This fall the SG-GF (Single Guy Girlfriend) and I are going on our yearly weeklong vacation to Florida. After this spring/summer of working on my mother's roof, my mother is going to let me use the timeshare for free this year (and hopefully some future years - yet to be negotiated!). As the SG-GF has started with the credit card signup bonuses (following my lead), she proposed an interesting idea to me this weekend.
Her idea is this... Since we have the timeshare to use this year, perhaps we can make this a weeklong vacation costing $0. At first I thought this was a nice idea to cut down our expenses on the trip, but I am now thinking this might be a possibility. Here is what I see as our expenses and how we could cover each for free.
* Lodging: Already covered above.
* Amusement parks: SG-GF pointed out we could sign up for Disney branded CCs that would give bonuses to use at Disney parks. I'm not sure how much this would cover, but it could cover a majority of that expense. I still need to research this.
* Transportation: We're driving, and the SG-GF is a big Swagbucks user. She thinks we can cover the cost of gas with gas branded gift cards we can get from there. I don't remember the prior years' exact costs, but $200-$300 seemed to cover our gas purchases, and I know she can get lots of gas cards, so this may be doable as well.
* Food: I have some restaurant gift cards from prior CC sign ups, so those should cover any eating out while we are there.
* Miscellaneous: I know we can get money from the time share by going through one of their sales presentations. I'm thinking it was $50, but I may be wrong there. In any case, it should cover a lot of our random expenses.
Hmmmm... could we make this work? I am thinking it could happen. If nothing else I will have to track our expenses closely this year and see just how well it works out. Free vacations... I like it 
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A weeklong vacation for $0???
June 23rd, 2014 at 01:58 pm
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June 27th, 2014 at 08:46 pm 1403902005
More research on the theme park CCs shows they don't have much in bonuses right now, so while I may get them anyway for park discounts, I am going to get other CCs for their bonuses to pay for the parks. In fact I just got a $450 bonus from one this week, so that should pay for the parks + more.