Jillian, Ellie, and Chris in Sevilla
Thanks for dropping by our blog!
We’re a family based in the Washington, DC area with a passion for travel and everything that goes into it. We’re here to share our experience and give our honest and frank recommendations on locations that we have personally visited.
Why start another travel blog? Well, it’s a long story so buckle up!
Right off the bat – life hasn’t been easy for our little family. Jillian had a back injury many years ago, and while you wouldn’t be able to tell from looking at her, she experiences nerve pain if required to walk long distances or do intense physical activity. Our daughter Ellie also has a unique, yet-to-be-diagnosed condition that limits the kind of foods that she can eat. As with her mom, you would never know by looking at her (she’s healthy and thriving), but she can only eat four foods. As you can imagine, these conditions make traveling anywhere, let alone internationally, a challenge.
The reason we are committed to understanding how to maximize travel rewards is the flexibility they can provide. This benefit became particularly acute for us after a medical emergency in 2018. We’ll go in-depth into the story in a future blog post, however, know that Jillian was admitted to the hospital with a life-threatening condition called Sepsis which was caused by a medical procedure the prior month. This all went down less than 96 hours before our departure to Europe. We were very lucky it happened before our flight so she could be seen by her local doctors. Thankfully, Jillian made a full recovery after 6 weeks of IV antibiotics, and there have been no long lasting issues due to this specific incident.
That day in the ER, the doctor looked at us and said, “You’re going to Europe tomorrow, right? Looks like you’re going to have to cancel.” Of course we were disappointed, but that wasn’t the primary concern at that moment. However, we needed to figure out what our options were to modify our plans. Thankfully most of our arrangements were made using miles and points, which made cancellation relatively painless. Our points were deposited back in their respective accounts. This allowed us to reevaluate where we wanted to go, which ultimately led to our 2019 two-week trip to Thailand.
While we were disappointed with our cancelled plans, we simply rebooked using points to experience Qatar Airways’ incredible Q suite!
This is why we started our blog. Points and miles are a game changer. You don’t have to sit in economy or risk losing a significant sum of money should the unthinkable happen (which it could). Our strategy for travel can be applied to your life too.
Thanks for reading and happy travels!