"Travel Hacking" Introduction
I am a "travel hacking" newbie relatively speaking...
I've always enjoyed traveling, but when it came to finding the best deals available utilizing points, miles, and travel hacks, I was a relative newcomer.
I am just a regular guy who works a full-time job as an engineer, loves to play soccer, spend time with my family and tries to balance the ever over shadowing work-life balance. Work can be demanding and vacations, at times, were the last thing on my mind.
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| Maui Sunset |
I've always enjoyed traveling and I'd say within the last year, I have taken a strong liking to learning more about travel deals and loyalty programs out there and have found myself to become almost addicted to learning all that I can about the latest and greatest "travel secrets" out there and maximizing my money for the best upgrades and perks the industry can throw at me...it must be my engineer side coming out and the need for wanting to over-analyze and learn as much as I can about it.
This new found addiction began last year during our family trip to Maui and the strong desire to learn more about the Starwood Preferred Guest program I was signed up for while staying at the Westin in Maui and about timeshares, as there are so many people trying to lure vacationers in with giftcards and special deals all around the Kaanapali beach area. I attended a few timeshare presentations, mainly to take advantage of the gift cards and offers they were throwing at us, but came away with a new found knowledge and different perspective of how a vacation could be using a timeshare.
Fast forward a few months to today and I'm a member of many programs including Hyatt Gold Passport, Starwood Preferred Guest, Hilton Honors on the hotel side among others; Alaska Airlines and Southwest on the Airline side of things and am learning more about membership in the Hyatt Residence Club.
I am by no means an expert on travel and all of its secrets, but with my ever increasing knowledge and desire to learn all that I can, I hope sharing my travels and journeys can help others get a benefit out of it from my family's experience.
I want to show my kids the world, but at the same time try to take advantage of any travel deals that I can, so stay tuned for my experiences on traveling with my family and our take on the destinations we travel to....
The Family Travel Guy