Make Your Travel Plans for the Next Total Eclipse NOW!

The Optimizer household enjoyed viewing Monday’s eclipse with our nifty protective goggles. While we thought the effects of 80 percent coverage were fascinating, we could only imagine how cool it would be to have witnessed this event from within the 120-mile path of totality that stretched across Mexico, the United States, and Canada. And, we started to wonder when we might have that opportunity again.

There is bad news, good news, and great news.

The bad news is that the next opportunity to view a total eclipse from the contiguous 48 states will be in August 2044. Furthermore, in the United States, the total eclipse will only be seen from three states – Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

The good news is that a total solar eclipse occurs every so often somewhere on the planet and there will be seven total eclipses in the next ten years.

The great news is that some of these total eclipses will take place in popular and easy-to-reach vacation destinations. Three opportunities seem especially intriguing.

• August 12, 2026 – The path of totality will include Reykjavik, Iceland and northern Spain. Areas in the path of totality will be very close to Barcelona so this would be an easy place to fly before setting out to nearby towns and cities that will have a total eclipse.
• August 2, 2027 – The path of totality will cut through the Strait of Gibraltar and across northern Africa and include Malaga, Spain, the Spanish islands of Mallorca and Ibiza, and Tangier, Morocco.
• July 22, 2028 – Sydney, Australia will be directly in the path of totality which will cross Australia and the South Island of New Zealand. The period of totality in Sydney will last an astounding 4 minutes.

Travel Rewards Optimizer is ready to help you get there (and the time to plan is now!!)

If you are interested in getting to these international destinations with travel reward flights, it will take a lot of miles or points, especially if you are going with a significant other, taking your family or opting to fly business or first class. We are prepared to help you set yourself up for significant cost savings on flights and hotels by helping you turn your routine credit card spending into travel for these rare opportunities.

The 2026 total eclipse is more than two years away but the time to start thinking about accumulating travel rewards is now. Because these total eclipses will be visible from areas that are already popular destinations, it will be important to plan your travel well in advance. This might mean nailing down hotels a year in advance and making flight reservations as soon as flights become available (typically 11-12 months in advance). If you are paying with miles and points, you want them to be available by August of next year. And, working backwards from August 2025, you need to put your travel rewards strategy in place so that you can accumulate what you need in the next 15 or 16 months.

Whether you are interested in catching one of these upcoming total eclipses or any other type of travel adventure, we are prepared to design a custom Travel Rewards Optimizer plan for you that will quickly generate free and reduced cost travel while keeping your annual card fees under control.

H/T: Kat Little

We are ready to help you turn your routine credit card spending into the travel of your dreams.