Book Your Travel Needs Through Ebates!

I am feeling really lucky.  My husband and I are headed to Hawaii next month to meet up with my parents and one of my brothers and his wife.

I have been really busy working the deals for our trip.  After three days of trying to figure out how to stretch our 72,000 Delta Frequent Flier miles to cover two tickets (they are anywhere from 40,000-75,000 miles each ticket)...I was completely exhausted...and I can say...I actually succeeded (although it wasn't easy)!

I almost accepted the fact we would have to purchase one full fare flight to Maui at a whoppin' $1000!  Yikes!  But I just couldn't bring myself to do it.  After trying to plug in every possible travel dates three or four times a day (morning, noon, night and midnight) and crossing my fingers that a 40,000 mile ff ticket would appear...three days later I had nothing.

And then I thought of something.  I decided to put in our arrival city to Honolulu instead of Maui.  And just like that...there were many options for flights for 40K ff miles.  And although we had options, I didn't love them. Most of the flights had two or three super long lay-over making the travel time to Hawaii at 20 hours (normally you can get there in 12-14).  My husband said to just book 'em and be happy...we could read and relax (since the kids would not be traveling with us).

But I couldn't accept that...I just couldn't give up.  I then decided to try another departure airport...and just like that...we had it all.  Two free tickets (well almost free...I will give details below) and flights taking us from Northern VA to Honolulu in a lovely 14 hour trip.

Here is what it will be costing us:

$100 to transfer 7K miles from my ff miles to my husbands so we had a total of 80K.
$20 to book the two tickets
$300 for our round trip tickets from Honolulu to Maui.

Total for two round trip tickets on Delta: $420 (that's a 48% savings or even more if we had to buy two tickets) Not bad with 3 weeks notice.

I began to work on our Island hopper tickets to find a deal...since we wouldn't be flying on Delta.  I kept finding similar deals...nothing spectacular...nothing stood out.

I also started our car rental search (which I haven't book quite yet)...trying Travelocity, Orbitz (and all of those type places), Costco, the Entertainment Book and AAA.  Once again, there wasn't any huge saving available.

It was when I went to good old EBATES that I found just what I wanted (and honestly didn't realize they offered)...a TRAVEL section. It was filled with everything from airlines (Southwest...3% cash back), to Acar rental (Thrifty is 3.5% ) to Travelocity (1% cash back) to Hotwire (2% cash back)...cash back!

I am not only getting the best deal I could find...I am also getting 2% back on our little Island hopper flights (hey that's around $6...better than nothing back)...just for using Ebates.

I am totally fine with a few bucks back from Thrifty too...after searching the company with the best deal...I will go through Ebates to that company and book...giving me their saving PLUS the cash back.

Did you know that in November and December I have earned $145 cash back from Ebates?!  It will be coming in the mail in February (hey...we can use that money for our trip too).

Seriously...it is free to sign up (actually they pay you to sign up...$5).  And if you are shopping online anyway, why not get paid.

Click here to start earning some cash!