Traveling When Tragedy Strikes

Years ago, my wife & I began Travel Hacking because we realized that an inability to afford travel would keep us from being able to both pursue opportunities and respond to needs. Not only did we want to travel for vacations, but we also knew that there would likely be times that we would need to travel to be present with our family that lives states away. That proved true this past week...

This week, I’m writing a short post, because it’s been an incredibly long week. I’m currently writing this from an airplane at 30,000 feet for a trip I didn’t want to take for a reality I wish wasn’t true. This past week, my 36-year-old cousin, who was like my brother, shockingly passed away.

When I received the phone call with the tragic news, I was able to quickly snap into action. I easily booked plane tickets for our family of four to fly non-stop from Philadelphia to Detroit the next day. Then, I booked us at a brand new, state-of-the-art hotel that was located close to family members and had great accommodations for the four of us during this difficult time.

If we had paid in cash, this unexpected trip would have cost us almost $3,000, but thanks to our points, we got all of our flights and hotel completely free! In the past, our inability to afford travel would've affected or restricted our ability to be present in a moment like this, but I'm so grateful that's not the case for us anymore. We didn't have to exhaust ourselves driving, we enjoyed the convenience of flying. We didn't have to crash on a family member's couch, we had a fantastic hotel. We didn't have to stress about the cost or cut our trip short, we were able to enjoy unhurried time and be fully present with our family in this difficult time.

Travel Hacking empowers you with the freedom to be able to travel wherever you want to or whenever you need to - Whether planned or spontaneous travel. We were able to use a small fraction of our points for this unexpected trip, and we're already planning other trips that we're pretty excited about!