those. but they're in our back pocket and we're gonna sort of make that select trip. And in the past I have actually utilized air miles for, uh, a trip to a free flight to Chicago.

So, yeah, so it, it, little bit, but I guess my main one would be sort of credit card points at this point. Nothing really more than that, but I think it's really great to point out that it's not just about the bigger items, there can be smaller benefits that you can have. And like you said, oftentimes these are free programs,

Jenn: Yeah. Like all, most of them are, I mean, obviously if you're getting a credit card, it's different. It's the, uh, yearly fee and that sort of stuff. You have to weigh and make sure that the yearly fee is worth the benefits. But with these, just like free, basically you're signing up to be on their email list like, That is basically it.

And I know that emails can be a lot, you can always unsubscribe to them after.

But yeah, it's, uh, we've definitely gotten a, a few really good perks, so I just recommend looking and making sure that, you take advantage 'cause you might as well

Meggan: Might as well.

Jenn: So that's all we have for this week. You can find us on our website travel mug podcast.com. We're on YouTube, we're on Facebook, we're on Instagram. We're in all the places at Travel Mug Podcast. Uh, you can support the show on Buy Me a Coffee. You'll get access to some fun stuff and exclusive content. And please consider leaving us a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify or share the show with a travel loving pal. Let them save some money too. We're all. I'll talk to you again soon. Bye.