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Meet Norma, the new Travel Miles 101 Community Manager!

May 9, 2016 by Alexi 14 Comments  Travel Miles 101 has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Travel Miles 101 and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers.

Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities. Disclosures.

travel-miles-101One of the fantastic byproducts of having started this course has been getting to know all of you in our Travel Miles 101 community.

Our initial goal was simple. We wanted to teach novices the basics of the miles game so that they could learn to fly on their own and achieve all of their own personal travel goals (for pennies on the dollar).

To do this we needed to open up the discussion, and so we made sure that we were accessible by email, and our private Facebook group. And thankfully you guys took us up on the offer.

You asked great questions, gave us invaluable feedback, and helped us direct our efforts towards where they would yield the most fruit for future students.

And what followed, quite frankly surpassed any of our initial expectations.

So many of you have taken the basic building blocks necessary to understand the miles game and have greatly expanded upon them. You have achieved amazing things, and taught us so much in the process.

Which brings us to Norma Stoeve.

Norma is one of our many star students, who really took our lessons to heart, and from there pushed her own knowledge aggressively forward.

She has always been incredibly helpful with fellow students in the Facebook group, and has even taught us several new lessons about hitting minimum spending requirements!

(Re-enactment of Norma’s friend “Grasshopper” walking the gauntlet of prepaid card knowledge…)

In that 70s TV show”Kung Fu’s” terms “the student has become the master.” (And when she walks on rice paper, rest assured,  she leaves no mark.)

The talented Norma Stoeve!

The talented Norma Stoeve!

Which is why we’ve asked her to join the Travel Miles 101 team as our Community Manager.

Norma is going to partner with us to make sure that we are consistently meeting your needs in terms of promptly answering your questions as they come up both by email and on the Facebook group.

We will still be intimately involved with the community, so if you ever want  either Brad or Alexi’s specific input, just tag us on Facebook or email us directly.

But rest assured, whenever Norma speaks, she has our full confidence. She really knows her stuff.

What follows is a brief introduction to Norma (in her own words), so that you all know the person behind all of that knowledge!

Norma’s Background.

I am a recently (early) retired nurse who has worked in multiple areas including the emergency department, critical care, homecare, and administrative roles.

I have always loved a challenge and learning new things;  current interests include low cost investing and maximizing retirement income.

On how she came to travel rewards…

I found Travel Miles 101 either through the Mr. Money Mustache community or through the Bogleheads forum (I can’t remember which one!)

I took the course last June and when I started out I was definitely a “Brad” type travel hacker I was not interested in being more aggressive. However, when I’m learning something new I totally immerse myself in the topic. Every spare moment was spent reading and studying. Even though I wasn’t planning on being aggressive, I wanted to understand the concepts. That led me to the “Alexi” side and I started experimenting to find out what did and didn’t work and what I was comfortable with.

On her goals for travel rewards….

My husband does not enjoy flying but has wanted to go back to his family’s home in Germany for years. We decided to make it a 25th anniversary/retirement trip. It’s hard for me to justify spending money on a “want” versus a “need” so my initial focus was getting our coach flights paid for although I knew at 6’2″, with hip and back surgeries, my husband could barely tolerate domestic flights.

I soon realized we could travel first/business class and he would be much more comfortable. Before I knew it, we started adding in more aspects to the trip as I realized what we could actually do with miles. After years of budget vacations, sleeping in Days Inn and Super 8 hotels, and being on the back burner due to work and children, I wanted to give my husband one “luxury” vacation for putting up with all my (nagging) cost saving measures over the years! I decided to go with a booking agent who took care of our flights.

I then booked a Mediterranean cruise with ThankYou Points, and used other points for 5 star hotels. Additional train transportation, tours, and meals were covered with cashback credit cards. If we had paid actual cash for the trip, our “luxury” cost would have been around $15k for over a month in Europe.

On what her favorite aspect of travel rewards is…

I’m really looking forward to our dream vacation. For a frugal person like me, not paying thousands of dollars will help me to truly enjoy the vacation, guilt free, as a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I could never justify this type of trip otherwise after years of saving and doing without, so we could give to church, foster children, and to helping people in need.

On Future goals.

To simplify! Now that I’ve tried both Brad and Alexi’s approach, and our Europe trip is covered, I plan on taking a much more moderate approach. We don’t have a lot of travel needs and I expect most of our future travel will be road trips in the states and occasional cruises. Thus hotel and cashback cards will play a more important role than air miles. However, it’s pretty hard to resist a sign up bonus, and we hope to book flights for our adult children and help them out with future travel needs.

….Please join us in welcoming Norma to the TM 101 team. We will all be much the better for her future efforts!

Travel Miles 101 has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Travel Miles 101 and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers.

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Comments

  1. Jody says

    May 10, 2016 at 7:56 am

    I would love to hear more about how you upgraded to a higher class. Glad you’re on the team!

    Reply
  2. Rocknroam says

    May 10, 2016 at 8:14 am

    Wow, so cool! Congratulations Norma on your new position and your amazing trip. I know you have posted some of the details of your trip before, but I would love to hear more, or if you have a link to the full story, that would be great. You have been a great resource to me, and the whole community, I am sure you will be fabulous in your new role!

    Reply
  3. Rosalie says

    May 10, 2016 at 8:50 am

    Welcome to your new position Norma. I’m certain you will do a fantastic job and look forward to
    Reading your posts !

    Reply
  4. Squirrel-girl says

    May 10, 2016 at 9:46 am

    Congratulations on the fantastic trip you have planned!

    I am hoping you can explain how to get and ise Thank-you points for a Mediterranean cruise. Also, is there anyway to earn a free European river cruise? Thanks

    Reply
  5. GrOW says

    May 10, 2016 at 11:48 am

    Congrats on the “new official” role, Norma.

    I joined the community less than six month ago but have already enjoyed six free hotel night and have a full week trip planned for September using rewards only.

    I am very interested in your future work on cash back cards since I find that I help extra rewards card spend available beyond my ability to use only travel rewards.

    Reply
  6. Tom Crowder says

    May 10, 2016 at 12:18 pm

    Congratulations, Norma! You do take the ball and run with it! Welcome aboard!

    Tomzoom

    Reply
  7. Chelsea says

    May 10, 2016 at 12:19 pm

    Congratulations Norma!

    Reply
  8. Liz says

    May 10, 2016 at 12:28 pm

    Congrats Norma, I’ve always found your posts very helpful and appreciate the time you spend helping all of us.

    Reply
  9. Nirmala says

    May 10, 2016 at 4:09 pm

    Congrats, Norma. You go out of your way to share information and knowledge with all of us. Can’t thank you enough!

    Reply
  10. Alison Wilkins says

    May 10, 2016 at 7:52 pm

    Norma, congratulations on your new role! I really appreciate all the insight you have provided us, and when I read your line about supporting foster care kids…you made this social worker cry.

    Reply
    • Norma says

      May 11, 2016 at 9:09 am

      Now you’re going to make *me* cry. We always had ages 0-3 years old but would occasionally take older children that needed emergency placement. I still miss the kids. So many heartbreaking stories, but you already know that. It was my heart’s desire for every child to feel safe, loved, and wanted in our home.

      Reply
  11. Norma says

    May 10, 2016 at 7:58 pm

    Thanks everyone for the welcome and making me feel appreciated! If you ever have any questions, I hope you feel comfortable posting. We have a lot of experienced people on the forum with strengths in different areas. It’s wonderful!

    I’ll try to answer some questions below:

    Jodi: we didn’t upgrade per se but found out we could book business/first class with miles. I went through a booking agent and it was well worth it. He knew how to maximize the mishmash of points we had. I didn’t have the time or energy to learn that aspect of the game. It’s always better to book right away when flights open up.

    Rocknroam: I’ll be sure and write a trip report after we get back. In fact, I already started it so I wouldn’t forget some of the details. You better write some too!

    Squirrel-girl: Citi Thank You Points can be used for any cruise. It takes a lot of points, but they go further if you have a Citi Premier card as the points are worth 1.25 cents. You have to go through Citi’s portal. Unfortunately you can’t search via the portal and check cruises/prices/points. You have to call them. Kinda like a travel agent. I did a lot of research first, figured out our dates, and what cruises would work. Once I had one picked out, I called the booking agent on the portal, gave them the information, and they told me the cost. You can pay with cash and points. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. If the cruise drops in price, they’ll give you a refund. I signed up for weekly price updates, called when I saw it had dropped, and ended up with over a $600 refund.

    GrOW, it’s kinda ironic that I got into this game and I have a husband who doesn’t like to travel! That may change though. I’m beginning to think he doesn’t like to travel the way we’ve always done it-on the cheap. He REALLY enjoyed a recent stay in a category 6 hotel. Hope you enjoy your Sept trip. I have a lot more fun knowing it’s free!

    I love our community and that people are willing to take the time to help one another and answer questions. That’s a rarity. So many forums have private groups and it makes it difficult for new people to learn. I’m so thankful that Brad and Alexi are willing to swim against the current and share their experience with newcomers.

    Reply
  12. Lola Larson says

    August 23, 2016 at 10:00 pm

    Hi Norma, I remember reading that Alexi recommended a company that would handle complicated travel itineraries but I can’t find it now. Do you happen to recall the name and contact info?

    Thanks, Lola

    Reply
    • Brad says

      August 26, 2016 at 11:20 am

      Hi Lola!

      It’s Dominik at http://boundlessmiles.com/request-award-help/

      Reply

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