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5 Essential Travel Tricks:  Get Ahead of the Customs Line, Understand Your Most Valuable Resource & More From Your Contest Entries!

  • Jason Stauffer

    • Signing up for credit cards through partner links earns us a commission. Terms apply to the offers listed on this page. Here’s our full advertising policy: How we make money.

    Update: One or more card offers in this post are no longer available. Check our Hot Deals for the latest offers.

    In case you haven’t heard, we’re giving away a $4,500 trip to one lucky reader!  The contest ends on May 31, 2018, so you’ve got less than a week left to get your entries in!

    You can enter the sweepstakes by heading over to the contest page and using the widget to subscribe to our email list, comment on that post with your best travel tip, trick, or secret, and tell us where you’d go if you won!

    It’s that simple.  And you can come back daily and comment to earn more entries!

    If You’re the Big Winner, You Could Use the Prize to Get Away From the Crowds in Australia!

    Here are some tips, tricks and secrets y’all have shared so far!

    Million Mile Secret Agent Travel Tips

    Link:  Enter Our Biggest Contest Ever!

    A big thanks to all the Million Mile Secrets Agents that have taken the time to enter our contest and share their travel tips with us.

    Here are a few tips to prepare you for your next journey!

    Nancy understands the value of money AND time:

    It’s no secret, but just a fact for me:  I either have the TIME to seek out the best flight and hotel deal or the MONEY to pay for the best flight or hotel deal.

    As a younger retiree, I am happy to say I am now able to do more of the first than the second!  Million Mile Secrets gives me incredible tips on how to do it.  And more confidence because I know there are others out there doing the same thing!

    I like this perspective.  And I couldn’t agree more that seeing someone else do something makes it so much easier for me to do it too!

    Corey saves at customs with a simple app:

    Download the Mobile Passport app to avoid longer lines when returning to the US.

    I just downloaded this app and will be using it soon.  It’s essentially a digital customs form.  So if you’re traveling as a family, one person can download the app and add everyone else’s information.

    Ryan doesn’t have to worry about expired miles:

    Use shopping portals to keep your miles and points from expiring.  Even a small purchase can add months or more to an expiration date.

    I couldn’t agree more.  I used to think it wasn’t worth my time to earn miles & points (instead of cash back) through shopping portals, because 100 or so miles seemed worthless.  Then I had some Southwest points expire on me, and I learned my lesson!

    Kim likes to get a feel for the area in advance:

    Use Google Maps to look at the street of your hotel or destination.  It’s super helpful in foreign lands to get familiar with a spot with it before you even see it.

    I need to start doing this more often because the photos from hotels’ websites can be very misleading!  I’m looking at you ANA Crown Plaza Kyoto!

    Mel suggests you take the high road:

    Management at hotels are always willing to correct any problems you may have if you are discreet, polite, and patient.

    If you’ve ever worked a customer service job, you know certain employees aren’t always given the power to fix a problem.  So even if you don’t get what you want, have understanding and patience for someone else’s situation.  It’s a practice that will make your life better.

    Our travel sweepstakes runs until May 31, 2018.  You can read our full travel sweepstakes entry rules here.

    Interested in sharing your travel tricks?  Remember, you can visit the contest post every day and comment for extra entries to win!  We’ll pick a winner within 10 days after the Sweepstakes period ends.

    Editorial Note: We're the Million Mile Secrets team. And we're proud of our content, opinions and analysis, and of our reader's comments. These haven’t been reviewed, approved or endorsed by any of the airlines, hotels, or credit card issuers which we often write about. And that’s just how we like it! :)