Travel for FREE with Points and Miles Credit Card Travel Hacking 101 Part 1

Travel can be ridiculously expensive, but it doesn't have to be. I want you to imagine your dream destinations. What if I told you that you could visit any of them, all of them, for basically free? And not only that, but you could even fly first class or stay in five-star hotels. A couple years back, my wife and I quit our jobs and traveled full-time for six months through Europe and Asia, and our journey was incredible. Those memories are irreplaceable. One of the best parts was we did it without spending our entire life savings, thanks to a stash of over 1.7 million points and miles that we had earned through strategic travel credit cards. Now, you might not want to travel as long or as extensively as we did, but what about a free vacation every year? That is very, very possible. And so in this video, I'm gonna explain how to travel the world for free with points and miles. I'll give you a high-level overview of what travel rewards are and provide inspiration on ways to redeem them. Then I'll break down the basics of how to actually earn them. And in future videos, we'll dive deeper into exactly how to book with your points and miles for maximum value and learn how to identify which travel credit cards are truly worth it. This is the resource that I wish I had had when I was just getting started. By the end of the series, you should have a very solid grasp of how this all works and ultimately be able to visit those places that you've always wanted to without emptying your wallet. Ready? Let's get started. Okay, quick disclaimer before we go any further. One, basically everything I'm gonna mention in this video is focused on credit cards that you can get here in the United States. And I'm sorry, because I know that we have viewers that aren't in the USA. Depending on where you're from, there may be options for you, but I am not suited to speak to them. Secondly, credit cards are a double-edged sword. If you can't handle the temptation of having access to a credit card, I want you to just turn off this video. What I'm about to share requires discipline. And my goal is not to convince you to do something irresponsible, seriously. All right, enough of that. Let's talk about points and miles or travel rewards as they're commonly called. Points and miles are a type of loyalty currency that can be earned by participating in reward programs offered by airlines, hotels, and other travel-related companies. These programs are designed to incentivize you to choose one of those companies over a competitor by offering some type of reward or benefit in exchange for your continued patronage. Now, these points and miles can be earned in a number of ways, which I'll cover in detail. But once earned, they can be redeemed for a variety of rewards, like free flights, hotel stays, et cetera. Now, there are really four major categories of points and miles in the travel world. Airline miles, hotel points, transferable points, and fixed value points. Airline miles, probably obvious, are rewards specific to airlines that you can redeem for flights. And if you've ever heard of airline alliances, you can even use these miles to book flights on other airlines. For example, you could use American Airlines miles to book a flight on British Airways. Hotel points, also probably obvious. You can use these for free hotel stays, upgrades to a nicer room, and a bunch of other hotel-related perks. Transferable points. These are a type of point that are earned through credit card reward programs, and they can be transferred to a whole bunch of different travel partners, like airlines and hotels. For example, this card, the Chase Sapphire Preferred, earns a point called ultimate rewards, and those points can be transferred to several different airlines and major hotel chains. Example, you could transfer 1,000 ultimate rewards points to United Airlines, and now you've got 1,000 United miles, at least at the time of filming this video. Transferable points are a strategic way to earn because they allow you to choose which partner to transfer your points to based on your needs. And these are by far my favorite. Fixed value points. This is a type of reward that has a predetermined cash value. For example, where one point equals one cent. So in that example, Capital One is a good example of this. With a card like the Capital One Venture X, you earn venture rewards miles, and you can use those points to book all sorts of travel. But another cool thing you can do with these is reimburse yourself for purchases that you've made towards travel that are otherwise not part of any specific loyalty program. I use these for Airbnbs and rental cars all the time. That's the four categories. And you can use points and miles for a lot of things, car rentals, cruises, theme park tickets, dining, and much, much more. But in this series, we're gonna focus on flights and hotels because that accounts for the majority of people's travel costs. Okay, now that you know the different types of points and miles, here's a few different ways to actually start earning them. Credit card welcome bonuses. The best way to earn travel rewards is by opening credit cards that offer welcome bonuses. Here's a few quick definitions. A welcome bonus is an incentive that companies offer so that you'll be interested in applying for a credit card. And this is typically something like, sign up today and you get 60,000 points when you spend $4,000 in the first three months. In this instance, the welcome bonus is the 60,000 points. Another term you need to know is minimum spending requirement. A minimum spending requirement is the amount of money that you have to spend using your new card, typically within a certain period of time, before you can earn the welcome bonus. So in the example I gave, it's the $4,000 in a three-month period. Now, this varies widely, but in many cases, a single welcome bonus is sufficient to cover round-trip flights from the USA to Europe. So you can see how fun this can get. Now, a really important reminder here is don't spend money you don't have and don't spend money you wouldn't spend. In this example, $4,000 in three months, for a lot of people could be achieved simply by putting all of your bills, your groceries, and your normal spending on that card, which may mean that you've gotta go change your auto pay or how you pay for things a few times, but trust me, it's worth it. And that leads me to the next best way to earn travel rewards, spending. In general, every purchase that you make with a travel rewards card will earn points or miles. For example, every $1 you spend will equal one airline mile or one hotel point, unless you can amplify your earnings by spending within bonus categories. For example, some cards offer bonus points for dining, shopping at supermarkets, purchasing fuel, and this totally varies by loyalty program and by card. But for example, a card might allow you to earn three times points per dollar spent on restaurants, two times points on anything travel related, and one times points on everything else. As you get into earning points and miles, and as you start to carry maybe more than one credit card, you can see where doing a little math will help so that you know what purchases to make on what card. You definitely need a plan, and you can see how doing this right really adds up. Travel portals. So a lot of these travel credit cards also come with their own specific apps or portals. One type of portal is a travel portal. Booking your travel through your credit card's travel portal can earn you additional points or miles. And so to add to the example I was giving, you could earn two points per dollar on any travel purchases, but if you book through that brand's travel portal, maybe you could actually earn five points per dollar spent. Shopping portals. Another very common type of portal is a shopping portal, and many travel rewards programs have online shopping portals that allow you to earn additional rewards for shopping at certain retailers. By starting your online shopping journey through these portals, you can earn extra points or miles on purchases that you were already planning to make. For example, if you were gonna buy a gift from Macy's, you could simply start your shopping journey in a shopping portal. And the list of possible retailers is huge. Old Navy, Nike, 1-800-CONTACT, Home Depot, goes on and on. For those looking to maximize their travel rewards, there are what I'd call creative strategies to consider. For example, you could be strategic with large purchases, like paying for your wedding or a home renovation with your credit card in order to earn a huge number of rewards. Here's a real-life example. We had a hailstorm, and we're homeowners. We had to replace our roof. Now, thankfully, it was covered by insurance, so we didn't actually have to pay anything out of pocket. But here's where it gets fun. The insurance company mailed me a check. I asked the roofer I hired if he'd accept a credit card, which they don't normally do, but he said yes. So I deposit the check into our bank account, and I then pay the roofer with a credit card. And then I pay off the card with the money from the check. And in the process, I earn an insane amount of points. This was like a $14,000 purchase. You can also add what's called an authorized user to your account to help you earn more rewards. This is essentially you getting a copy of your credit card and letting someone else spend on it. This makes a lot of sense for couples or sometimes for parent-child relationships if you're trying to help your child build credit, for example. But extreme versions are getting an authorized user card for a friend and letting them buy stuff and pay you back. I would personally not do that last one. I just don't want to create unnecessary friction in my friendships, and I'm not sure that it's wise. But if you add a user, just make sure that it's someone you trust. Finally, and I do like this strategy, if you travel for work, consider paying for your travel expenses yourself and getting reimbursed by your company, if they allow that, of course, to earn even more points and miles. So it can be tempting once you learn about points and miles, travel rewards, to just go sign up for the next credit card offer that you see. But not all points are created equal. So it's very important to have a goal for how you actually want to use your points. And I want to give you some use cases to inspire you on ways you could redeem. Maybe you want to take your family to Disney World and have your flights and your hotels cost you nothing. Maybe you're traveling to Italy and you want to stay in a luxurious five-star hotel. Maybe for your honeymoon or a big anniversary, you'd love to stay in an overwater villa in the Maldives. Maybe you want to fly first class from the USA to Tokyo and enjoy an epic seat and luxurious dining. Let me give you a use case of what should have been the most expensive 48 hours of my life. And it was practically free, thanks to points and miles. So at the end of Ali and I's six-month trip, I really wanted to do something special as kind of an exclamation point. We spent two nights at Hotel Longarno in Florence, overlooking the Ponte Vecchio Bridge for one last romantic hurrah in Italy. And then we flew home from Rome to Chicago in American Airlines flagship business class. All those Sundays, I still think about them. All of this together should have cost over $12,000 and we paid just 275. Now, 275 bucks is not nothing, but it's way less than one person would normally pay for one international flight. This is just one example of what we did thanks to points and miles. And so before moving on, get clear on your goal. What's that trip that you would love to take? And are you going after stretching your budget as far as you can and just using points and miles for free flights, free hotels? It doesn't matter how nice they are, just get me there. On the other end, are you going after that luxurious splurge experience? It's pretty nice to have a 12-hour flight be way more comfortable. Or are you something in between? I've done all of these. One consideration to think through is where you're going and or what region or part of the world it will be in. And the reason I say this is that could help determine what loyalty programs to consider. And when we dive into credit cards later on, which cards and programs specifically that will help you achieve that goal. We'll be diving deeper into credit cards in future videos, but I went ahead and linked a list of my favorite cards below, and I keep that updated monthly. When the next video in our series is available, it'll live right here. I really sincerely hope that this video was helpful to you. Happy travels.