Best WordPress Calendar Plugin – (Review Updated for Winter of 2019)

WordPress is the most popular content management system. Period. If you have a WordPress site — which you should if your site is a content site — you know how many plugins are available on this platform. There are thousands, literally thousands. I did a search today to see how many WordPress plugins there are. The number? 54,681. It can be a bit overwhelming. With so many plugins to choose from, how can you know which ones are the best?

What you do know is that you want to add a calendar feature to your website. Being able to simply add dates and times is crucial for some businesses. Not every calendar plugin is the same. Some of you will need more advanced calendar features than others. You may need a calendar to keep track of tasks — pretty basic. Or, you may need a more advanced calendar for managing events, bookings, and integrating with ecommerce platforms.

I took the time to find the best WordPress calendar plugins available. So regardless of your situation, you can use this guide to find the one that best suits your needs.

1. The Events Calendar

As the name implies, The Events Calendar WordPress plugin is ideal for any site that’s managing events. There are so many different uses for this feature.

It’s great for musicians who want to showcase their upcoming performances, as well as venue owners who need to display shows coming to their location. If you have a restaurant, church, or nonprofit organization, this plugin is perfect for you. If you’re an author and traveling to promote your book, or speaking at any seminars and conferences, you can benefit from the events calendar. As you can see from these examples, the possibilities are nearly limitless.

Here’s how the plugin looks once you implement it:

In addition to this month view option, you can also organize the calendar by day or list of events.

The microformats will help boost your SEO, and the plugin offers caching support as well as debug mode. It’s compatible with Google Maps, Google Calendar, and iCal as well. So events can be exported and added to other platforms.

Users who are looking at the calendar even have the option to browse for certain events. They won’t have to scroll to find something specific.

The design is fully responsive no matter what device the calendar is being used on. So you won’t have to worry if visitors are browsing from desktops, smartphones, or tablets. This is extremely important since accommodating the needs of mobile users can boost sales.

One of the reasons why The Events Calendar is so popular is because it’s easy to use right out of the box. You’ll be able to figure out how to navigate and use everything in minutes.

You can install this plugin for free, but it does have a few paid options as well. The premium upgrades are very affordable — they cost $89, $149, and $299 per year for personal, business, and agency use, respectively.

2. Booking Calendar

The Booking Calendar is one of the first booking systems ever developed for WordPress. It was originally released back in 2009. Over the last decade, it’s been installed on WordPress sites more than one million times.

It’s safe to say that this plugin has gone through its fair share of updates and changes over the past ten years, which has helped it keep its spot as one of the best WordPress calendar plugins in 2019.

This plugin makes it easy for website visitors to view the availability of something, such as an apartment, hotel, or service, and book directly from the calendar.

Here’s how it works: Let’s say you own a carpet cleaning business. Rather than taking appointments over the phone, which can be inefficient, it’s easy for you to add a user-friendly calendar to your WordPress site. Website visitors can select the day and time for an appointment and fill out form fields to book the cleaning. This is much more user-friendly than requiring them to pick up the phone and going back and forth about possible dates. I know I’d much rather book online. If you make me pick up a phone, I’m a lot less likely to follow through with the booking.

As you can see, the functionality of this plugin can be applied to so many different websites and businesses. From the backend, it’s easy for the admin to view, manage, and customize all of the bookings. Booking Calendar lets you set limits to avoid double bookings. Dates and times will automatically become unavailable once your limits have been reached. This calendar plugin can manage an entire year in advance.

The administrative features give you the option to approve or deny bookings as well. You can set it up so you receive email notifications when something gets added to your calendar. That way you can plan your schedule accordingly, and won’t have to keep manually checking WordPress to see if anything has been changed.

3. Simple Calendar – Google Calendar Plugin

I don’t mean to be redundant, but the Simple Calendar – Google Calendar Plugin is as simple as it gets. The reason why it made my list is because it’s so easy for anyone to use, even if you don’t have any technical experience.

This plugin has more limited features compared to other calendars, but sometimes too many elements add unnecessary complexity. For those of you who don’t need all of the extras and frills, the Simple Calendar – Google Calendar Plugin is perfect.

Once you install the plugin, you’ll be able to display any event from a Google Calendar, which means you won’t need to re-create any events manually in WordPress.

You can use tags to customize your events without having to do any coding.

It’s easy to integrate this plugin with other tools to turn your calendar into a format that’s easy to distribute as a newsletter. This feature allows you to share the calendar with your email subscribers without requiring them to to visit your website.

Like most options, this plugin lets you view calendars in a monthly grid or a list view. The advanced settings will automatically adjust for time zones, as well as the date and time formats, depending on where your site visitors are located.

I’d recommend this plugin to anyone who doesn’t needed too many advanced features in a WordPress calendar. For lack of a better word, I’d describe this plugin the same way it does — simple.

4. EventON

As you probably guessed, the EventON WordPress plugin is made for managing events.

The design of this calendar is what makes this plugin stand apart from other options. If you want a sleek and beautifully designed calendar that fits with your pages and themes, this will be a top choice for you to consider. With this plugin you can customize the look to match with the trending color schemes on your website.

There’s a lot to like about it as well. It’s easy for users to search for events or navigate from month to month. It readily handles events lasting for multiple days, months at a time, or even all year. And, you can highlight featured events that you want to promote more and jump off of the page. Each event has a title, date, time, address, and photo. You can also add a description of the event, as well as an additional image showing the location.

People can even get directions to the location directly from the event listing on your website. All they need to do is type their address into Google Maps, which is integrated on the screen.

EventON lets users buy tickets to events with Woocommerce support. But you’ll need to pay extra for that add on.

EventON is arguably the best WordPress calendar plugin for managing and promoting events on your website. It’s not free, but there is a demo for you to try if you’re interested. All of the premium features are purchased separately, so you can customize the plugin to meet your needs.

5. All-in-One Event Calendar

All-in-One Event Calendar is another one of my favorite WordPress plugins. I like it because it’s so easy to use within WordPress. Just look at how simple this new event page is to configure.

Everything is so straightforward. All you need to do is fill out the form fields, add the dates and times, and you’re good to go. There are settings for the location details, contact information, as well as a section for purchasing tickets. The plugin automatically helps optimize your events for SEO purposes. You can embed Google Maps into each event as well, so it’s one less step for people who need directions. They can do this directly from your website.

You can sync All-in-One Event Calendar with other platforms, including:

• Google Calendar
• iCalendar
• MS Outlook

Site visitors can view the calendar by month, week, day, or poster board and it’s easy to filter events. I especially like the color coding feature for grouping events in certain categories. For example, let’s say you own a restaurant. You can add different colors for things like karaoke, trivia, or happy hour, so it’s easy for people to find what they’re looking for. (For me, that’d be a hard no on karaoke, and a hearty yes on trivia and happy hour.)

The basic version of All-in-One Event Calendar is free. The pro version starts at $9 per month, but there are more advanced options for $29 and $99. But I think the majority of sites will have their needs met with the free version or the $9 pro version at most.

6. My Calendar

My Calendar is likely the best option for adding multiple calendars on your WordPress website, or if you have multiple sites that need to display the same calendar. My Calendar is multi-site friendly, so you can add calendars to a network of sites that you’re managing directly from a single WordPress install. So you can essentially share events within the network by fetching them from a remote database. Unlike other plugins that we’ve seen so far, My Calendar has a mini-calendar view, which is ideal for a compact display on your site or sites.

Once an event has been created, you can automatically have it posted to Twitter, set up email notifications whenever a new event is scheduled, and you can easily schedule and manage recurring events.

You’ll also have the option to create custom templates for your calendars. If you’re a designer or developer, this plugin will give you lots of flexibility to create custom calendars for your WordPress site.

Conclusion

There you have it. These are the top six WordPress calendar plugins of 2019.

Use this guide to determine which plugin is the best for your website. Not all of these plugins offer the same options and functionality. So you’ll want to make sure that you find one that covers your needs.

At the same time, you don’t want to get a WordPress calendar plugin that’s too complex. If you need something that’s simple, you can find an option that’s more on the basic side. Like I said earlier, one of my business mantras is: No unnecessary complications. Keep it simple. Whizbang features you don’t need can slow you down, instead of speeding you up.

There are tons of other WordPress calendar plugins, but in my experience, these are the best ones.

Source Quick Sprout http://bit.ly/2GJqLWk

Worried You Won’t Qualify for Life Insurance? This Company Has You Covered

Nobody’s perfect. Maybe you’re interested in getting some life insurance, but you’re worried you won’t even qualify for it because of your health.

Maybe you have diabetes or heart disease. Maybe you’re a smoker. Maybe you’re a little heavy. Maybe your family history is littered with medical landmines. Or maybe you’re… welllllll, just not as young as you used to be. That happens to all of us.

If that’s the case, how can you get life insurance without paying through the nose for it?

The short answer is to shop around. Here’s the tricky part: Life insurance companies have radically different ideas about what constitutes a health risk.

“Not all companies treat health conditions equally. Some may offer better rates for people with diabetes, while others are cheaper for baby boomers,” advises Policygenius, an online insurance marketplace. “Make sure you’re going with a company that gives you the best possible price.”

Policygenius would know. It’s a digital platform that offers you instant quotes from competing insurance providers.

Even if you’re not in picture-perfect health, you can still get life insurance, and this company can help.

First, you type in your information and answer a series of questions. Policygenius uses its algorithms and its search engines and works its magic to find your best options for you to compare side-by-side.

Specifically, you can see how much money they want to charge you.

It’s a smart way to find out what insurers like Prudential, Lincoln Financial or Transamerica really think about your particular health issues, whatever they may be.

It Doesn’t Cost as Much as You Think

Don’t be afraid. No matter what, life insurance probably isn’t as expensive as you think it is.

For instance, nearly half of millennials overestimate the cost of life insurance by about five times the actual amount, according to a 2018 study by the life insurance industry group LIMRA.

The fact is, most people who use Policygenius can get covered for less than $30 per month.

Now, if you really have health issues, you may have to pay a bit more.

Policygenius spells this out in its “Life Insurance Shopping Guide,” which it emails to you upon request. “The older, unhealthier or riskier you are to insure — for instance, if you scuba-dive — the more expensive your policy will be,” it says.

That’s why you’ll need to answer a few questions about your health and take a free medical exam. That takes about half an hour, and it can take place in your home or office, if you want.

“The healthier you are — and the less likely you are to die while the policy is active — the cheaper your life insurance will be,” Policygenius says.

Ultimately, it pays to shop around.

Mike Brassfield (mike@thepennyhoarder.com) is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder. He likes to comparison-shop for pretty much everything.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

The Penny Hoarder Promise: We provide accurate, reliable information. Here’s why you can trust us and how we make money.

source The Penny Hoarder http://bit.ly/2Syyk9M

Making a Long Term Committed Relationship and Finanical Success Go Hand in Hand

Today is Valentine’s Day and for millions of couples around the world, it’s a day spent finding ways to share in some form of romantic bliss. It can be deeply meaningful for some and stressful for others. Sarah and I will celebrate today in a pretty low key style, not ignoring it but not going all out in any way. I stuck a note in her car and am making a dinner I’m sure she’ll like; she’ll likely come up with something similar for me.

For many couples, however, Valentine’s Day is just another day, another step on the long journey that is a long term committed relationship. Such relationships offer a lot of challenges, especially over an extended period of time. Stresses, changes in each person, little issues that can grow over time into big ones – they all add up to major obstacles for a successful long term relationship and/or marriage.

One of the biggest irritants in such a relationship is money. Money is often cited as the most common reason that couples fight. Financial shortfalls cause individual stress on both members of a relationship and can easily translate into blaming and intense disagreement. Even issues like agreeing on financial goals and plans can cause intense disagreement.

Early in our marriage, Sarah and I often disagreed about financial issues. We found ourselves walking a financial tightrope and struggling to keep our bills paid. This often translated into disagreement, as we would blame each other’s individual spending habits for our financial issues.

While that was an easy “surface” issue to disagree on, the real causes of our financial pain were much deeper. Those real causes are ones that I often see popping up in the money and relationship issues I notice with other couples, both in my own life and in messages from readers.

Figuring out how to resolve and fix these issues made our relationship far stronger. We’ve been married for fifteen years now. I can’t even recall the last time we had a financial disagreement that wasn’t quickly settled by a calm and rational conversation. We have no debts – not even a mortgage – and are well on our way to retiring early, ideally around the time our youngest child leaves the nest.

Here are some of the key strategies we’ve used to build our financially successful long term relationship.

Strategy #1 – Check the Blame Game

Blame for financial problems is virtually always the result of different values. If you see your partner spending money foolishly, that’s because you view financial success as having a higher priority than what your partner spent money on, whereas your partner likely views that situation in the opposite way. When you bring it up in a confrontational way, what your partner actually hears is “the things I care about are more important than the things you care about!”

Ladies and gentlemen, that is never, ever going to end well.

In a healthy relationship, there tend to be three different groups of priorities. There are the things you care about, the things your partner cares about, and the things that are of mutual concern. All three of those areas deserve respect and attention, but none of them should completely dominate the other two.

Almost all financial disagreements occur when someone sees their partner prioritizing something that’s important to just the partner over the other groups, and that can hurt. Then, if there is a problem with the things that should be a shared priority, that quickly translates into blame. “You spent money going out with your friends and we can’t even pay off the credit card bill!” That’s just another way of saying “You put a higher priority on something important to just you than something of shared importance, and that frustrates me greatly!”

Most of the time, your partner is not trying to be harmful to your relationship or to your financial state. They’re simply acting in accordance with something that they see as a high priority for themselves. They really value a particular hobby, or they really value their relationship with a few key friends. That’s part of what makes them who they are, and that should be respected.

If you want someone to respect what you care about, you have to respect what they care about and come to a balanced arrangement. You can’t simply buy into the idea that they’re somehow at “fault” for you not achieving your high-priority goal when it’s not necessarily their high-priority goal.

In other words, the very first thing you need to do is stop the blame game. If you’re in a situation where things like this are happening, both of you are struggling and you need to step back a little bit and get things in better shape.

Strategy #2 – Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

Many couples who are struggling financially avoid financial topics entirely and then blow up into an angry screaming match because of the stress of the problem and the many unresolved smaller issues underlying the financial struggles. No one will say anything for months, and then a big credit card bill comes in and we’re off to the races.

That’s an incredibly unhealthy approach to a financial partnership.

A much better approach is to openly discuss any and all financial concerns and bills and other matters as soon as they occur, before they have a chance to develop into real problems. If you have any uncertainty at all about spending money, you should talk about it with your partner, sooner rather than later. If you’re uncertain about goals or about how to progress toward a goal, you should talk about it with your partner, sooner rather than later.

These conversations are often skipped because they’re uncomfortable or they seem so minor as to not worry about it. In both cases, however, those minor bumps in the road grow into major problems that can turn into very uncomfortable and often difficult and painful conversations and arguments where both people are so emotionally invested that they can’t resolve things in a sensible way.

The trick is to not make a mountain out of a molehill, but not let a molehill fester and grow into a mountain, either.

So, how do you even do this? One good strategy is to consciously check emotions at the door. If you find yourself getting angry, defensive, or upset with any financial topic, then everyone should take a 24 hour timeout. Very few financial issues are so urgent that they can’t afford a brief break. During that timeout, think about why you’re so upset. What caused you to feel that way? Consider not just blaming others, but also your own faults. What did you do to get things to that situation?

Another solid approach is to simply review any and all bills together. This can be a very defensive thing at first, especially if you’re walking through a credit card statement where you’ve been doing some overspending, but not only does this serve as a good check on each person’s behavior, it also provides a regular window to talk about finances. There’s nothing wrong with having one person “in charge of the bills,” but both people should be involved in examining the spending.

Sarah and I used these approaches, and over time they trained us both to consider our spending choices in light of each other. If I’m about to spend money that I don’t want to show Sarah on a credit card statement… why exactly am I doing this? It’s obviously not helping our future, and thus it’s probably not helping my individual life either. Simply knowing that everything is so out in the open and available for conversation makes me second guess my own worst impulses. I don’t feel bad about spending money on things I want; I just feel bad about spending money excessively on things I want when clearly some of that money is being spent on things that are less important to me.

So, communicate frequently. When there’s something on your mind regarding finances, talk about it now when it’s minor rather than later when it’s grown into a crisis. Review bills together in an open fashion, even if it’s a bit uncomfortable at first. If you feel upset, don’t let that emotion translate into words you’ll regret – rather, take a break and reflect before you respond (this is actually a great tactic with any relationship disagreement). Over time, doing this nudges you into considering how your spending choices affect both partners, which is a vital step for financial success.

Strategy #3 – Openly and Frequently Talk About Goals and Priories and How You’ll Get There

One big thing that keeps people from making smart financial moves is the lack of some kind of concrete vision for the future, especially a shared vision. If you have an idea of what you’re working for and you know someone else is working for that very thing, it becomes incredibly powerful. You’re drawn to want to put forth effort to make that thing happen.

This is particularly true in relationships. If you and your partner have figured out what you each want out of your future and, more importantly, the things where those visions overlap, you’re going to find it much easier to make strong financial choices. Not only are you working for things you want, but your partner is, too, and you’re working for things that your partner holds dear.

One big thing to watch out for here is to make sure that the visions and goals aren’t one-sided. If they are, then the person in the relationship who wasn’t involved in really developing that vision for the future isn’t going to be invested in it. They’re going to feel like they’re being told to work hard and sacrifice for something someone else wants. That’s going to (a) build resentment and (b) result in that person not putting forth much effort toward that goal.

The best way we’ve found for overcoming this is to talk about our goals frequently, both our individual ones and our mutual ones. The thing that works best for us is that we’ll each on our own come up with a list of things that we want for our future, then we’ll sit down together and talk about them. We try to focus on the things that overlap, and then we try to figure out which of the things that don’t overlap are of the greatest importance.

Here’s a good practice for you to try if you’ve never done this. Each of you should take a week or so and individually spend some time thinking about what each of you want out of your future, both together and individually. What does your ideal life look like in ten years or twenty years? Each of you should spend some time really thinking about that question.

Then, come together and figure out what overlaps on your lists. Those should be central to your focus going forward. Beyond that, you should each identify a thing or two that’s individually important to each of you – a career goal, maybe, or something else that’s very focused on what you want out of life as an individual.

Those goals – the shared ones, your primary individual ones, and your support of your partner’s primary individual goals – should be your main goals. They should undergird a lot of what you do going forward. Knowing that you’re working with your partner on those same goals – and that your own missteps directly costs your partner – imbues them with a lot of power, especially if you talk about them frequently and keep each other updated on how those goals are going.

Strategy #4 – Pay Yourself First

One aspect of being in a relationship where you’re financially accountable to your partner is that it can feel like you’re working hard but you have no financial freedom whatsoever. This is especially true if you’re the partner who is not handling the day-to-day financial mechanics of paying bills and so on. You work hard, then your money just vanishes and you’re left with little sense of fulfillment.

One great way around this is to set up a system of “paying yourself first.” What this means is that money is directly set aside from paychecks to go toward life goals before it’s used for the everyday stuff. You’re “paying yourself first,” for example, when money is taken out of your paycheck and put into your 401(k). You’re “paying yourself first” if the first thing you do when you receive a paycheck is to make a big extra payment on a debt (without adding to that debt with your spending habits, of course).

If you set up a system of paying yourself first, preferably an automatic one, having a financial conversation with your loved one about your shared goals is a source of pride. There will be money set aside for those big goals you shared. You will be closer to a down payment or to retirement or to whatever your goal is. It doesn’t matter what else is going on – you will be closer to your big goals, and that will feel tremendous for both of you.

If you use this approach, the remaining money in your checking account should mostly be used to pay the required bills – utilities, food, insurance, basic household items, housing, basic clothing, and so on. Anything beyond that merits a conversation.

Strategy #5 – “Me” Money Really Works

While you’re “paying yourself first,” it’s well worth considering the idea of funding a small “financial freedom” account for both of you. A “financial freedom” account is a small pool of money for each of you to spend freely, without question or anger from your partner. It gives you the ability to do things that you enjoy without worrying that it’s going to upset your partner or disrupt your financial future in any way.

Doing this allows people to have their cake and eat it, too. If you’re “paying yourself first,” you know you’re working towards your own financial goals and your shared ones. If you’re also putting aside a little “financial freedom” money for both you and your partner, you’re also able to spend money occasionally without having to worry about how it will affect your partner or your goals. It works extremely well.

My wife spends her “financial freedom” money on a wide variety of things – books, sometimes, or coffee or things like that. My money usually goes toward my hobbies and for gifts for others. It’s nice having money that can be spent without worry, and as long as you keep a cap on it, it’s not financially disruptive at all.

Final Thoughts

Don’t blame each other for failure. Communicate. Check your negative emotions. Share goals. Pay yourself first so that those shared goals happen. Allow each of you some financial breathing room. Automate as much of this as you can. Make what you can’t automate into a routine.

If you’re celebrating Valentine’s Day today with your loved one, give each other a truly loving gift and sit down together and talk about those principles. Start by setting goals together over the next week, and then figure out how you’ll achieve them together.

Let today’s bit of romance turn into a strong relationship that lasts.

Good luck.

The post Making a Long Term Committed Relationship and Finanical Success Go Hand in Hand appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Source The Simple Dollar http://bit.ly/2tqm4c5

4 Factors to Consider When You’re Choosing a High-Yield Savings Account

So you’ve made a budget, cut out unnecessary spending and found ways to earn extra income. You finally have money to set aside. Great work!

Now the question is: Where will you stash that cash?

If you just let it pile up in your checking account — or worse, stuff it under your mattress — your money won’t be working to its highest potential. You want your savings to grow!

And depending on your savings goals, there are different ways you should save. You’ll put your money in a 401(k) or an IRA if you’re saving for retirement. If you’re looking to contribute to your kid’s future college tuition bill, you might want to stash your money in a 529 savings plan.

But if you’re saving for a rainy day or trying to bulk up that emergency fund, a high-yield savings account is the perfect place to store your coins.

What Is a High-Yield Savings Account?

As of Feb. 4, 2019, savings accounts earned an average interest rate of just 0.09%. But high-yield savings accounts can earn you over 2% interest — more than 20 times what that traditional savings account might earn.

Two percent interest may not sound like a lot, but let’s take a look at a real-life example.

If you had $1,000 in a savings account that earned 0.09% interest, you’d have $1,004.51 at the end of five years, assuming the interest was compounded once annually.

If you had the same amount of money in an account earning 2% interest compounded once annually, you’d have $1,104.08 at the end of those five years. That’s $100 more to pad your savings.

How to Choose a High-Yield Savings Account

Making sure you get the highest return on your savings is a smart money move, but you’ll want to consider other factors when opening a high-yield savings account. Here are four things to think about.

1. Online vs. Traditional Bank

One of the first things to decide is whether you want to save your money at a traditional bank or one that’s online only. In the past, online banks offered better interest rates, but traditional banks have stepped up to compete.

You may prefer being able to go into a brick-and-mortar location to speak with a banker in person. Or perhaps you prefer the 24/7 convenience your online bank offers.

If you choose an online bank, find out if it belongs to an ATM network that lets you use another bank’s ATM to deposit or withdraw funds for free. If it doesn’t, you need to figure out how you’ll be able to deposit or withdraw your money. If you plan to make electronic transfers from your checking account, make sure the two accounts will link.

2. Are Your Savings Are Insured?

In December, fintech startup Robinhood announced it would offer savings and checking accounts with an industry-leading 3% interest rate. But the company had to backtrack the next day, once it was discovered that the accounts weren’t properly insured.

No matter where you open your account, make sure the money you keep in that account is insured.

If you open your account at an FDIC-insured bank, the federal government will insure your money up to $250,000. If your account is with an NCUA-insured credit union, the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund will insure your money — also up to $250,000.

3. Minimum Balance and Account Fees

Before opening your account, you should know if your account requires a minimum balance. Some accounts only apply the interest as long as you hold a certain balance, and others may charge a fee if you drop below that minimum amount. You’ll also want to check if the account issues regular maintenance fees.

And while the purpose of putting your money in a high-yield savings account is to, well, save, there is going to come a day when you’ll need to tap into those funds. Find out if your account has rules outlining how often you can make withdrawals or transfer money out of the account.

4. How Much Interest You’ll Earn

When comparing interest rates, you may notice two different percentages — the APY (annual percentage yield) and the APR (annual percentage rate).

The APY is the number you really want to know when you’re opening a savings account. It factors in how often the interest is compounded in a year — whether that’s daily, monthly, semiannually or annually — and therefore, shows the total amount of interest you’ll earn in a year. The more frequently the interest is compounded, the more you’ll earn in returns.

Nicole Dow is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

The Penny Hoarder Promise: We provide accurate, reliable information. Here’s why you can trust us and how we make money.

source The Penny Hoarder http://bit.ly/2DE0eXt

Airline Miles or Points About to Expire? Here Are Eight Easy Ways to Keep Them

Airline miles, hotel points, and flexible travel points make it easy to see the world at a discount — and sometimes even free. Unfortunately, the devil is often in the details since points and miles can be difficult to use. If you’re using airline miles in particular, you must find an award seat on the flight you want before you can redeem them. That can be pretty easy or extremely difficult, and you may not know which until you’re actually ready to book.

But worst of all are those pesky expiration dates. If you don’t use certain types of points and miles within a specific length of time, your loyalty program will simply take them away — poof!

For example, did you know that American AAdvantage miles expire after 18 months of inactivity? The same is true for United Airlines miles, Hawaiian Airlines miles, and others. Meanwhile, Southwest Rapid Rewards points expire 24 months after your last account activity.

Eight Ways to Keep Your Airline Miles and Rewards Points Alive

If you bothered to earn airline miles or hotel points, you shouldn’t let them wither away. But what if you’re not ready to travel yet? Fortunately, most loyalty programs allow you to “reset the clock” with certain types of activity. Here are seven ways to ensure your points and miles live another day.

1. Join a dining club.

If you don’t have any plans to travel any time soon, but want to keep your stash of rewards alive, a dining club may be just what you need. Airline loyalty programs like American AAdvantage, Southwest Rapid Rewards, and Delta Air Lines all have their own dining programs that let you earn miles each time you dine at a participating restaurant.

These programs tend to have “signup bonuses” you can earn right away, usually in the 1,000- to 3,000-mile range if you dine at three participating restaurants within a few months. You may only earn a few miles per dollar you spend after your bonus posts, but that’s not the point. Earning even 10 miles will count as “activity” that resets the clock for your miles to expire, so dining clubs are an easy way to buy more time.

2. Use a shopping portal.

Another way to earn easy points or miles is something you should be doing anyway — starting your online purchases by way of a shopping portal.

Most airlines and many hotel brands have their own shopping portals, as does Chase Ultimate Rewards, and each time you click through the portal to make a purchase at a participating store, you can earn additional loyalty points on stuff you’d be buying anyway.

You may only earn 1-3 miles for each dollar you spend, but these rewards can add up in a hurry. Plus, each point you earn resets the clock on your balance and buys you more time until you’re ready to redeem your rewards.

3. Pick up a co-branded credit card.

If you want to boost your point haul in a hurry, consider signing up for a credit card that lets you earn rewards in your favorite program. There are airline credit cards, hotel credit cards, and flexible travel cards to choose from, so make sure to explore your options.

Many of the best travel credit cards offer big signup bonuses worth $500 or more after you meet a minimum spending requirement within a few months. On top of that, you’ll earn points or miles for every dollar you spend.

Fortunately, these miles will serve another purpose, too: Each one you earn will start the clock over and extend the time your points remain intact.

4. Transfer points.

If you do pick up a flexible travel credit card that lets you transfer points to airline and hotel programs, keep in mind that transferring points is another way to keep your stash of rewards alive.

Let’s say you have United miles about to expire, and you have the . In that case, you could easily transfer the minimum of 1,000 Chase points to your United account to reset the expiration clock.

If you don’t have a flexible rewards credit card that lets you transfer to hotel and airline programs, now is a great time to get one! Make sure to compare travel credit cards and look for options that let you redeem in more than one way, including point transfers.

5. Take a survey.

Some rewards programs allow you to complete simple tasks to earn more points — things like tweeting a specific post on Twitter with a specific hashtag, or sharing something else on social media. These initiatives are usually a one-time thing, though, and you usually have to follow the brand on social media to find out about them.

Some programs also let you earn points or miles for completing surveys. This includes Southwest Rapid Rewards, which allows you to earn small amounts of points and miles for completing surveys through eRewards or Rewards for Opinions. You may not earn a lot of points for these surveys, but they can help you keep your balance from expiring.

6. Redeem some points.

Also note that you can keep your points alive simply by redeeming some of them. While cashing in a chunk of points for airfare or hotels will of course qualify as account activity, you may also be able to redeem fewer points for merchandise or gift cards.

Make sure to check with your program to see which options are available to you. Many airline programs allow you to redeem points for inexpensive merchandise, which can be a smart move if you need to prevent points from expiring in a hurry.

7. Make a charitable donation.

Also remember that some loyalty programs, including American and United, allow you to donate miles to a charity of your choice. You usually need to do so in increments of at least 1,000 miles, but this can allow you to restart your expiration countdown while helping others.

8. Buy points or miles.

As a last resort, many airline and hotel programs allow you to buy points or miles for their programs. These offers are generally a bad deal, since you’ll normally pay 2-3 cents per point this way (and potentially more). However, it can be money well spent if you’re otherwise about to lose a big cache of miles. You can restart your timeline for the minimum purchase, which is usually 1,000 miles.

The Bottom Line

With so many ways to keep your rewards alive, there’s no reason to let them expire. Make sure to learn about your loyalty program and know the rules so you can take steps to prolong your points until you’re ready to use them. If you forget and let them expire, you could live to regret it.

Holly Johnson is an award-winning personal finance writer and the author of Zero Down Your Debt. Johnson shares her obsession with frugality, budgeting, and travel at ClubThrifty.com.

Related:

• Six Credit Card Rewards Strategies for Family Vacations
• Chase Travel Portal Moves to Expedia: Now What?
• Five Reasons Everyone Should Get the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card

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