50 Nurses Are Going to Score a Free Flight to the Caribbean This Fall. Here's How To Win.

Here’s how you can be one of the chosen ones. 

As part of a promotion to their new “ER&R” club, which will feature all-inclusive deals exclusively for nurses, the travel website CheapCaribbean.com is offering 50 nurses — and their plus ones — free flights good towards a 5-night trip to somewhere tropical and wonderful.

It's not even winter yet, but the freezing mornings and early evening darkness are already wearing on my soul. Sure, the enchanting colors of fall and the crisp, cool air, a respite from the summer sweating in scrubs, are enticing for a moment—but we must not forget that essentially, fall is a trap. It’s a trap to trick us into forgetting that the icy hand of winter is upon us. Friends, we must stay vigilant. 

Winter is terrible and being cold is awful and schlepping our way into work with frozen fingers is the worst. But you know what’s not the worst? Winning free flights to beautiful, tropical destinations that will whisk you from the icy hands of death and into the beachside hammock of relaxation. 

How Nurses Are Getting Rewarded

CheapCaribbean, which specializes in vacation packages to the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America, is giving away free flights to help RNs take a preemptive step towards ensuring that winter doesn’t get them down. With their free flights, the site hopes that more nurses will be able to book their vacations now — and ensure that they will be getting the break they need (and deserve).  

After what is sure to be a busy cold and flu season caring for their patients, 50 hardworking nurses will be able to escape in the new year for some much-needed R & R. If you’re one of the lucky ones, your trip must be booked on United Airlines by November 15, 2019 for a 5 or more night trip anytime January 1 - June 30, 2020 (some blackout dates do apply).

What the flights don’t restrict, however, is the many destinations the site offers: think Punta Cana, St. Lucia, Turks & Caicos, Bahamas and more. Can you taste the pina coladas already? Ahhhh…..

Why Nurses Need to Take Vacations 

Although nurses are infamous for working hard and not often thinking of themselves, the truth is that everyone needs a break from time to time. And perhaps even more importantly, taking time to recharge our own batteries means that we will be able to care for others even more effectively too. 

Unfortunately, nurses are currently experiencing high levels of burnout. For instance, in 2018, 62% of nurses reported feeling regularly burned out in their jobs and 46% said they feel even more overworked now, as compared to two years ago. Even more frightening, those same nurses reported that their feelings of burnout and overwhelm had affected their patient care. 

Nurses who aren’t able to utilize their own vacation time or nurses who feel like they can’t take time off to enjoy themselves are nurses who may not be able to properly care for their patients, and that’s something that needs to change. 

In 2016, the Advisory Board found that the majority of healthcare workers do not take all of their vacation time, and recommended that everyone — doctors, nurses, and company CEOs alike — take all of their vacation time and enjoy it.

“Vacation time reduces burnout and fatigue, and even blood pressure and strain go down," commented Mina Westman, a professor of management at Tel Aviv University. "If you want to have a healthy workforce, physically and mentally, people need to have vacations. The body can't work nonstop."

How You Can Win a Free Flight

So by now you’re probably wondering how you can score your free flight. Well, according to CheapCaribbean, in order to have a chance at winning one of the 50 flights, all you have to do is sign up here to become a member of CheapCaribbean’s ER&R Club by 11:59 PM CST on November 4, 2019. As part of the “ER & R” club, you will be updated on all-inclusive deals exclusively for nurses — because, as the site declares, “every nurse deserves a prescription for sun and sand.” 

I mean, they’re not wrong. 

Once you sign up to become a member, you will get an email to register for your free flights. The first 50 nurses to snag the deal will be working hard — and playing hard. It sounds like the perfect deal to us! Now, who wants to include me as their plus-one? Anyone?