What does your travel hacking journey look like?
When you first heard the words travel hacking, did you think…that sounds illegal or unethical? According the the Cambridge dictionary, the word “hacking” means “the activity of using a computer to access information stored on another computer system withouth permission, or to spread a computer virus.”
When first starting this blog, I told my husband I didn’t want to use the words travel hacking in the title because of the negative connotation that goes along with the word hacking. What I am teaching you to do is not illegal or unethical. It is just taking advantage of the programs and benefits that credit card companies have set up to try and gain you as one of their customers.
Credit card companies make a LOT of money off of people who don’t pay their bill in full, on time, every time. Don’t be that person. This is not a hobby to get you in debt or have you spend money on things that you weren’t going to spend money on.
I want to be clear that I advocate responsible use of credit cards. Never carry a balance. Don’t spend extra money just because you have a credit card. Use your credit card to pay for things that you were already going to buy so that you can earn miles or points. Pay it off every month, and reap the rewards.
There are many different types of credit cards. They all have different benefits. Some of the benefits are low interest, cash back, travel rewards, gas points, airline miles, balance transfer, hotel points, etc.
Which kind of card will benefit you the most? If you can use your credit card responsibly why wouldn’t you be taking advantage of some of these rewards? Don’t you like free stuff? If you don’t travel or don’t want to travel, the cards that focus on travel probably won’t be right for you.
When I was pinching pennies and not spending money on travel, cash back was more valuable for me. Are you someone who already travels, but would like to save money, or someone who dreams of traveling and hasn’t been able to afford it…yet. When I learned that you can get a lot more value if you get your rewards in travel points or miles it didn’t take much convincing. I love to get the most value for my dollar.
Since we started our journey we have earned 530,000 points just in sign up bonuses. On my Discover Card that I was using for cash back, I didn’t get any sign on bonuses, just 1 percent cash back on money I spent. If I was to cash in the 530,000 points at a rate of 1% cash back, the value would be $5,300!
