How to Use Gift Cards to Save Hundreds on Flights and Hotels

What would you do if you had an extra $330 in your pocket at the end of your next vacation? Have an amazing dinner out somewhere special? Splurge on that expensive souvenir, case of wine, or other gift you’ve been dreaming of? Perhaps extend your vacation an extra day or two? For the typical couple*, we believe that achieving $330 in savings (or more) on hotel and flights on your next vacation is not only achievable, but something that you can do in under 10 minutes.

In today’s article, we’re going to show you a strategy that we are using over the next year to save 10-15% on average (often getting 15-20% in savings) from our major expenses such as flights and lodging. For us, that totals over $3,000 in travel savings over the next year.

And the best part of this strategy? We’ll walk you through the exact steps to take so it shouldn’t take you more than 10 minutes to implement the next time you are booking travel. We will cover:

1. What the strategy is to achieve quick and easy travel savings
2. How to sign up and start saving immediately
3. Advanced strategies to save 15%, 20%, or even more

The Strategy: Buying Discounted Gift Cards for Major Expenses

All that you have to do to start saving on a variety of expenses is purchase discounted gift cards from reputable websites, and then use those gift cards to pay for your travel, instead of using your credit card.

Easy enough, right? While there are many places that you can do this (eBay, Raise.com, and many other discount gift card websites), we’ll be giving you the exact steps to achieve these savings using the website that we use and trust: Raise.com.

You may be asking yourself “How could I purchase gift cards under face value?”, or “What if I’m scammed and the gift card doesn’t work?” Think of how many people receive gift cards to places they never shop or use for birthdays, holidays, or other events. These online marketplaces are a way for those people to recover some of the value of that gift card, while providing the buyer a small discount on the original value. There are no other fees, you can gain credit card rewards for the purchase, they are often delivered via email, and Raise.com offers a 1-year money back guarantee in case anything about the gift card is inaccurate (we have not had any issues thus far).

Two Quick Steps to Start Saving Now

If you are ready to start saving, all that you need to do is:

1. Sign up for an account on Raise.com.
   1. Use our referral link to get yourself an additional $5 off your first gift card purchase.
2. Start searching for gift cards to your most popular brands and start saving today.

That’s all! Before checking out on any future online booking, simply go to Raise.com, search for any discounted gift cards, purchase the amount that you need, and apply them at check-out. The most popular gift cards we use currently are:

• Celebrity Cruises (~10.3% off)
• Hotels.com (~7% off)
• Airbnb (~3.5% off)
• Southwest (~3.1% off)
• Uber (~2.2% off)

Availability and savings will depend on the current market of sellers, but you can often find everything from grocery stores to clothing brands, and much more. It has become a habit now to check Raise.com (and eBay) for discounted gift cards before making any online purchase.

Also, make sure you read the terms and conditions. Most of the ones we purchase have no expiration date and can be combined, but some companies do put limits on the number of gift cards you can apply to a single booking. Ensure you understand this before purchasing a large amount of gift cards, especially if you are purchasing multiple gift cards of lower value.

Advanced Strategies for Saving More

10% off cruises, 7% off hotels, and 3% off flights may sound pretty good for almost no additional effort. However, for those readers and travelers who don’t mind spending a little more time, these savings can be amplified in several ways, such that savings can reach 15%, 20%, or even more.

There are some excellent travel websites that dive in to some of these methods, such as cashback portals, in much more detail (often referred to as “rewards stacking” or “extreme stacking” in the travel hacking community), so we will simply introduce the topics here.

Some additional ways to increase your savings from gift card purchases include:

1. (+2-10%) Cashback Portals
   1. Use cashback portals by searching for your brand before purchasing on https://www.cashbackmonitor.com/. We typically try to use either TopCashBack (get $10 using this referral link) or Mr. Rebates.
   2. In addition to purchasing your gift cards through these portals, ensure you do the actual bookings (like on Hotels.com) using these portals, since you can get additional cash back.
2. (+2-7.5%) Credit Card Rewards
   1. When purchasing gift cards on Raise.com, use your rewards credit cards to get additional cash back.
   2. For example, the current promotion on the Chase Freedom card gives us 5% back when paying using PayPal, and that 5% is further boosted by our Chase Sapphire Reserve 50% bonus when booking for travel, giving us an effective 7.5% rewards rate.
3. (+5%) Raise.com Holiday and Sitewide Sales
   1. Stay on the lookout for special promotions, especially around holidays, where they offer an additional 5% off gift cards, and stock up when they do have these offers**. This one tip easily brings cruise savings to 15% and hotel savings to 12% or more.
4. (+5-10%) eBay
   1. Check eBay and other sites for discounted gift cards. They will often run eGift card sales (such as $100 Airbnb gift cards for $90), but they sell out fast, so you can set alerts. Note you may be at higher risk for disputes if the gift card value is not as promised, and some of the ways the listings are written can be deceiving, so be cautious when purchasing on eBay and always use reputable sellers.

A recent example: 25% off Hotels.com

Here is a recent example that we took advantage of, showing you how you can get 25% or more off Hotels.com, Airbnb, Uber, Southwest, and other major brands when the timing is right.

• +7%: Base discount rate for Hotels.com gift cards on Raise.com.
• +5%: Raise.com holiday sale for additional 5% off all gift cards (up to $10 back).
• +7.5%: Purchased on the Raise.com app using our Chase Freedom credit card on PayPal, to get the 5% Chase Freedom quarterly bonus, and then we have a 50% effective booster due to pairing our Freedom card with the Chase Sapphire Reserve card when redeeming for travel. 5%*1.5 = 7.5% effective savings
• +7%: Additional cashback that can be achieved using TopCashBack portal before booking on Hotels.com.
• Total savings: ~25% (That’s ~$50 in savings on a $200 gift card; we paid $176 up-front, got $13.20 in travel rewards on our credit card, and another $12.32 cash back on a rewards portal when booking).

Going back to our original example of someone that spends $150/night on hotels for two weeks, that’s $525 in potential savings for less than 10 minutes of extra work while checking out!

If you find this article helpful, please share this to spread the word about this great travel hack. This is only the first of many other posts to come that will provide examples of how we’re cutting costs and making the most of our travels over the next year.

Notes:

• *Our assumptions for the typical American couple (only showing savings on flights and hotel):
  • Two weeks of vacation a year (14 nights)
  • Flights for each week = $300 round-trip x 2 people = $600 x 2 trips = $1,200
  • Hotel = $150/night * 14 = $2,100
  • Total flights and hotel expenses for two week vacation = $3,300
  • At average 10% savings using this strategy, typical savings = $3,300 * 10% = $330
• **To get the great deals that are only offered a few times a year, it may be necessary to purchase gift cards when the promotions come around, and then hold on to them until your next vacation. This is more risky since you are purchasing gift cards you could lose, forget about, or end up not needing, but if you purchase major brands such as Airbnb, Hotels.com, Uber, and others, they often never expire, and you can typically load them into your account immediately so that they will be ready to use the next time you go to book travel.