Credit Card Rewards

If you don't have a credit card which gives you points for something, get one! They are so worth it in my opinion. (Bank of America has one and their annual fee is only $30 if I remember right.) If you're going to use a credit card anyway, you might as well get some type of reward for giving the company your hard earned money....

Mine gives me points which I can use for a variety of things including travel. After so many points are accrued, I can use them for an airline ticket. I get "a voucher" for the lowest advertised fare on their reservation site. I looked into prices a couple weeks ago for a round trip ticket home to Chicago. I would have had to pay the difference from the lowest fare to the one of my choice of about $150 when I first checked. Not too bad for a round trip ticket but not so great for my current extremely "fixed" income so I thought I'd wait a little and see if the fares go down at all.

Well, yesterday I decided to check fares again and the difference was only $10! Yes, you can say that I just purchased a round trip ticket to Chicago for $10!!! Not sure that I've ever done that in my lifetime, or ever will again. Of course, it would have been better if it was 100% free but $10 is pretty reasonable and I don't feel guilty at all about buying a ticket without regular full-time work. (Gee, I've got $40+ in change in a jar in my bedroom.) If you decide to go this route, put everything you can on your credit card to earn the points, of course paying off the balance each month and getting into debt, and in no time at all you'll have earned a free ticket too. I think it took me about 2 years to get enough points for this trip. And with my current financial decrease, this is a total blessing to allow me a trip I wanted without having to go deeper into debt.

Now the fun begins...planning the rest of the trips' activities! There will be my High School Reunion, maybe a trip or two into the city, have to look into Wicked tickets again, maybe checking out graduate schools...so many options...