Review: Travelon RFID-Blocking Trifold Wallet

Today’s review is for the men out there (or the ladies who are looking for holiday/birthday gifts already), and it’s a good one. While I’m waiting for some brand new travel bags to come in, Travelon asked me if I’d like to choose a product to review while on my trip to Anaheim and LA. My husband is a wallet “collector”. I think mostly it’s because he never finds just the right one, but he will pore over a selection of wallets like I do with a wall of shoes. He will buy one or two and be excited about the current one for about three days and then declare he hates it and go back to his old beat-up one.

Now, I can tell you I adore 95% of the shoes I buy, so I don’t understand what it is about a wallet that makes it “unacceptable”, but I don’t have to carry it, so I don’t tell him anymore that it will probably end up in the donation box in a week. With the huge choice of items on the Travelon website, I asked if he might be interested in trying one of their RFID-blocking wallets, since he was talking about getting one before our next trip. He jumped on the opportunity and chose one that was similar to his regular wallet – a trifold jobbie with slots for plenty of cards and a separated bill compartment.

For those of you who don’t know, there are now these nifty little electronic gadgets that thieves use in large tourist areas and airports that can steal all your credit card numbers and other important info. You never know that you’ve been robbed, because all your cards are still in your wallet. Your balances can be run up while you’re on the plane or sleeping and you won’t know what happened until you go to use a card and it gets declined. Serious travel catastrophe!

Needless to say, I was a little apprehensive as to what he would think of this new wallet that, like many of the other wallets he has purchased, looks much like every billfold he’s liked, but also detested. Once it arrived, he got all excited. I wondered how long it would last. Surprisingly, we’ve been back from vacation for almost a week and he’s still using and loving it! Here’s what he says he loves about it:

Looks great – Obviously, he chose the style he did because it looks great and is sleek and classic looking. It also has super features that make it even better. It’s made of soft cowhide leather, but we both agree that it looks even better than a normal leather wallet and it appears to be much more flexible, allowing it to stretch when needed.

Peace of mind – If you (or your man) worry endlessly about almost everything, especially money, then an RFID-blocking wallet is totally something to put on your wish list. Eric is always mulling over something that may or may not be important and ruining his own good time. This gave him several things to cross off the list. He knew his information was safe and he wouldn’t have to deal with an avoidable travel disaster in the middle of our trip. 

One of the big things he worries about is having to work with people he doesn’t know to solve a problem. At home he can just pop into his local bank branch, but on vacation, we may have to talk with new customer service reps or even people he may not understand if we’re in a foreign country. If we can eliminate some stress fairly easily, I’m all for it, since his worrying can also ruin the day for me, too.

Large compartments – While this wallet is the same size (and maybe a tad smaller) than your regular wallet, the compartments are large and can hold a fair amount of money – if you’re lucky enough to have it. The section for paper money is divided into two sections, so you can use the one section for domestic bills and the other for foreign, or you can do like Eric does, and probably a lot of other men do, and use one for money and the other for receipts. He tends to collect receipts for a week to a month before he cleans it out and starts over. Look at all the paper he has in there! And it still closes just fine.

Plenty of card slots – Even I know the annoyance of not having enough slots for cards in a wallet…or having a ton that you don’t use and make your wallet too bulky if you do use them. The Travelon trifold wallet has 7 card slots. You may not think this is a lot, but it appears it’s just the right amount. The slots are just wide enough that the cards slide in and out easily – no more struggling to get your debit card or ID out every time you need them. Not only that, but you can put more than one in a slot if you need to. This doesn’t mean that they are all loose in there and your cards are going to just fall out everywhere. They are still super secure.

Eric was able to put our theme park tickets in a slot along with any FASTPASS tickets we were waiting to use and our room key. Now that he’s home, he says he will keep all of his insurance info in one slot (convenient to have it all together), but that it is also perfect to be able to put more than one of your million rewards cards in, so you aren’t using one slot for each one and then have no space for important credit cards and identification.

Overall, he has had no complaints with this wallet and loves the durability of it. The soft cowhide will last for a long time and the matte finish will not crack like those shiny leather wallets always seem to do. It’s a winner! He says he highly recommends it and is excited to find what he considers the perfect wallet [actual opinion!]. It’s compact, even when totally full and doesn’t make your pocket unusually bulgy either.

This is not the only style of RFID-blockingwallet that is available through Travelon. There is something to suit everyone’s preferences, from front-pocket styles to billfolds to cardholders with a money clip. If you’re a lady looking for a new wallet for your travels (or every day), then you can find RFID-blocking ones in all shapes and sizes as well! Again, with the holidays rapidly approaching, this is a great time to start your shopping, especially if you have a hard-to-buy-for person on your gift list. Everyone carries money and cards of some kind and, even though these are particularly great for travelers, they are not limited to them. Check out their awesome selection!

More information

Where you can buy it: Travelon online

How much it costs: $30.00

Colors it comes in: black or brown

Other specs: RFID blocking card slots, 3.5″ x 4.25″ x 0.63″ (closed), 8.74″ x 4.25″ x 0.13″ (open), soft cowhide leather.

Like Travelon and their great products? Find Travelon on Facebook and Twitter.

Disclosure: I was provided a wallet for the purposes of this review, but all opinions are 100% mine or Eric’s.

How I Spent $10 on 2 Plane Tickets 10.13.12

Yes, you read that right. $10! I’ll tell you right off the bat that this isn’t a normal everyday occurrence, or everyone would do it and then the airlines would really go bankrupt. We have paid regular (or sale) price for many airfares and we also use credit cards and other programs to get us more miles when we aren’t flying, so we accrue faster. You can do it, too, but you have to be creative and focused in order to achieve your nearly-free-airfare goal.

Technically, my tickets cost me $88 and some change, because a friend had 5,000 miles in her American Airlines account that were about to expire and she wouldn’t be able to use, so instead of letting them go to waste, I paid her to transfer the miles to my account, since I had less than my husband’s frequent flyer account on Alaska Airlines and they would push me over my mileage goal to get a free flight. Because Alaska and American are codeshare partners (you can use and accumulate miles interchangeably), I decided that we could book two separate fares on the same flight without spending much money out of pocket when the time came. A one-way domestic flight will generally run 12,500 miles and a roundtrip is double that – 25,000 frequent flyer miles.

As you can see above, my miles purchased cost $78.38. I did some research on flight schedules and availability when my trip got closer and I knew the dates I wanted to fly. Being flexible when reserving rewards flights is a must, as they can go quickly and may not have seats free when you want to travel. Lucky for us, we travel during a really awkward time for many – just before the weather gets cold, but a few weeks after the kids have gone back to school – so many seats are usually available if you book 3 months in advance. Most don’t want to pull their kids out of classes they just started, so late September/early October is generally less crowded anywhere we go. It also requires fewer miles to fly on unpopular days like Saturday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Other days can be 35,000 miles for a roundtrip ticket. I always attempt to find flights out on Saturday and back on Saturday, to ensure we have someone to drop us off and pick us up, but Wednesday had a late arriving flight back home and I took it.

Once I found flights to and from LA (more specifically, Santa Ana’s John Wayne Airport, because I loathe LAX), I opened two windows and pulled up American Airlines on one and Alaska Airlines on the other. The flights I found were on Alaska, so when I input my info for American, I asked for codeshare partners and was able to narrow my selections down to just Alaska’s routes. I chose both roundtrip flights and clicked through to the purchase screens, making sure that my seats were still available at that point. To use my frequent flyer miles the processing fee was just $5 for each ticket. A whopping total of $10 for both!

There was the issue of not being able to choose my seat ahead of time on Alaska, because I booked my flight through American, but a quick email to customer service straightened that out quickly and had Eric and I sitting together on both flights. Once we got to the airport, I checked in at the Alaska desk and politely asked if there might be some exit row seats available – they usually wait to assign those at the airport – and was upgraded for free. Woot! Points for getting to the airport early. We had so much more legroom! We weren’t so lucky on the way back, but since I still didn’t have anyone kicking me in the back the whole way home, I had no complaints.

Not all my miles are from flying, as you can see. The majority of them are, but I also gain miles through mileage programs like the invitation-only e-miles.com, trading in “dollars” earned through the e-rewards program where you take surveys to gain credits. I also am able to accumulate Hilton Honors Rewards and then trade them for American Advantage miles. We accrue miles from renting cars at our destinations and using participating ThanksAgain merchants at airports and around town.

On this trip, I earned miles by renting our car from Hertz. They allow you to put in your frequent flyer number to double your rewards. I got twice as lucky, because our trip was during the slow season, so my economy car got upgraded to a moderate size on arrival (I didn’t even ask! Decia at SNA is awesome, by the way). FYI: You can’t be downgraded at the car rental agency, so book the smallest vehicle you can. Much of the time economy cars are gone by the early evening, so if you have one reserved and they don’t have any, they have to give you the next size up they have at the same price. That is what happened to us earlier this year when we went to St. George and ended up going from what would be the size of a Chevy Aveo to a Crown Victoria.

If you have a credit card that gives you miles for every dollar you spend, try to use that as much as possible and then pay off what you spend each month, so you aren’t paying unnecessary interest. These cards generally come with some nice perks, like an up-front bonus of 25,000-50,000 miles when you use your card for so many purchases in the first 3 months, a free checked bag, priority seating or a cheap companion ticket, like the Alaska Airlines card we use. Each year you are entitled to a $99 companion ticket. Since we fly several times a year, these savings can really add up.

Do you have any great tips for gathering more frequent flyer miles or getting upgraded along your trip?

Super Useful Travel Links 10.12.12

Hey! It’s Friday and I am back from my trip to Los Angeles, Anaheim and all those other places around there. I’ll be telling you all about it in the coming weeks and months, but today it’s all about you and the things that can make travel easier or more fun. As always, I hope you actually find these links useful (or, at the very least, entertaining) and if you found some posts elsewhere that you would like to share, please do so in the comments. I love travel tips, news and gadgets – but you already knew that!

This week I got a great email from Too Many Adapters about fantastic Android Apps. One that stood out to me was Field Trip. It’s a Google App that learns what you like and what you don’t by your use of it and customizes suggestions for you. It runs in the background and then gives you ideas on what to do, where to eat, historical information and more! Pretty cool, right? It’s only available for the U.S. now, but hopefully, that will change in the near future.

This photo of Alegria Farm is courtesy of TripAdvisor

Have you been trying to figure out a good place to travel and spend your money? Some places depend on tourism dollars to keep afloat and are also great places to travel and learn about different cultures that you may not have even considered before. We felt that our trips Ecuador and places in Central America were fantastic places to get a travel bargain and also give back to communities that needed the little boost we could do for their economy. Want to know more? Check out what Philly.com has to say about Traveling for Good.

I love getting freebies when I travel. It’s not often that it happens, but every so often. On my last trip, I got a free car rental upgrade, free WiFi in my vacation rental and exit row seats on my flight to LA without having to pay for them. (Get to the airport early and check in at the desk and ask if there are any available. Easy!) Want more or better freebies? Check out this fun freebie list pulled together by TheStar.

 

I am hooked on those Travel Troubleshooter columns in just about every newspaper. Someone had something terrible happen to them and the travel guru fixes it and also tells you how you can avoid such tragedy on your own travels. This one at the StarTribune explains why you should get travel insurance and how it would have helped these travelers from being charged $400 for canceling their trip.

Getting sick on a trip sucks. Period. I’ve had my share of travel sickness and I do my best to stay healthy when going anywhere and touching things that everyone in the city has touched, like elevator buttons and escalator handrails. You can’t always prepare for everything and antibacterial gel is only good for so many things. When you go on vacation and find yourself feeling all icky, check out these 5 easy-to-find foods to cure what ails you, from the mother nature network.

That wraps up this Friday’s links post. Tomorrow I’ll tell you how I only spent $90 to fly two of us to Los Angeles (on an actual plane, on a carrier you’ve heard of)! Stay tuned and don’t forget to plug any cool travel links in t