The logistics of our 5-month world tour as a family

I have been working on the “milesopedia project” since Alexandra was born almost 5 years ago. I might as well tell you that this is my third child to whom I devote a lot of time: it’s not a classic 9-to-5 job, but a real entrepreneurial job, evenings and weekends included. The community can attest to that!

This leaves little time for real family life.

We adjusted our lives accordingly: in December 2018, I quit my comfortable job to devote myself fully to milesopedia. And Audrey chose to leave her job as a salaried pharmacist to become a substitute pharmacist so that she could control her schedule and help me with this project.

One Saturday afternoon in April 2019, when Alexandra was about to turn 4, she told me this:

Dad, can you stop milesopedia and play with Arthur and I for a little bit?

Alexandra

From this reflection was born the idea of leaving for several months, all 4 of us, to find ourselves as a family and break our routine.

Several factors impacted our choice of destinations.

If you’re going to travel for 5 months, you might as well do it during the Canadian winter! So we decided to travel between December and April.

Once the travel period was decided on, we had to decide on where to go. December is a great time to visit the southern hemisphere. After thinking about South America for a while, we chose South Africa as our first stop. It was indeed easier to reach Asia and Oceania from South Africa than South America.

For the end of our trip, in March-April, we turned our attention to Japan and South Korea in order to take advantage of the spring period, associated with cherry blossom.

Between these two fixed points of our trip, we needed a “hub” from which we could explore a “hot spot” between January and March. Singapore naturally stood out (especially since we have family living there).

Why Taipei and not Japan? It was difficult to find 4 seats – in business class – leaving Japan in spring. EVA Air offers a 14-hour flight from Taipei to Toronto with no carrier surcharges via Aeroplan. And 4 seats were available.

Taipei would be our base in Asia and our point of return to Canada.

Here are the airlines used for this itinerary with Aeroplan Miles:

With the exception of Air Canada, these are only airlines that do not charge a carrier surcharge when using Aeroplan Miles.

Thus, the cost of the itinerary, per person, in business class was:

• 150,000 Aeroplan Miles (Asia Rate 1: Taiwan)
• 216.52 in taxes (including $30 in telephone booking fees)

That’s a total of 600,000 Aeroplan Miles and $866.08 for 4 people. It’s ridiculous for a ticket of this type in business class!

On this trip, beyond the Aeroplan Miles used for the main itinerary, we’ll be using different point & mile currencies.

Over the course of our nearly 150-day journey, we will visit many hotels and airbnb accommodations.

In order to reduce the cost of our journey, redeeming points will be very useful!

IHG Rewards Club does not offer credit cards in Canada that earn points directly. And it is not possible to earn them via transfer.

We earned IHG points by purchasing them during promotional periods and in anticipation of this trip, with the intention of taking advantage of the PointBreaks promotion.

This way, we can have some points in reserve for a few nights.

Thanks to welcome bonuses and spending on our BMO Rewards credit cards, we each have close to 100,000 BMO Rewards points, worth over $700.

Nearly $1,500 will be available to cover select car rentals by using our points through the BMO Rewards portal. More details on how to use BMO Rewards points here.

With the BMO Ascend World Elite Mastercard, we’ll also have great insurance for those car rentals with our points. Read more about the card’s insurance here.

While I prefer to transfer my Membership Rewards points to Aeroplan / Avios miles or my Select Membership Rewards points to Marriott Bonvoy points, I reserve the opportunity to use them to cover certain travel expenses such as Airbnb or airfare on certain low cost airlines.

It is therefore a currency that I treasure because of its flexibility.

Although we have been HSBC Premier customers since we arrived in Canada (which made it easier for us to get a bank account in this country), the HSBC Rewards program is new for us.

In order to diversify our points & miles accumulation, we decided to apply when we saw an excellent promotion on the HSBC World Elite card.

HSBC Rewards points can be redeemed for any travel purchase (Airbnb, plane ticket…) via a fixed price schedule. They can also be transferred to 3 airline loyalty programs including the British Airways Executive Club.

We will use these points especially for our Airbnb bookings or low cost airline tickets in Asia.

With our multiple Scotia Rewards cards, we each have close to 100,000 Scotia Rewards points, which is worth approximately $1,000.

So here we have a budget of nearly $2,000 that can be used on Airbnb rentals or transportation.

Finally, AIR MILES Dream Miles.

I prefer to use our AIR MILES Dream Miles for short-haul flights within North America. However, we do have about 15,000 Dream Miles that could be useful for some hotel reservations!

These miles were earned in just a few months with credit card welcome bonuses following our 2019 game plan!

If there is one question that I am frequently asked in the Facebook group, it is this one:

What credit cards will you use during your 5 months of travel?

With nearly fifteen active cards at the time of our departure, we were spoilt for choice. And very often, the cards used ed to PLAN our trip, are different from those used ON the trip.

This is our strategy!

Whenever possible, we use our American Express Cobalt Card for all our restaurant and grocery store expenses.

This card earns 5 Membership Rewards points per dollar on these types of purchases. Even though it charges a 2.5% conversion fee for transactions in foreign currencies, it’s a big win because of the flexibility of the Membership Rewards points earned.

For the hotels, we will use the credit card linked to the loyalty program: this is what allows us to earn as many points as possible.

In this article, I showed how it works with the Marriott Bonvoy program: all the expenses in a hotel should be carried on your room to enable you to earn the most points possible. Then later pay for that with the Marriott Bonvoy™ American Express^® Card, since it earns 5 Marriott Bonvoy points per dollar for purchases at Marriott hotels!

Here are the 2 cards that we will use mainly for the hotels:

For all other purchases that we will make in the different countries we will visit, we will use the HSBC World Elite Mastercard or the Scotiabank Passport™ Visa Infinite* CardThese two credit cards do not charge any conversion fees for foreign currency transactions. That’s a saving of 2.5% on every purchase!

And the fact that we have a MASTERCARD and a VISA card in our wallet allows us to be prepared for any eventuality. Indeed, we have already had one or the other refused.

We have limits of about $10,000 on each of our credit cards. However, some car rental agencies will hold up to $5,000 as a deposit on the credit card for the duration of the rental (even 1 week to 10 days beyond the rental).

To get around this, we use the American Express Platinum^MD Card when we pay for our rentals (i.e., when we do not use our points).

This card is a payment card: it has no limit (American Express sets a limit based on your relationship with the issuer and your past purchases, you can simulate a purchase in your account to test your limit).

This allows us not to tie up our other credit cards with our car rental deposits!

Also, unlike most other cards covering vehicles up to $60,000, the Platinum Card^® from American Express covers up to $85,000, which can make a difference in some countries.

For cash withdrawals, we will use our HSBC Premier debit card (no conversion fees for foreign currency transactions, no ATM withdrawal fees).

We also brought our Tangerine debit card as well as other debit cards from “neo-banks”: Revolut and Transferwise (obtained in France).

This way we are prepared for all eventualities!

For more information on how to save money abroad, check out this article!

Our friends Jessica, Poly and their children from The Wonderlusters have greatly inspired us, as they left for 14 months for an incredible world tour: We invite you to read their articles, especially their review.

Going on a trip like this with our children is an incredible opportunity that we too will have the chance to experience over the next few months. Not everything will be easy, that’s for sure, but such is the case with the life of a family every day. We hope to come out of it more united, more complicit, and somehow better.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask them in comments of our articles, on the forum or in the facebook group!