How to travel as a family of four multiple times a year, without a lottery win!
- Guest Writer
- 28 minutes ago
- 6 min read
Today's post has been kindly written by Heather Shipley, on Instagram as @heather_shipley_, where you can follow her pursuits to give her family the best life possible thanks to points. Naturally, that is what she'd like to tell you all about today!
If you would like to put yourself in front our audience and wish to guest write, just simply DM us on Instagram or email sam@pointswellmade.co.uk with an idea, and we will try and make it work!
Let’s set the scene. We are a working family, with two primary school age kids. Yet we are rarely home for a full school holiday. City breaks, off-the-beaten-track adventures, the odd long-haul when we can swing it, we try to pack a lot in for a normal working family.
A question I get asked a lot is “Where are you off too next?”, shortly followed by “How do you afford all this travel?”
Airmiles play a huge part for us. Turning our everyday spending into flights we’d otherwise have to think twice about booking.
There’s a lot of chat online about airmiles being the ticket (pardon the pun!) to Business class seats and long-haul adventures, but for us, they’ve been the thing that enables us to travel multiple times a year, and to spread our budget that little bit further.
And it really doesn’t have to be that complicated. So here are some ways we maximise our points earning potential and get the most out of spending them on family travel.
Earning miles without trying too hard
The biggest shift for us was realising earning more airmiles isn't about flying more, it’s about directing spending that you’re already doing to a way which pays you back.
Everyday spending on the right card - Groceries, fuel, meals out, even bills where possible, all go through a card that earns airmiles. We have a selection of different points earning cards, depending on what we are saving our points for. If you’re going to spend the money anyway, it may as well be working for your next holiday.
Balance boosting - We always look for ways to top up in lump sums. With Avios, we utilise the balance boosting feature most months, and we take advantage of bonus sign-ups and referral promotions when they land. These boosts are often where the real progress happens, far more than the day-to-day spend alone (you can read our guide to "boosting" your Avios here)
The Avios shopping portal (or Virgin’s equivalent). Think of it like a cashback app, but the points equivalent. Anything I am looking to buy online, I’ll first go through the portal to track my purchase and earn back airmiles. I will often compare retailers and purchase through the one that gives me the best points per pound spend. It costs nothing extra and adds up quietly in the background.
Have more than one card, to maximise your options. Amex isn’t always accepted everywhere, so we use our Virgin Atlantic Mastercard as a back up. If we are close to the threshold for a companion voucher on our BA Amex, that’s where we direct our spending. This year we are saving our points for a trip to Japan, piling all the spending on our Amex Platinum so we have lots of options of airlines to transfer our miles to.
None of this requires a huge income. It requires redirecting spending you already do through the right channels at the right time.
Maximising the trips themselves
Earning the miles is only half of it, the other half is being smart about how you spend them, to really maximise the number of trips.
We let availability lead, not the destination.
Theory: Rather than deciding where to go and hoping there’s award space, we flip it. We randomly search, see what’s available, and build the trip from there.
In practice: Slovenia this Summer holidays! This wasn't on our list for this year, but it’s shaping up to be an incredible trip. (Sam here, we thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Slovenia!)
We stay flexible on dates
(as flexible as we can be bearing in mind we are somewhat tied to school holidays!)
Theory: We don’t look to fly out the Saturday after the schools break up and return the Sunday before they go back. Shifting our outbound or inbound flight by a day or two can be the difference between no availability and a full set of seats.
In practice: South Africa in May half term by shifting our dates forward just one day.
We travel in the shoulder season wherever we can.
Theory: Availability will often by higher when you’re not searching for the same destinations as every other man and his dog.
In practice: Switzerland in April (too late for skiing, too early for the Summer rush), and South Africa in May (out of peak Summer, whilst also being pre Whale watching season)
Open Jaw travel
Theory: Struggling to get return flights with your airmiles? Look at flying into one airport and out of another. This is easily doable in Europe where a quick cheap train can connect your two airports, and the bonus is that you can tick off another destination in the process.
In practice: An extended family trip originally planned to Rome for 8 of us over Easter. Lack of reward availability meant we changed the trip into a bit of an interrailing adventure, stopping off in Florence on the way to Venice, and flew home from there!
We fly economy
Theory: So much we see on social media is people using their airmiles for Business class seats, but for us, they eat through miles at a rate that would mean we’d likely only get one big trip a year instead of several smaller ones. Plus the taxes on those trips can also be excruciatingly high (thanks Virgin!). Right now our priority is the number of trips we get as a family each year, not the seat we sit in to get there, so economy it is, every time.
In practice: Prague, Luxembourg, South Africa, Italy, Slovenia booked this year, all in economy, all with airmiles.
We work out where the real value is
Theory: Remember the days when you could get a return flight for £20? Yeah, they’re a thing of the past it seems, especially when we are looking in school holidays. We look at our travel plans for the whole year, and calculate where we’ll get the best value. Sometimes it’s more cost-effective to use our miles on a long-haul trip and pay cash for a European break; other times it works out better the other way round.
In practice: We are planning a trip to Japan next year, but if the price means we will completely exhaust our balance, we’ll pay cash for those flights, and save the miles for two or three European breaks.
Why I waffle about travelling smarter so much
Now the kids are at school, our weeks are chaotically filled with work, kids and after school clubs. A short trip here and there every 6 weeks or so gives us a chance to spend some quality time together.
Travelling smarter has become a necessity to allow us this luxury of multiple trips a year, and I now also partner with a global host travel agency, supporting other people in earning an additional income in the travel space. Taking something that some families think is unaffordable and making it a normal, affordable part of life, without needing more income, just a smarter approach to what’s already coming in and going out.
I want everyone to know that travelling more is genuinely more accessible that it looks.
Come find me over on Instagram (@heather_shipley_). That’s where, amongst lots of snapshots of our recent trips, I talk in more depth about juggling corporate work, mom life and travelling smarter, plus all the little ways we stretch our holiday budget further without compromising on the fun. And, if you’d like to learn more about how we travel smarter, then check out our testimonials on https://travelfreedomcollective.co.uk
Heather Shipley
Points Well Made is a passion project from Sam and Helena. If you've enjoyed this and want to help us keep the lights on, please consider buying us a Ko-fi or subscribing monthly. You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok for more of the same. Thanks for reading.
