Travel Inspirations!

Often time, we come across the question as to why do we collect the points? I mean really at a very basic level, forget about the cash back but many of us are in this for airlines miles or hotel miles mainly or some other thing which would help us reach that travel goal quickly. So at the core of it all lies the desire to travel and explore new geography, culture, history about a place and more importantly the nature and spiritual aspect of it. Meeting the people, having the local food, the travel part itself, just roaming around the planet, making new friends, checking out how different and yet same the world is, maybe checking out a beautiful part of this planet earth before it could be possible gone in this ephemeral existence. If you look at the big picture, from a very very high altitude, you will realize that travel is one of those things that will stay with you as a core experience. They say life should be made of stories and experiences and not just accumulating materials and human made stuff or accolades. The latter is pretty cheap and withers down quickly and it easy. The former though it really great. Nothing matches the majesty of the giant Sequioa trees. Or really even a place like New York City at night is stunning. So experiences and travel are what makes your memories and you as a person. 

Towards this, I came across a very wonderful blog which I wanted to share with you all. http://worldbicyclist.com/. Kudos to this person for simply taking time off and travelling so much part of this world. I wish and hope someday I am able to travel large parts of the world. Or at least the big countries and couple of smaller and cooler ones such as Nepal and Indoneasia among others. 

This person also did a cool AMA today on Reddit ( for those who know me know that I spent an insanely large amount of time on that site which I am going to cut down pretty soon ;) )

Link to the AMA: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3ay40s/ive_visited_125_countries_on_a_15_a_day_budget_ama/

Anyhow, have fun and keep kindling that desire to travel more in life!

Buying airline gift cards ..

There is no major news going on these days in the credit card world. Chase has tightened some rules around credit card issuance. Citi continues to put some good credit card offers. But no one had really upped the game. Then this is also not one of those time of the year with great offers. As promised at the outset and remaining true to this blog's values, if there are no news worth your attention or my attention, then there would be no posting either. There is no point in having a financial or credit card blog roll with daily 1 or 3 posts minimum to satisfy advertisement view page requirements. 

One idea that stuck me while meeting recent cards spending requirements is the buying of airline gift cards. While this is kind of obvious in that one buys gift cards of grocers/restaurants and shops that one visits often; the airline one stood out. While the goal of this blog is to generate points and thus free travel, often times it is good to bulk up on cards from domestic airlines which have a hub nearby. United or Southwest or American - all of them are good with hubs in many places. Southwest and Jetblue fly to a lot of destinations. In such cases, it is better to load up on gift cards from this. I fly southwest a lot and will be using them for sure in many instances. So it makes sense to load up on SW gift cards as they never expire. Just an idea- many of these obvious but we kind of miss them in our daily grind of the lives as well as not having a clear tip on what we can and cannot do.