Dave and Lisa may call themselves the Basic Travel Couple, but there’s nothing basic about what they do to get incredible trips all over the world without breaking the bank. I’ve been following them for over two years and it just blows me away every time they post pictures, like the one above, and then tell how they got there at a fraction of what you’d expect to pay. And to top it off, they’re western New Yorkers like me, which explains why we want to travel to warm, sunny places so often. If you want to learn how they travel hacked any of the trips mentioned, just click on the live links throughout.

Philliver: How did you both get into using miles, points, loyalty programs and travel bonus credit cards?

Lisa & Dave: We actually started as extreme couponers and then realized having shelves full of shampoo, soap, laundry detergent, and toilet bowl cleaner wasn’t that appealing to us. In a random ‘date night’ class we went to we heard about travel hacking. Dave googled it, found a free guidebook and we never looked back.  We spend a lot of time researching programs, credit cards, as well as other ways to make some extra cash like bank account bonuses.

Philliver: What has been the best trip that you’ve gotten for free or very inexpensively? And how did you do that?

Dave & Lisa: There have been so many great trips! One of our most recent trips was to Grand Cayman Island for 5 days where we only spent $290 on flights and hotel! Sometimes a quick getaway is all you need to have a little refresh. For this trip we utilized the Southwest Companion Pass which gives you buy one get one free flights, as well as a combination of some hotel certificates/credit card points with the IHG card. I think the Southwest Companion Pass has to be one of my favorite travel hacks as it really cuts down the amount of points needed when your companion flies for free for almost 2 years. From there, we have expanded our trips to try First class flying to Japan for only about $270 per person, which was the best experience in-flight experience so far.

Philliver: Lisa, you like to travel so much that you became a flight attendant. Dave, do you work in the travel industry or have plans to join it as well?

Dave: I’ve definitely been considering it a more and more lately. It seems that every day in the office is one more day closer to flying. We’ve also talked about being full time Real Estate Investors and Travel Bloggers for Basic Travel Couple, that is our ultimate goal. We currently own one rental property and are working on obtaining more.

Philliver: Do you two offer any classes on how to become pro travelers like you?

Lisa & Dave: We actually are working on a Basic Travel 101 course to learn how to travel hack. That should be launching June 1st- so stay tuned on that. We also are pretty active in our Facebook group- Basic Travel 101~ points, miles and more. Lastly, we have in the past spoken at events in WNY (Western New York) and plan to hold some more in the future to teach fellow Buffalonians about travel hacking.

 

Philliver: If one of my readers could do one thing to start saving on travel, aside from following you on Facebook and IG, what would you recommend?

Dave & Lisa: Definitely look into credit card reward points! We would suggest the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card. Right now they are offering 80,000 points after spending $4,000 in 3 months. The normal offer is 50,000-60,000 points. The 80,000 points can be turned into over $1,000 of free travel. This is one of the top travel cards because of the high welcome offer, as well as other travel perks and protections such as travel insurance, lost luggage insurance, Car rental insurance, and so on. (We do have affiliate links with banks on our website, and get a small commission for recommending others to utilize them. We appreciate if anyone was interested in using our links to learn more about applying, they could go to our Top Credit Cards Page – https://basictravelcouple.com/top-credit-cards/ )

Honestly though, we are always willing to answer any questions anyone has. Travel hacking has changed our lives and we love sharing our knowledge with others to help them too.

Philliver: Lisa and Dave, I want to thank you for not just doing a great interview for the launch of my travel blog, but for also making me a smarter traveler as well. Hopefully I’ll get to run into you at one of your events somewhere in western New York. You’re always welcome to come back here to promote anything you’re doing!

Thank you to everyone who’s here today supporting the launch of my new travel blog. Please click the links below to follow Lisa and Dave, the Basic Travel Couple, everywhere you can find them online!