As a brief introduction, my name is Dan and my wife and I have 6 (SIX!) children. To forestall most of your questions, there are 3 boys and 3 girls, and yes, they keep us busy!
Our home airports are usually CVG and DAY, though we’ve been known to drive to IND, SDF or CMH if needed. We’ve even driven up to MDW before.
Family Travel
While I write some about general travel, I aim to focus specifically on traveling with families, especially large families. Those of us who are navigating car trips in packed minivans or trying to keep track of 17 different pieces of luggage in an airport just have different perspectives on travel than someone traveling with no kids.
I had known about travel hacking for several years, but had not really applied myself until realizing that we had a family reunion scheduled in Nevada. Knowing that 8 cross-country plane tickets were not going to be cheap (and might keep us from going), I did my first credit card churn back in January 0f 2013, and eventually was able to use 170,000 Southwest Rapid Reward points and the Southwest Companion pass to fly us there for free! (plus taxes).
I started blogging as well because like I said earlier, most of the travel blogs out there seemed to be about single people or others with no kids traveling in first class cabins and 5 star hotels. And while that is fun to read about, it’s not an accurate representation of how my family (or most of the families that I know) travel. I wanted to give another perspective.
Some of my most popular or favorite posts
Freeze your IDA / ARS credit accounts before applying for this card!
To get an idea of what I write about, check out the listing of some of my most popular posts
And of course if you’re new to the miles and points game, you’ll want to check out my Beginner’s Guide, which is a more newbie-friendly, step-by-step introduction.
You’ll also want to follow me on Twitter and Facebook or email me at dan <at> pointswithacrew.com with any questions – I’m happy to help you out in any way that I can!
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Chase private client is 50K for Chase Sapphired preferred. Need to apply via branch.
go to chase site, put in private client, will have details on 50K
Is there a simple way to mash your travel itinerary with photographs while you are traveling? Typically I upload my photographs to my laptop and then look at my itinerary to figure out, sometimes, where that shot was taken. Would be nice to have an app on the cellphone to record your trip or travels steps…with your photos.
Any app that does that?
I am upset that Southwest might be:
Charging or not allowing flight changes
Allowing seating in first four rows to those who pay extra.
Very upsetting. Are these changes going to happen! When?
Was really looking forward to having the option to book SLH hotels for DW, myself and our 11 yr. old using Hyatt points for an upcoming trip to Europe. Are there any which allow more than 2 in a room when booking online with Hyatt points?
My husband and I are both retired. We have a chase Premier Southwest Rapid Rewards card that we now have over 115,000 points with. When I called to see when we could expect our companion pass I was told I did not qualify because I did not have enough qualifying flights. I was told it had to be a combination of flights and purchases to my credit card and that I needed about 30,000 points more. I have read through the qualifying jargon and I cannot find it. Has anyone else had this problem? we really like to fly Southwest and was counting on that companion pass to visit our grandkids several times a year!
Hey Dan, I recently stumbled across your site! As a fellow blogger (PF) with a very large family, I look forward to digging in!
Nice to e-meet you!
Loss of credibility. I notice in another posting about getting a Citi card, you are rating Virgin Atlantic as one of the “best uses” of the points transfer. That is patently ridiculous considering the tremendous tax burden imposed by either the airline/Heathrow/or the British government. I am not sure who creates that tax burden but as someone who listened to one of the travel blogs advising how great it was to transfer points to VA because they code share with Delta, I can tell you 1M points later, SIX years later, it is PRACTICALLY impossible to get a decent deal that isn’t less expensive on a non-British airline. And furthermore, to get Business Class (Upper Class) you literally have to book 9 months out because only TWO award tickets are available per flight. It is actually a scam IMO, but at the very least no one should be promoting the VA or BA programs as a good use to transfer points.
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This article came at the perfect time for me. I’ve been struggling with this issue, and your insights really shed light on possible solutions. Thanks for sharing your knowledge!
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