If you have someone you frequently travel with and want to get half of all of your flights for free (I mean, who doesn't?), then this post is for you.

I just spent way too much time booking our flights to Turks and Caicos, comparing cost breakdowns to see if it's a better value to book with cash or points. I wanted to share my findings with you here because A.) I'd love to save someone else the headache of figuring it out themselves and B.) somehow turning my 2 hours of research into a blog post makes me feel a little bit better about myself.

So, here's the breakdown of how we saved over $400 by booking with points and using our Southwest Companion Pass.

Every SW point = 1.5 cents.
One flight from OKC to Turks and Caicos costs 14,730 points, plus $103.41 in fees (intl airport fees are steep)
Converting points to dollars, it comes out to $411.44 for one roundtrip ticket, fees included.

If we booked using cash instead of points, the total cost would have been $457. So, we already saved $45.56 by using Southwest points instead of paying cash.

Now, in comes the beautiful Companion Pass, which lets your designated partner fly free with you on every trip for *at least an entire calendar year. With your pass, you only have to pay taxes and fees, which varies by country for international flights.

$103.41 = cost of reserving your companion's ticket (taxes and fees)
$514.85 = grand total for two roundtrip tickets from OKC to Turks & Caicos. (instead of $914, which would've been the cost of two full priced Southwest tickets.. pretty, pretty good!)
Plus - in case you're not familiar, you get two free checked bags apiece on every SW flight. Yep, even your companion. We usually carry on, but in those times when you need to bring a lot of sunscreen (Caribbean vacay, y'all) it's nice to check for free.

Now, I was curious about how much we were actually saving by booking specifically with Southwest (because that's how I get my kicks in life, lol) so I looked into how much it would cost for both of us to fly to T&C on a different airline.

The cheapest I could find was a combination of Delta and United, which costs $1,142 for two roundtrip tickets, plus $50 per checked bag (um, plus a 16 hr layover? bye). So, compared to the $514 we spent booking with Southwest, that's $627.15 in savings, not even counting baggage fees! And that makes me so dang happy. We just got our second Companion Pass, so we're going on 3 years of free flights and let me just tell you, it never gets old.

A few things I want to point out:

- These prices are reflective of flying to the Caribbean from the Midwest area. If you live in Florida your ticket will be chump change compared to these prices, on any airline I'm sure. I envy you.

- You do need to get two Southwest credit cards to get the Companion Pass. Although it might seem tricky to juggle multiple cards, we use ours as if they were debit cards. I get on and pay them off a few times per month so that we never have a balance and never pay interest, which is just a personal preference but something I wanted to note.

- The fees that you'll pay for your companion ticket on domestic flights are WAY cheaper.

* The Companion Pass can last you more than a full year, depending on when you get it. See my post here for more details.

- This post isn't sponsored by Southwest, but it should be ;)

I'm sitting here editing pics from our Tulum trip and thinking about how we're always getting questions on how we travel so much, mostly from our fam.. hey fam. 😘 Questions like how are we able to leave work all the time? How do we afford it?

So I'll start by saying that we don't have kids yet, I work from home, and Danny's job allows him to be somewhat flexible with his vacation days. We also plan pretty short trips- typically we'll leave on a Thursday and come back Monday. Basically we're young and free, so #whynot. It has felt pretty crazy at times, and I've caught myself really missing my couch and my house. But we have made some amazing memories and I know we'll look back on this busy time of life and be so glad that we did it.

A huge factor is our Southwest Companion Pass. Companion Pass = your companion flies free with you every single time you fly. No joke. It's amazing. This article sums it up really well, but basically if you have the SW credit card and you reach 110,000 points in one calendar year- then you get the companion pass for the remainder of that year plus the ENTIRE next year.

(So for example. When we went to Belize, flights were $450. Once I bought my ticket, I just added Danny on as a companion and his ticket was totally free, minus fees. It's not like standby where you might get on and might not. Your companion has their own confirmation number and their own legit ticket- every time you fly.)

It really is amazing and the timing of it could not have come at a more perfect time for us. When we were in the process of getting the pass we didn't even know that Danny was about to start working in Seattle at least 6 times a year for two years. The pass allowed me to be able to go with him, (even when he had to book a super last minute, expensive flight) take my sewing machine, and work from Seattle flying free every time.

As far as other expenses go, we try to keep it cheap and travel within a reasonable budget. We stay in affordable AirBnB's which usually have a kitchen for cooking some of our own meals. We choose our activities carefully and don't spend tons of money on private excursions and guides.

Typically we rent a car so we can drive ourselves, which usually ends up being cheaper anyways, not to mention gives us total freedom. Driving around the country side in Costa Rica with the radio playing local Spanish tunes and stopping in little grocery stores has been one of my favorite travel memories yet. Driving yourself in a foreign country is a super unique experience and I think you'd enjoy the adventure if you tried it!

So why all these Caribbean beach trips? Since a big reason for our travel is the Southwest companion pass we're obviously flying to Southwest destinations. They've recently started adding several international flights to the Caribbean, so while we have our pass the most expensive flights are our top priority. With all of the work trips and vacations we've been on I would say we've easily saved at least $4,000 in 2017 alone. Plus we've grown to love the beach and it's hard to convince me to go anywhere but there these days.

All of that being said, Southwest has a 60,000 point bonus available right now, which is the highest I've ever seen. If you're interested in getting the card or companion pass this is the best time to sign up and snag all of those amazing points. Here's the link to apply. And if you have any questions feel free to ask me!