Within the last 2 years I’ve traveled a lot… Much more than I ever expected.
What I’m rambling about today is often referred to as travel hacking and it’s nothing secret, or new. Go ahead, google that term. However, most people aren’t really in the know.
I always get asked “how can you afford to travel so often?” and “What are you doing for work? I wish I had a job where I could travel all the time.”
It’s funny because I am always upfront and tell them exactly how I do it. However, most look at me with 2 expressions.
It’s either the ‘are you freaking nuts’ kind of look, or a ‘please tell me your secrets’ response.
But believe me… it’s more of the first reaction. No one ever believes me.
My answer is that I leverage my incredibly good credit rating to take advantage of multiple credit card offers at a time, usually ones that offer a large amount of frequent flyer points if you meet a certain criteria. This usually means spending a set amount of money in a specified amount of time on the card to receive the offer.
More on this in a second.
In the last 2 years I’ve been to NYC twice, Boston more times than I can count (seriously), LA a few times, Kansas City, and various other places without spending much more than $5-10 roundtrip to cover the flight taxes.
There was one weird time that I was charged $85 roundtrip due to weird taxes that sometimes come with American Airlines travel points (I’ve heard of others dealing with this, as well). I’ve also used points for free hotels, as well.
Read moreTraveling Whenever and Wherever I want for nearly nothing…