Expert: Stephen Tanenbaum - 1/12/2007

Question
I read your profile and I am very interested in how you are able to travel for free 95 of the time.  My wife and I are taking a trip to Orlando, FL in May for business and I am trying to find a deal on airline tickets and a car rental.  I live near Grand Rapids, MI.  I would also like to take the family (two adults, 4 kids) to Disney World in February of 2008 and I'm interested in how to cut costs on that trip.  Any tips or advice you can share would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Steve

Answer
Greetings 'fellow' STEVE!

  Greetings 'fellow' STEVE!

I wrote a five page article as the means of sharing my best FREE TRAVEL strategies with others. You will find it at:
www.cheapskatetravel.blogspot.com

Keep a lookout in about 4 weeks for my 'revised' article.

Next, our Spring 2006 newsletter had awesome free airline tickets to any U.S. destination and nearly free ($45 each way to Hawaii). I just checked and seems you may be big time fortunate that the FREE U.S. tickets deal is STILL ongoing.
We obtained TWO 100% FREE RT U.S. tickets (actually 25,000 Delta miles as good as cash and valid for their U.S. Free ticket award without spending a DIME.

Here is our spring 2006 Newsletter. Look for the Delta Airlines (INSTANT FREE Airline ticket article)
CAVEAT: This deal is based on obtaining AMEX Delta related credit cards and may not work for you if you already have these cards.

Newsletter: www.CTNSpring2006.blogspot.com

Let me also offer your our more current newsletter with other money saving deals:
www.fall2006CTN.blogspot.com

NOTE: It likely takes some weeks to get the free miles sent to your account. BUT might possibly work for MAY?

Here is a major example of how WE DO IT:  
April 30th we fly to Paris for six weeks in a 1,000sq ft. apartment at $77/day. Then Paris to Barcelona 18 days 1 BR apt. and back to Paris to catch a flight to London for one week of west end shows. Then home (S.F. Bay area). Our flights to Paris and London are free. WE used the U.S.Airways deal (in the Spring newsletter) to get the RT flight from Paris to Barcelona.

Here is how we used the US AIRWAYS DEAL: Per the newsletter article we each got 2 credit cards total cost $90 for 41,000 US AIRWAY miles. We used the free credit cards for purchases and bumped our miles to 50,000 now good for Europe. BUT no US Airway seats available sooooo we used 20,000 of those miles each for the INTRA Europe RT Paris to Barcelona side trip. That left us 30,000 US Airway miles....soooo again used the cards to increase this to 35,000 each now good for a RT TRIP ticket to any Hawaiian island even high season.

So our $90 investment saw us each obtain a free RT flight Paris to Barcelona AND a RT ticket to Maui (our favorite island). That is as close to FREE as one can get!

After you do your reading assignment...do let me know if you have any questions on all of this. You seem to be a prime candidate for FREE TRAVEL and should NOT be paying for such travel whether domestic or foreign.

ORLANDO TIP:
I bumped into a web site in 2005 that offered various Orlando properties at dirt cheap prices in exchange for attending a time share presentation. We donated 90 minutes and stayed SEVEN DAYS at the Embassy Beach Resort, with its own lake etc. They bumped us to a three BR four TV's, sunken LR 20ft balcony three baths, two Roman tubs, huge kitchen, really for 2 families or 8 adults/kids for
$35/day including all charges. This site is no longer available, I just checked it. I did find the following site in just a mini Google search. If you are interested then do further research perhaps for a deal that, like ours, includes a larger unit AND MORE DAYS....we had max six nights which gave us a seven day week. PERFECT! And the most luxurious digs we've stayed.

http://www.timeshareorlando.com/

HAPPY TRAVELS    

STEVE T.