Adam and CJ are two of my favorite people. We have been collaborating for a few months about their upcoming trip to Paris. Below Adam discusses what it was like to work with me and the benefits. Thank you Adam for trusting me and writing this xoxo!

Let me begin by saying I’ve always considered myself rather savvy when it comes to budgeting, traveling affordably, and living somewhat of a “luxe” lifestyle even on a teacher’s salary. While I still pride myself on utilizing spreadsheets to manage our household budget and personal finances, it wasn’t until I started chatting with Andrew about his use of credit cards, points/miles, and maximizing redemptions that I began to consider how my husband and I might further enhance our ability to pursue travel in our downtime without breaking the bank.

In late 2024, after some pretty thorough research regarding credit card options, my husband and I decided to leverage our monthly expenditures by opening up a shared credit card that we planned on using in place of our debit card. Yes, you read that correctly. Up until that point, we would use our debit card at the gas pump, when dining out, and our trips to the supermarket. Just about each monthly expense – with the exception of loan payments – was paid for out of our joint checking account. Although we both carried our own credit cards, I had always maintained the position that they should be reserved for larger expenses like appliances, car maintenance, and other big-ticket items. I will be the first to admit that, even considering I’m a math guy by way of my career, I was somewhat hesitant to use a credit card in any other manner. By opening the Chase Sapphire card, we earned a significant number of promotional points in addition to those we’ve been accumulating now that we’re using it in place of our old dingy debit (sorry, TD Bank); this is in addition to all the other perks offered to cardholders like airport lounge access. Can you hear me saying “Why didn’t we do this sooner?” even as you read this?

As a teacher, my vacation time is limited in the sense that I am only able to travel when school is not in session — which also means that February and April breaks can be expensive travel weeks. For the past several years, my husband and I have been in the habit of going away in February. It gives us something to look forward to in the midst of our (long) Maine winters and tends to be a little bit more affordable. And, depending on where we are traveling, the weather is at least comparable (but oftentimes warmer and sunnier) than our home along the coast. We have been known to travel to London for just three or four days before returning home. Most recently, we spent 24 hours in Switzerland before moving on to Dublin for a few days. We find that spending even just a little bit of time in a new city (or country) is enough to give us a sense as to whether or not we’d like to return for a longer stay.

With Andrew’s unwavering guidance and willingness to answer our seemingly endless questions before we committed to booking, we were able to transfer our Chase reward points to our JetBlue account (a partner airline). These points, combined with our existing JetBlue miles, were enough to score us seats in Mint (business/first) class to Paris! Since we knew that we wanted to travel in February during my school break, I began searching for flights using JetBlue’s calendar tool which allows you to change your departure and return dates to find the best redemption. A word of caution, however: mileage redemptions vary when choosing “one-way” vs. “round-trip” travel searches and, on JetBlue at least, your class of service in each direction. For example, I thought I had found a Mint class flight from Boston to Paris for just over 50,000 miles. However, once I realized that I was looking at one-way tickets and I changed my search to round-trip, the same flight cost over 140,000 miles. By changing our travel days to Friday through Thursday of the same week, however, we were able to secure our Mint seats for just over 70,000 miles, a reasonable compromise. Similarly, when booking in Mint class in one direction, you cannot select Blue Basic service class for any other leg of the same trip; this ultimately costs you more points even if you’re willing to travel in some level of economy.

Andrew also knows a lot about leveraging hotel perks. Thanks to his help, we are looking forward to our visit to Paris in February 2026 and our stay at Cour Des Vosges, a five-star luxury boutique hotel in the heart of Paris’ “gayborhood” known as Le Marais. And, we are even more excited that the cost of travel is limited to the hotel stay, meals, and our adventures along the way, thanks to all of the legwork that we did — beginning with our spending habits.

I look forward to telling you more about our trip in early 2026!

Live life luxuriously,

A

Thank you Adam!!-Andrew

Email: andrew.reiser@fora.travel

Instagram: areiser86

Website: Andrew Reiser Fora

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