September 23, 2024 • 23 mins
Can travel save your marriage? Discover how taking a break from daily routines and responsibilities can reignite the spark with your spouse. We promise you'll learn how to plan a romantic getaway that won't break the bank, offering a fresh, fun, and effective alternative to costly therapy or divorce.
Join us as we delve into the financial and emotional benefits of traveling together. We'll share our personal stories and practical tips for booking affordable trips, from selecting budget-friendly airline hubs to maximizing your travel points with programs like Southwest Airlines. By the end of this episode, you'll see how regular, affordable travel can be a valuable investment in your relationship, offering a much-needed escape from day-to-day stress.
We'll guide you through the nuts and bolts of planning an enjoyable and cost-effective trip. Learn how to filter hotel searches for the best deals, read guest feedback, and use ride-sharing services as a budget-friendly alternative to rental cars. Plus, we'll highlight the importance of flexible scheduling and making time for each other. Don’t forget to join our YouTube community at Travel Point Pros for more tips on maximizing travel points and miles, and make sure to prioritize those getaways to keep your relationship thriving.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You are listening to, travel is Cheaper than Divorce.
This podcast for all those whomay be struggling with their
spouse or their children and therelationship with them.
We help give you tips andtricks by using travel as the
means to be able to help yourrelationships with your family.
I'll provide those tricks andother ways to help travel with
(00:29):
little or no cost, so let's getinto it.
So one of the things the systemactually believes the system
believes that you, if you'rehaving problems in your marriage
, is the thing that you shoulddo is to get a therapist.
That you need to take the storythat you have with your spouse
(00:55):
and stick it behind closed doorsand talk to somebody who can
just give you advice on how tothink or how to talk to each
other, or whatever advice on howto think or how to talk to each
other or whatever.
I'm not here to tell you thatthat doesn't have a place
anywhere.
It is possible that might bethe route that is the best, but
(01:15):
I'm here to tell you that theremight be an alternative.
Now this is part two of atwo-part series, two-part
episode, because the firstepisode, dal, talked about why
it's important for you and yourspouse to get away from your
children, and in this episode Iwant to talk about the how to do
it, almost like a step-by-stepand in a way that is possible
(01:37):
for you and your spouse to dothat now.
Because, as I alluded in thefirst episode if you haven't
listened to that, I would dothat.
In the first part of thistwo-parter, I alluded to the
fact that the system that I havebuilt, that I keep talking
about, takes time to build Not alot of time, but still some
(01:57):
time and you need to get awaynow.
But you can listen down on yourown.
So in this episode I want tofocus on the how, the
step-by-step on how, becausepeople think that they don't
have the money for it.
Right, we talked about thatalso earlier.
In this way, I want to be ableto teach you and tell you
(02:21):
step-by-step how you can and howit's actually cheaper than, say
, a therapist or a divorceattorney.
Full disclosure I have neverbeen to a.
My wife and I have never beento a marriage counselor,
(02:42):
marriage therapist.
This is the route we ran.
Instead.
It's a much funner route, Iwould say, than sitting in an
office for 12 hours a day or not12 hours a day, sorry, so
sitting in a therapist's officefor an hour a week talking about
(03:02):
your issues with each other andpossibly even making it worse.
I don't know what thepercentages are on how much
marriage therapists actuallyhelp, but this is the route that
I believe.
In my experiences that isbetter.
Anyways, I spent last episodetalking about that.
I'm going to tell you how youcan travel now, now, now, now,
(03:26):
now, now and not worry about thesystem right now, because you
don't have time for that, like Isaid in the last episode.
So the first step in doing anyof this is you got to find
yourself a destination.
But before we get there, let mejust give you a quick idea of
money here.
Money is pretty cold, so Idon't like to spend a lot of
(03:49):
time in this podcast speakingabout that.
But as we are talking about astep-by-step on how to do this,
I want you to understand thecomparison in the numbers, as I
am a numbers person.
In that way, the average Iwould say and it might even be a
little bit higher, it might belower, but the average session,
say, with a therapist, maybe$100 a session, over a quarter,
(04:12):
most therapists once you meetwith them once a week, so over a
quarter.
You're looking at about $1,200in therapist fees.
That's a lot of money to talkto somebody.
I think Also another thing youmight be aware of or may or may
(04:32):
not be aware of and I hope youaren't aware of it because you
didn't have to look into it butthe average cost to hire a
divorce attorney is $11,400.
That's pretty expensive.
Traveling is cheaper, guys.
(04:54):
Traveling is cheaper than atherapist.
Traveling is cheaper than adivorce attorney.
A therapist, again, may help,but even if you're not to the
point of divorce and you're justthinking about therapy, that
could be a route.
I'm not telling you not to doit.
(05:15):
I'm telling you the route thatI ran Because you don't have to
have luxury vacations now.
I want you guys to get there.
That's the point of the systemthat I built, or I learned, and
then I'm teaching.
I should say I just built theeducation on how to do it.
I want you to be able to travelnow because it's important to
(05:36):
save your marriage.
So what my wife and I did is wedid once a quarter.
We went and traveled, even ifit was just for a day or two,
sometimes it was never, it wasnever overnight and we went back
home.
I don't feel like that wasenough.
She didn't feel like that wasenough for, especially with
travel, getting out of the areaat least two hours away, getting
(06:01):
out of the area at least twohours away Our shortest trip was
at least two hours away.
But how we did it is this way.
I want you to keep in mind inyour mind $1,200.
That again, as I told youearlier, is the average cost for
(06:27):
not even an average cost, justmy experience cost in therapy,
doing therapy for $100 a weekover a three-month period or a
quarter.
The first thing you need to do,the number one step you need to
do, is decide that you're goingto do it, that's it.
You need to have your spouse'sbuy-in, obviously, and you going
to do it, that's it.
You need to have your spouse'sbuy-in, obviously, and you need
to do it.
And the best way to say, oh,I'm doing it, I'm going to do it
, and you just say in your mindthat's not good enough.
(06:49):
Once you get your spouse'sbuy-in, you schedule it.
That's when you're actuallydoing it.
You decide these are the dates,these are the dates I'm going
to go, or here's the range ofdates I'm going to go, and I'll
tell you why that's importantlater, but in my experience with
my spouse, if you do notschedule it, it will not happen.
(07:11):
So first you need to haveeither a range of dates or just
some dates picked out and youput it on your calendar.
If you have specific dates, atleast the next thing you do and
I'm just going to teach you thecheapest way to travel,
especially on a short notice is,as soon as you have those dates
you want to, if you want to getout of the state even then.
(07:36):
Now we're talking about bookingairfare.
Now, the first thing everybodythinks oh, airfare is expensive,
is it, though?
Is it or you just don't knowhow to book it?
Now, I don't know where youlive in the world right now, but
certain airlines and this iswhat I want to teach you about
(07:56):
real quick certain airlines havecertain hubs.
Now you can find those online.
There's actually a list of hubsthat you can find I want to
teach you about real quick.
Certain airlines have certainhubs.
Now you can find those online.
There's actually a list of hubsthat you can find.
Just Google airline hubs.
A list of airline hubs might bea good Google search.
The reason I bring that up is ifyou go from one hub from one
(08:16):
airline.
So let's just use Southwest asexample, because the closest
international airport to me andmy home is Las Vegas and the
only one that hubs there isSouthwest.
So if I take a Southwest flightfrom Vegas to any of their
other hubs and there's a list,then that's going to be really a
lot cheaper than going justrandomly picking a destination.
(08:40):
That might actually even helpyou pick your destination.
So that's one way of doing it,or you can just, or you can
again drive two hours away,whatever.
But I'm teaching you thatairline hubs matter if you're
really trying to pinch a penny.
Now.
I like southwest more than like,say, a frontier or a spirit,
(09:01):
because I don't want to worryabout paying extra fees when I
get on board.
You can, you know you can checka bag.
I never check a bag that's adifferent story for a different
podcast episode but I nevercheck a bag.
We went on a 10 day trip toHawaii and I didn't check a bag.
I could talk about that for awhile, but that's not the point
of this episode.
But I just don't like to dealwith the airline losing bags as
(09:26):
possibly, and there's a lot ofreasons, but anyway, southwest
has the opportunity for you tocheck two bags.
So in my experience, the firstthing you do is you book that
flight, figure out where you'regoing and book that flight.
Now I'm going to use theexample of again Las Vegas to
another one of their hubs,denver.
That's a little bit away for meand I decided that I want to go
(09:47):
to Denver.
Um, that flight as of now, and Iand I've just picked some
random dates about a month out,the cheapest flight I can get on
a Southwest flight is $89 oneway.
So that equals up.
I'm going to do it actuallyright in front of you.
(10:07):
Make sure that number iscorrect.
Pardon me, it is $87.
Pardon me.
So $87 one way.
So we times that by four,because we need four tickets,
two tickets each way.
So we're looking at $348.
$348 in airfare, right, that'sback and forth.
Well, that sounds like a lot,right?
(10:29):
Really, how much is that?
Therapist?
Again, it's not as expensive asyou think it is.
When you get there, you need aplace to stay, great, so I did
basically a trip that lasts fourdays.
(10:49):
The four days, there's twotravel days on each end, right?
So get there, get back home,and then there's two days
staying in Denver.
Okay, in those four days, letme teach you something else.
You need to do the next step.
(11:11):
Essentially and this is goingto be just going with the
knowledge I have on the systemas well I would not use sites
like Expedia, hotelscom or anyof these other sites that are
basically travel agent sites,the reason being there's a
myriad of reasons.
I really don't want to get intothem today.
I actually have a YouTube shorton that, if you can go to my
(11:33):
YouTube channel and check thatout, but a lot of it has to do
with you're not earning pointsand you're not dealing with the
hotel directly.
Now I I'm going to tell yousomething.
I know this because I've doneit.
It takes some work.
So I I I usually search thethree major hotel brands because
(11:54):
no matter where I'm going, I'mgoing to find a hotel.
Generally speaking speaking,the three major hotel brands are
Marriott, hilton and IHG.
Some people consider Hyatt inthere.
Hyatt's getting better, theyhave more of a footprint.
But right now, those are thethree that I search and I go to
each website and I search thosedates for those on those three
(12:17):
hotel brands and really try tofigure out which one's the
cheapest and also a decentquality hotel.
Now I'm going to give you acouple money-saving tricks that
we used, and they might soundoutlandish, but I mean, you're
looking at a.
Remember what is the goal here?
The goal here is for you to beable to get away with your
(12:41):
spouse.
The goal isn't here to pretendlike you are wealthy, although
you can do that with the system.
That's what I love about thesystem, but we're not.
We're not talking about that.
We're talking about gettingaway now.
So so I get on to all three ofthe websites individual websites
Marriott, hilton, ihg, and ifyou want to search Hyatt too,
(13:04):
that's fine too.
And I look for hotels.
And now, when I'm searching forhotels because, again, money
saving opportunity here I alwayssearch for hotels.
They have filters.
They have filters on the topEvery single hotel place.
Especially when I was in thesituation I was that you may be
(13:26):
in right now I always search forfree breakfast.
Let me tell you why my wife andI in order to save money when
we traveled because, remember,the goal isn't anything but just
to heal, heal as a couple andreally just spend some time
together, rekindle romance in away.
(13:49):
I remember doing this.
We would go to hotels with freebreakfasts and we would load up
.
I mean load up.
Remember these free breakfastsare all you can eat and we
loaded up.
And why we loaded up?
So we didn't have to eat lunch.
We loaded up so we can avoidgoing out for lunch.
(14:14):
We load it up so we can avoidgoing out for lunch.
That's a money-saving tip.
Search for the free breakfasthotels.
Load up on breakfast.
That will save you on mealswhile you're out.
(14:36):
Here's another money-savingopportunity when you search for
hotels.
There are quite a few hotelsand they're not that expensive
overall that have kitchens,full-on kitchens, inside of
their hotel rooms.
You could even cook then.
You could even cook then.
Or if you really want to bemotivated to save money,
(15:00):
electric, electric pressurecookers bring it with you.
If you're not traveling byflight, that'd be hard to do on
a flight, but if you're justtraveling a couple hours outside
your town, bring it with you.
Cook in there.
All this can save money on foodwhile you're there.
But let's get back to the hotelbooking.
These are all things that wehave done, by the way, and they
(15:21):
worked well.
But getting back to the hotelbooking.
You want to get those hotelswith a free breakfast so you can
save money on food.
Now, marriott and each one ofthese hotels have their
different thing, but Marriotthas a filter that shows mid-tier
hotels and luxury hotels andthat kind of thing.
(15:42):
In your guys' case, itshouldn't really ultimately
matter.
Usually, the Marriotts and theHiltons of the world are pretty
good.
Now the next thing you want tolook for is you want to filter
those hotels by lowest tohighest as far as cost.
Now you do that next, not bydistance, you do it by distance.
If I put it in Denver, colorado, and I do it by distance on
(16:06):
Marriott, I'm looking at $512 anight.
That's ridiculous.
I would not pay that, not inthat situation.
Actually, I wouldn't pay thatin cash anyways, in the system I
have, I pay with points.
Anyways.
I would not pay cash for ahotel for $512 a night.
That's ridiculous.
So I sort it by cost and youwant to make sure you're not too
far out of the city but theyusually don't send you too far
(16:27):
out when you search for hotelsand you get that low-cost hotel.
But the next thing you do is youdon't just pick the cheapest
hotel.
Look at those reviews.
Look at those reviews.
That way you're not so you'rehating your life because you
(16:48):
picked a horrible hotel.
So you look at those reviews.
You get that free breakfast.
Those are the filters you wantto use usually.
Or if you want to filter in fora full kitchen in there, you
could do that too if you want totake usually.
Or if you want to filter in fora full kitchen in there, you
could do that too If you, if youwant to take it to the next
level.
In my case I did that and IHGcame out for those three nights
because I did a Monday throughThursday trip.
So those three nights came outat $385.
(17:10):
All right, $385 for those.
Those nights Total, by the way.
So, that being case, the totalfor your trip so far is now $733
minus taxes and fees.
So let's say another $100 forthose.
So we're after like 800 andwe'll just round up, say $150.
(17:32):
Ladies and gentlemen, that ischeaper than $1,200 for a
therapist and a heck of a lotfunner.
A heck of a lot funner.
I don't want to talk to atherapist.
I mean, everybody has theirthing.
Again, I'm not saying as I saidat the beginning, disclaimer
there.
I'm not saying not to go to atherapist.
I'm saying that this is analternative too.
That's all I'm saying.
Therapist, I'm saying that thisis an alternative too.
(17:56):
That's all I'm saying.
And if you could take thatmoney, you would spend on a
therapist and you spend on atrip.
It's a lot funner and, frankly,it could work better.
It could.
This has just been myexperience.
None of these are round-triptickets.
(18:17):
Then you've got to figure inyour traveling from the airport.
I would not get a rental carfor cheapness purposes.
Get an Uber, get a Lyft,whatever other ride-sharing
opportunities there are outthere.
Do those.
That's a lot cheaper than, say,a cab.
It's a heck of a lot cheaperthan a rental car.
That's what I would do.
(18:37):
And then for as activities,heck, you may not leave your
hotel room.
I'm not trying to be trying toget into your life, but maybe
you don't even leave the hotelroom a lot of the time.
Or maybe you do take an Uberand get a hike done.
Take an Uber to a museum.
That costs very little.
There's a lot of things you cando activity-wise.
That still is in the range ofpossibilities.
(19:02):
To have a good time with yourspouse, because you got to
remember what the goal is.
The goal is to rekindle andre-up your marriage.
The goal isn't to go to abasketball game or go to a
five-star restaurant or afive-star.
(19:23):
That's not your goal.
Keep your eyes on what we'rethere for.
Now.
Every marriage is different.
In my marriage, my wife likesto be more spontaneous than I do
.
I'm a bit of a planner.
It's just how I am.
So if your wife's morespontaneous, then maybe you
(19:44):
don't plan as much Because Icould plan.
I used to plan our trips downto the minute and drove her
insane because it gave her noflexibility and I always was
really pretty strong about myschedule.
But you don't have to do that.
But if you guys are bothplanner types, do it.
(20:05):
If you're both spontaneous, dothat too.
That part of it doesn't matterso much.
Remember, the part that mattersis getting away.
That's the part that matters.
So I hope that helps.
I hope you can see that if youlook at travel and you say, well
, I can't do that, I can'tafford that.
Oh really, can you afford atherapist every week at a
(20:26):
hundred dollars, a pop, ordivorce attorney for $11,400
because you didn't do anythingat all?
You just sat down and hope thateverything worked out.
Okay, guys, I am lucky becauseI listened.
I luckied because I have a verypatient spouse who dealt with
my crap for way too long In myopinion.
(20:47):
I'm incredibly grateful for herpatience with me.
She is a light in my life and Ilove her to death.
And we would not be where we'reat if we didn't take action.
And I'm just giving you anoption for action Divorce,
attorney, therapist, travel.
(21:09):
Which one's funner?
So here is again what I wouldlike you to do, what I feel,
what I did and what I feel likeis a as a good step Again,
schedule it.
Schedule it now, not tomorrow.
I'll get to it in a couple ofweeks.
(21:30):
You'll never get to it.
Schedule it now.
Now is the time to schedule it.
Get it on your calendar.
I'm sorry, I actually I alludedto something I didn't talk
about.
I don't want to forget it.
If you have flexible dates, youcan even go on these websites,
on all of these websites,southwest, oh, by the way, if
you're flexible on airline,because there's a bunch of
(21:54):
airlines that are the hub atyour the airport closest to you
use a website.
I use a website called kayakcom, k-a-y-a-kcom.
They are where I search flights.
It just doesn't searchSouthwest.
That's why I didn't mention it,because the hub that I'm at is
Southwest, so I want to makesure you mention that as well,
because maybe a couple ofairlines hub where you're at you
(22:15):
and so keep that in mind too.
There's websites like that, butthey but they direct you to the
website of the airline to bookagain, directly.
Booking directly with a hoteland directly with the the
airline is extremely important.
Sorry, I want to make sure Imentioned that earlier because I
talked about maybe havingflexible dates.
I want to make sure I mentionedthat earlier because I talked
about maybe having flexibledates.
(22:37):
So, again, schedule it,schedule it now and, if you have
flexible dates, find yourflexible dates, find what dates
are the cheapest on your hoteland your airline and then
schedule it.
Then Just schedule it.
I would make it a goal, beforeyou listen to my voice again on
my next episode, for you toschedule a time for you and your
spouse to get out, just getaway, even if it avoids airlines
(22:58):
just two hours away, whatever,just get away.
You have been listening toTravel is Cheaper Than Divorce.
With me, your host, davidPacker, please connect with us
on our YouTube channel at TravelPoint Pros.
There you will learn many tipsand tricks on how to use points
and miles to travel in luxuryfor little to no cost.
(23:21):
Remember to like and subscribeand comment on any of the videos
that you find helpful to you.
Thank you for listening.
You are listening to, travel is Cheaper than Divorce.
This podcast for all those whomay be struggling with their
spouse or their children and therelationship with them.
We help give you tips andtricks by using travel as the
means to be able to help yourrelationships with your family.
I'll provide those tricks andother ways to help travel with
(00:29):
little or no cost, so let's getinto it.
So one of the things the systemactually believes the system
believes that you, if you'rehaving problems in your marriage
, is the thing that you shoulddo is to get a therapist.
That you need to take the storythat you have with your spouse
(00:55):
and stick it behind closed doorsand talk to somebody who can
just give you advice on how tothink or how to talk to each
other, or whatever advice on howto think or how to talk to each
other or whatever.
I'm not here to tell you thatthat doesn't have a place
anywhere.
It is possible that might bethe route that is the best, but
(01:15):
I'm here to tell you that theremight be an alternative.
Now this is part two of atwo-part series, two-part
episode, because the firstepisode, dal, talked about why
it's important for you and yourspouse to get away from your
children, and in this episode Iwant to talk about the how to do
it, almost like a step-by-stepand in a way that is possible
(01:37):
for you and your spouse to dothat now.
Because, as I alluded in thefirst episode if you haven't
listened to that, I would dothat.
In the first part of thistwo-parter, I alluded to the
fact that the system that I havebuilt, that I keep talking
about, takes time to build Not alot of time, but still some
(01:57):
time and you need to get awaynow.
But you can listen down on yourown.
So in this episode I want tofocus on the how, the
step-by-step on how, becausepeople think that they don't
have the money for it.
Right, we talked about thatalso earlier.
In this way, I want to be ableto teach you and tell you
(02:21):
step-by-step how you can and howit's actually cheaper than, say
, a therapist or a divorceattorney.
Full disclosure I have neverbeen to a.
My wife and I have never beento a marriage counselor,
(02:42):
marriage therapist.
This is the route we ran.
Instead.
It's a much funner route, Iwould say, than sitting in an
office for 12 hours a day or not12 hours a day, sorry, so
sitting in a therapist's officefor an hour a week talking about
(03:02):
your issues with each other andpossibly even making it worse.
I don't know what thepercentages are on how much
marriage therapists actuallyhelp, but this is the route that
I believe.
In my experiences that isbetter.
Anyways, I spent last episodetalking about that.
I'm going to tell you how youcan travel now, now, now, now,
(03:26):
now, now and not worry about thesystem right now, because you
don't have time for that, like Isaid in the last episode.
So the first step in doing anyof this is you got to find
yourself a destination.
But before we get there, let mejust give you a quick idea of
money here.
Money is pretty cold, so Idon't like to spend a lot of
(03:49):
time in this podcast speakingabout that.
But as we are talking about astep-by-step on how to do this,
I want you to understand thecomparison in the numbers, as I
am a numbers person.
In that way, the average Iwould say and it might even be a
little bit higher, it might belower, but the average session,
say, with a therapist, maybe$100 a session, over a quarter,
(04:12):
most therapists once you meetwith them once a week, so over a
quarter.
You're looking at about $1,200in therapist fees.
That's a lot of money to talkto somebody.
I think Also another thing youmight be aware of or may or may
(04:32):
not be aware of and I hope youaren't aware of it because you
didn't have to look into it butthe average cost to hire a
divorce attorney is $11,400.
That's pretty expensive.
Traveling is cheaper, guys.
(04:54):
Traveling is cheaper than atherapist.
Traveling is cheaper than adivorce attorney.
A therapist, again, may help,but even if you're not to the
point of divorce and you're justthinking about therapy, that
could be a route.
I'm not telling you not to doit.
(05:15):
I'm telling you the route thatI ran Because you don't have to
have luxury vacations now.
I want you guys to get there.
That's the point of the systemthat I built, or I learned, and
then I'm teaching.
I should say I just built theeducation on how to do it.
I want you to be able to travelnow because it's important to
(05:36):
save your marriage.
So what my wife and I did is wedid once a quarter.
We went and traveled, even ifit was just for a day or two,
sometimes it was never, it wasnever overnight and we went back
home.
I don't feel like that wasenough.
She didn't feel like that wasenough for, especially with
travel, getting out of the areaat least two hours away, getting
(06:01):
out of the area at least twohours away Our shortest trip was
at least two hours away.
But how we did it is this way.
I want you to keep in mind inyour mind $1,200.
That again, as I told youearlier, is the average cost for
(06:27):
not even an average cost, justmy experience cost in therapy,
doing therapy for $100 a weekover a three-month period or a
quarter.
The first thing you need to do,the number one step you need to
do, is decide that you're goingto do it, that's it.
You need to have your spouse'sbuy-in, obviously, and you going
to do it, that's it.
You need to have your spouse'sbuy-in, obviously, and you need
to do it.
And the best way to say, oh,I'm doing it, I'm going to do it
, and you just say in your mindthat's not good enough.
(06:49):
Once you get your spouse'sbuy-in, you schedule it.
That's when you're actuallydoing it.
You decide these are the dates,these are the dates I'm going
to go, or here's the range ofdates I'm going to go, and I'll
tell you why that's importantlater, but in my experience with
my spouse, if you do notschedule it, it will not happen.
(07:11):
So first you need to haveeither a range of dates or just
some dates picked out and youput it on your calendar.
If you have specific dates, atleast the next thing you do and
I'm just going to teach you thecheapest way to travel,
especially on a short notice is,as soon as you have those dates
you want to, if you want to getout of the state even then.
(07:36):
Now we're talking about bookingairfare.
Now, the first thing everybodythinks oh, airfare is expensive,
is it, though?
Is it or you just don't knowhow to book it?
Now, I don't know where youlive in the world right now, but
certain airlines and this iswhat I want to teach you about
(07:56):
real quick certain airlines havecertain hubs.
Now you can find those online.
There's actually a list of hubsthat you can find I want to
teach you about real quick.
Certain airlines have certainhubs.
Now you can find those online.
There's actually a list of hubsthat you can find.
Just Google airline hubs.
A list of airline hubs might bea good Google search.
The reason I bring that up is ifyou go from one hub from one
(08:16):
airline.
So let's just use Southwest asexample, because the closest
international airport to me andmy home is Las Vegas and the
only one that hubs there isSouthwest.
So if I take a Southwest flightfrom Vegas to any of their
other hubs and there's a list,then that's going to be really a
lot cheaper than going justrandomly picking a destination.
(08:40):
That might actually even helpyou pick your destination.
So that's one way of doing it,or you can just, or you can
again drive two hours away,whatever.
But I'm teaching you thatairline hubs matter if you're
really trying to pinch a penny.
Now.
I like southwest more than like,say, a frontier or a spirit,
(09:01):
because I don't want to worryabout paying extra fees when I
get on board.
You can, you know you can checka bag.
I never check a bag that's adifferent story for a different
podcast episode but I nevercheck a bag.
We went on a 10 day trip toHawaii and I didn't check a bag.
I could talk about that for awhile, but that's not the point
of this episode.
But I just don't like to dealwith the airline losing bags as
(09:26):
possibly, and there's a lot ofreasons, but anyway, southwest
has the opportunity for you tocheck two bags.
So in my experience, the firstthing you do is you book that
flight, figure out where you'regoing and book that flight.
Now I'm going to use theexample of again Las Vegas to
another one of their hubs,denver.
That's a little bit away for meand I decided that I want to go
(09:47):
to Denver.
Um, that flight as of now, and Iand I've just picked some
random dates about a month out,the cheapest flight I can get on
a Southwest flight is $89 oneway.
So that equals up.
I'm going to do it actuallyright in front of you.
(10:07):
Make sure that number iscorrect.
Pardon me, it is $87.
Pardon me.
So $87 one way.
So we times that by four,because we need four tickets,
two tickets each way.
So we're looking at $348.
$348 in airfare, right, that'sback and forth.
Well, that sounds like a lot,right?
(10:29):
Really, how much is that?
Therapist?
Again, it's not as expensive asyou think it is.
When you get there, you need aplace to stay, great, so I did
basically a trip that lasts fourdays.
(10:49):
The four days, there's twotravel days on each end, right?
So get there, get back home,and then there's two days
staying in Denver.
Okay, in those four days, letme teach you something else.
You need to do the next step.
(11:11):
Essentially and this is goingto be just going with the
knowledge I have on the systemas well I would not use sites
like Expedia, hotelscom or anyof these other sites that are
basically travel agent sites,the reason being there's a
myriad of reasons.
I really don't want to get intothem today.
I actually have a YouTube shorton that, if you can go to my
(11:33):
YouTube channel and check thatout, but a lot of it has to do
with you're not earning pointsand you're not dealing with the
hotel directly.
Now I I'm going to tell yousomething.
I know this because I've doneit.
It takes some work.
So I I I usually search thethree major hotel brands because
(11:54):
no matter where I'm going, I'mgoing to find a hotel.
Generally speaking speaking,the three major hotel brands are
Marriott, hilton and IHG.
Some people consider Hyatt inthere.
Hyatt's getting better, theyhave more of a footprint.
But right now, those are thethree that I search and I go to
each website and I search thosedates for those on those three
(12:17):
hotel brands and really try tofigure out which one's the
cheapest and also a decentquality hotel.
Now I'm going to give you acouple money-saving tricks that
we used, and they might soundoutlandish, but I mean, you're
looking at a.
Remember what is the goal here?
The goal here is for you to beable to get away with your
(12:41):
spouse.
The goal isn't here to pretendlike you are wealthy, although
you can do that with the system.
That's what I love about thesystem, but we're not.
We're not talking about that.
We're talking about gettingaway now.
So so I get on to all three ofthe websites individual websites
Marriott, hilton, ihg, and ifyou want to search Hyatt too,
(13:04):
that's fine too.
And I look for hotels.
And now, when I'm searching forhotels because, again, money
saving opportunity here I alwayssearch for hotels.
They have filters.
They have filters on the topEvery single hotel place.
Especially when I was in thesituation I was that you may be
(13:26):
in right now I always search forfree breakfast.
Let me tell you why my wife andI in order to save money when
we traveled because, remember,the goal isn't anything but just
to heal, heal as a couple andreally just spend some time
together, rekindle romance in away.
(13:49):
I remember doing this.
We would go to hotels with freebreakfasts and we would load up
.
I mean load up.
Remember these free breakfastsare all you can eat and we
loaded up.
And why we loaded up?
So we didn't have to eat lunch.
We loaded up so we can avoidgoing out for lunch.
(14:14):
We load it up so we can avoidgoing out for lunch.
That's a money-saving tip.
Search for the free breakfasthotels.
Load up on breakfast.
That will save you on mealswhile you're out.
(14:36):
Here's another money-savingopportunity when you search for
hotels.
There are quite a few hotelsand they're not that expensive
overall that have kitchens,full-on kitchens, inside of
their hotel rooms.
You could even cook then.
You could even cook then.
Or if you really want to bemotivated to save money,
(15:00):
electric, electric pressurecookers bring it with you.
If you're not traveling byflight, that'd be hard to do on
a flight, but if you're justtraveling a couple hours outside
your town, bring it with you.
Cook in there.
All this can save money on foodwhile you're there.
But let's get back to the hotelbooking.
These are all things that wehave done, by the way, and they
(15:21):
worked well.
But getting back to the hotelbooking.
You want to get those hotelswith a free breakfast so you can
save money on food.
Now, marriott and each one ofthese hotels have their
different thing, but Marriotthas a filter that shows mid-tier
hotels and luxury hotels andthat kind of thing.
(15:42):
In your guys' case, itshouldn't really ultimately
matter.
Usually, the Marriotts and theHiltons of the world are pretty
good.
Now the next thing you want tolook for is you want to filter
those hotels by lowest tohighest as far as cost.
Now you do that next, not bydistance, you do it by distance.
If I put it in Denver, colorado, and I do it by distance on
(16:06):
Marriott, I'm looking at $512 anight.
That's ridiculous.
I would not pay that, not inthat situation.
Actually, I wouldn't pay thatin cash anyways, in the system I
have, I pay with points.
Anyways.
I would not pay cash for ahotel for $512 a night.
That's ridiculous.
So I sort it by cost and youwant to make sure you're not too
far out of the city but theyusually don't send you too far
(16:27):
out when you search for hotelsand you get that low-cost hotel.
But the next thing you do is youdon't just pick the cheapest
hotel.
Look at those reviews.
Look at those reviews.
That way you're not so you'rehating your life because you
(16:48):
picked a horrible hotel.
So you look at those reviews.
You get that free breakfast.
Those are the filters you wantto use usually.
Or if you want to filter in fora full kitchen in there, you
could do that too if you want totake usually.
Or if you want to filter in fora full kitchen in there, you
could do that too If you, if youwant to take it to the next
level.
In my case I did that and IHGcame out for those three nights
because I did a Monday throughThursday trip.
So those three nights came outat $385.
(17:10):
All right, $385 for those.
Those nights Total, by the way.
So, that being case, the totalfor your trip so far is now $733
minus taxes and fees.
So let's say another $100 forthose.
So we're after like 800 andwe'll just round up, say $150.
(17:32):
Ladies and gentlemen, that ischeaper than $1,200 for a
therapist and a heck of a lotfunner.
A heck of a lot funner.
I don't want to talk to atherapist.
I mean, everybody has theirthing.
Again, I'm not saying as I saidat the beginning, disclaimer
there.
I'm not saying not to go to atherapist.
I'm saying that this is analternative too.
That's all I'm saying.
Therapist, I'm saying that thisis an alternative too.
(17:56):
That's all I'm saying.
And if you could take thatmoney, you would spend on a
therapist and you spend on atrip.
It's a lot funner and, frankly,it could work better.
It could.
This has just been myexperience.
None of these are round-triptickets.
(18:17):
Then you've got to figure inyour traveling from the airport.
I would not get a rental carfor cheapness purposes.
Get an Uber, get a Lyft,whatever other ride-sharing
opportunities there are outthere.
Do those.
That's a lot cheaper than, say,a cab.
It's a heck of a lot cheaperthan a rental car.
That's what I would do.
(18:37):
And then for as activities,heck, you may not leave your
hotel room.
I'm not trying to be trying toget into your life, but maybe
you don't even leave the hotelroom a lot of the time.
Or maybe you do take an Uberand get a hike done.
Take an Uber to a museum.
That costs very little.
There's a lot of things you cando activity-wise.
That still is in the range ofpossibilities.
(19:02):
To have a good time with yourspouse, because you got to
remember what the goal is.
The goal is to rekindle andre-up your marriage.
The goal isn't to go to abasketball game or go to a
five-star restaurant or afive-star.
(19:23):
That's not your goal.
Keep your eyes on what we'rethere for.
Now.
Every marriage is different.
In my marriage, my wife likesto be more spontaneous than I do
.
I'm a bit of a planner.
It's just how I am.
So if your wife's morespontaneous, then maybe you
(19:44):
don't plan as much Because Icould plan.
I used to plan our trips downto the minute and drove her
insane because it gave her noflexibility and I always was
really pretty strong about myschedule.
But you don't have to do that.
But if you guys are bothplanner types, do it.
(20:05):
If you're both spontaneous, dothat too.
That part of it doesn't matterso much.
Remember, the part that mattersis getting away.
That's the part that matters.
So I hope that helps.
I hope you can see that if youlook at travel and you say, well
, I can't do that, I can'tafford that.
Oh really, can you afford atherapist every week at a
(20:26):
hundred dollars, a pop, ordivorce attorney for $11,400
because you didn't do anythingat all?
You just sat down and hope thateverything worked out.
Okay, guys, I am lucky becauseI listened.
I luckied because I have a verypatient spouse who dealt with
my crap for way too long In myopinion.
(20:47):
I'm incredibly grateful for herpatience with me.
She is a light in my life and Ilove her to death.
And we would not be where we'reat if we didn't take action.
And I'm just giving you anoption for action Divorce,
attorney, therapist, travel.
(21:09):
Which one's funner?
So here is again what I wouldlike you to do, what I feel,
what I did and what I feel likeis a as a good step Again,
schedule it.
Schedule it now, not tomorrow.
I'll get to it in a couple ofweeks.
(21:30):
You'll never get to it.
Schedule it now.
Now is the time to schedule it.
Get it on your calendar.
I'm sorry, I actually I alludedto something I didn't talk
about.
I don't want to forget it.
If you have flexible dates, youcan even go on these websites,
on all of these websites,southwest, oh, by the way, if
you're flexible on airline,because there's a bunch of
(21:54):
airlines that are the hub atyour the airport closest to you
use a website.
I use a website called kayakcom, k-a-y-a-kcom.
They are where I search flights.
It just doesn't searchSouthwest.
That's why I didn't mention it,because the hub that I'm at is
Southwest, so I want to makesure you mention that as well,
because maybe a couple ofairlines hub where you're at you
(22:15):
and so keep that in mind too.
There's websites like that, butthey but they direct you to the
website of the airline to bookagain, directly.
Booking directly with a hoteland directly with the the
airline is extremely important.
Sorry, I want to make sure Imentioned that earlier because I
talked about maybe havingflexible dates.
I want to make sure I mentionedthat earlier because I talked
about maybe having flexibledates.
(22:37):
So, again, schedule it,schedule it now and, if you have
flexible dates, find yourflexible dates, find what dates
are the cheapest on your hoteland your airline and then
schedule it.
Then Just schedule it.
I would make it a goal, beforeyou listen to my voice again on
my next episode, for you toschedule a time for you and your
spouse to get out, just getaway, even if it avoids airlines
(22:58):
just two hours away, whatever,just get away.
You have been listening toTravel is Cheaper Than Divorce.
With me, your host, davidPacker, please connect with us
on our YouTube channel at TravelPoint Pros.
There you will learn many tipsand tricks on how to use points
and miles to travel in luxuryfor little to no cost.
(23:21):
Remember to like and subscribeand comment on any of the videos
that you find helpful to you.
Thank you for listening.
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