Because I love to travel I try to find the best travel deals without having to pay full price for it or pay anything at all. Travel hacking refers to methods to accumulate or build up points and miles in order for you to travel for free or at a very low cost. Travel hacking saves money and it has saved me tens of thousands of dollars. If you are wondering how this is done to help save you money on your next trip, here are some of my basic tips.

Plan Way Ahead

Do you know where you want to go for next year’s vacations? Winter break, spring break, summer break, or other time? Identify this way ahead in advance so you can start your planning. Way in advance, for me, is 1 year or more in advance. You might say I’m not sure where I’ll be going but this is very important to project potential places you’ll want to travel to.

Start Your Research

Once you’ve identified where you will want to go the following year, start doing some research. If the travel requires flights and hotels, start looking at what airlines fly to that destination and what hotels there are. What airports are closest to you? Are there bigger airports not far from you but willing to fly out of there? What airlines fly in and out of there?

Do some random searches for each airline and hotel on random dates. You can typically search almost a year out for airlines and hotels. How many airline miles and hotel points will you need?

Build Miles and Points

Once you’ve done your airline and hotel research, now you will want to build points and miles. The quickest way is to open new travel credit cards with bonus offers. CAUTION: In order for this to be successful, you will need to have good credit score and you will need to be able to pay off your credit cards in full every month. If you carry a balance over, you will incur interest and this beats the point of this strategy.

Open up the right travel credit cards. If you identified a particular airline, let’s say United or American Airlines, that goes to the destination you want to go to, look into opening up their credit card. Some airlines will offer multiple credit cards that have different bonuses, annual fees, and benefits. Pick the right one for you or multiple ones. Same goes for hotel credit cards. If you’ve identified a certain hotel chain such as Hilton or Hyatt, look at their credit cards and bonuses.

Other travel credit cards such as American Express, Chase, or Citi allow you to build up points that you can use towards travel. They will have their own travel portal and/or will allow you to transfer your points to certain airline partners. There are transfer promotions where the credit card companies will give you a bonus so watch out for those.

This step could require you to open up multiple cards. Be mindful that you need to be financially responsible. Don’t spend more than you can afford. Don’t go into debt. Don’t put yourself in a negative financial situation.

Make Your Reservations

Once you’ve accumulated enough points and/or miles, make your reservations. Make sure to read the fine print. Not all airlines allow changes to award flights or hotel reservations without a fee. Also, be mindful that the cost in miles and points constantly fluctuate. It may go up or down from the time you started your research. My tip is to constantly check while you are building your points and miles and see if your award redemption cost has gone up, down, or stayed the same. That way you can adjust your points and miles goals.

While the cost of the flight or hotel will be free, the cost of taxes and fees will be your responsibility. Certain airlines in certain countries may have higher taxes and fees compared to other airlines so make sure to factor that in your strategy.

Once you’ve made your reservations, occasionally check those same flights or hotel prices. It could have gone down in points and/or fees. Some vendors will allow price adjustments without a fee

Repeat The Process

Repeat this process for each trip you want to plan out. You may have leftover points and miles from your last trip and/or kept using your credit cards to re-accumulate. If you don’t have enough, then consider opening up different credit cards. At some point you may have too many cards and are not comfortable keeping them. Consider cancelling the cards you do not want to keep.

Credit Card Referral Links

Here are a number of referral credit card links for you to consider. I’ve used these cards to help me travel the world.

IHG
United
Chase Sapphire or Reserve
Chase Freedom
Chase Ink Business
American Express Hilton Aspire
American Express Hilton Card

Keep in mind that opening up credit cards may have an impact on your credit score and/or credit history. For me, it hasn’t impacted my financial abilities such as obtaining loans. This strategy has allowed me to travel with my family to many destinations without causing a financial burden on my finances. If I were to approximate, I saved tens of thousands of dollars. Keeping more money in your pocket will give you more options to use your money for growth purposes. If you are interested in following my journey, email subscribe here to get alerts of latest posts or follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.