I have many friends who don’t know much about this hobby. Two of my really good work friends are included in this group, but I’ve slowly been introducing them! The three of us are going to Australia in August (more details on this later!) and points and miles are going to help make this a very feasible trip.

To give you some background on my two friends…

Friend #1:

*Has not left the US since before you needed a passport to go to Canada

*Has not been anywhere outside of the US other than Canada

*Has not been on a plane in about 13 years.

*Applied for his first passport about 3 weeks ago

 

Friend #2:

*Did all of his banking AT THE BANK until approximately one month ago

*Did not have a rewards/cash back earning credit card of any kind until about a month ago

 

Sounds kind of crazy, huh? But a lot has changed for them in the past month!

 

Friend #1 now has 2 rewards earning credit cards and 1 cash back card and has applied for a passport.

Friend #2 now has a cash back card and a rewards earning card, and also can do online banking.

AND both of them will be embarking on a week long trip with ME in August… it should be an eye opening experience for them at the very least 🙂

 

In approximately two months, we will be boarding a 16 hour flight from DFW to BNE… I have a feeling I am going to be doing a lot of babysitting on this trip :p We’ll be spending a day or two in Brisbane, and then heading north to Cairns… on points!!

Both of my friends applied for the Chase British Airways Visa (NOT an affiliate link!!) to get 50,000 avios. We will be flying from BNE to CNS using 15,000 of these points for a round trip flight… not a bad deal since last I checked flights were around $250! They will also be using an additional 7,500 points to return to DTW from DFW since we are re-positioning because of a Quantas sale. That 7,500 points will save them an additional ~$150.

I made use of the 35% AMEX transfer bonus to BA Avois (ends today!!!!! Read here for details on how to transfer), so I will be flying with them from BNE to CNS, however on the way home I will be flying United to get the few extra miles I need to qualify for my first airline status! More on this tomorrow 🙂