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So. Maine

No , I'm not a salesperson for any of the airlines BUT I am a GP grower and I have read several post on BP from growers who would love to attend a GPC convention but have not because the flights to travel were too pricey .

Here's what my wife and I did to fly round trip to Vegas.

Go to Southwest.com and click on the add that reads " Get 2 Round Trip Flights " ( which is equal to around 50,000 flying points ) Sometimes they only offer 25,000 but right now the offer is 50,000 points .

Apply for the Southwest credit card . As long as you qualify they will mail you your card ( s )

Within the first 3 months you need to charge ( and hopefully pay for ) $ 2,000.00 worth of credit card charges .
Reason I say " hopefully " is I don't want you to have to pay any monthly interest on your charges.

Southwest will credit your account with 50,000 flying points for use with Southwest OR Air Tran ( which is a airline company they own ) Wanna Get Away Flights .

You will be charged $ 99. in your first billing which is a yearly fee BUT you can always make a note and cancel your account before your next anniversary comes up if you do not want to continue paying every year , that's up to you .

Good thing is your points Don't Expire !

To make your flight plans OR check where Southwest or Air Tran fly in and out of go on the homepage Southwest.com
put your mouse arrow over the word AIR just to the right of Special Offers on the top of the page , you will get a highlighted page that shows all the airports they service . Put the mouse on the dot near Orlando and you will see all the airports they fly to and from .

Then to see how many points it will take to make your round trip click on AIR , type in where you are flying from , where you are flying to and the dates involved , how many people and then click on Search .

continued

3/3/2013 11:29:54 PM

So. Maine

A page will come up showing all the present flights ( to and from your destination ) and over to the right is the cost of " Wanna Get away " flights which you can list in either points or dollar amounts . In most cases you should be able to get 2 round trip flights for your 50,000 points as long as you do not wait until the last few weeks or days before you make your flight plans .

In our case I found a new flight less than a month before the GPC convention for the day we wanted to fly to Vegas and the points required were only 5500 for each ticket going out. We got return flights for 9200 points each so our total round trip totaled 29,400 points !

If this info helps a few growers afford the trip to the next GPC convention in Orlando it will worth my while typing this all out .

$ 2,000.00 might sound like a lot but figure out what you spend for gas , groceries , dining out , take outs , car / truck repair / parts Giant Pumpkin Fertilizer or whatever and figure it in for 3 months a lot of people can qualify .

Very well worth the $ 99.00 annual fee and TSA charge of @$ 5. on each ticket .

Good luck to all who can take part in this deal . It saved us about $ 700.00 in airfare and I'm not sure IF we would of taken the trip without this offer .

AL Berard

Maine

3/3/2013 11:45:58 PM

Rhode Island

i want al and his wife to plan my next trip. good info buddy
pap

3/4/2013 7:19:33 AM

Johnston, Iowa

Great Info!

3/4/2013 1:59:43 PM

East Jordan, MI

Very good info, Thanks for sharing. This proves where there is a will, there is a way.

3/6/2013 9:58:47 AM

So. Maine

Thanks . Glad to share , I hope growers who could not afford to attend the GPC convention in the past sign into this deal , we were told about this program by another AG grower about 2 years ago . Southwest just recently changed the offer back to 2 free round trip tickets from 1 round trip a week or so ago . They do this once in a while to boost flyers to their airline and of course they hope to make money by members using the credit card a lot.

I just signed up for the business card they offer ( same bonus offer of 2 free round trip flights ) and If I qualify for that we'll be flying Round Trip to the GPC convention in Orlando next February for a little over $ 100.

IF anyone who looks into signing up for this has 2 incomes ( husband & wife ) I would try and register one at a time requesting only 1 card just for the person requesting the credit card and after you know you can do the $ 2000.00 for the first card go check the web site to see if they still offer 2 round trip tickets and if they do have the other spouse sign up separately for 2 more free round trip tickets .

It's a tax right off for the airline and nothing says you can't cancel out after a year or 2 . IF you stay with the card I think every anniversary they put in 6000 points into your account which is pretty close to the value of the annual fee.

Their MIGHT some other airline deals out there But , this is the best one we know of .

See you in Orlando 2014

3/6/2013 4:27:59 PM