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Pro-Level Hacks to Travel Dirt Cheap

How to work credit card rewards points to travel for practically nothing

an illustration of a woman riding on a credit card like a magic carpet over the globe
Illustration: Dave Urban
By

Lisa Beach,

 
AARP
Published May 18, 2023

Think you’re a savvy promo code user or low-fare finder? You may be, but how well are you working your rewards points programs to travel for free around the world? 

Yeah, it’s not so simple, but it can be done. You just need to have focus, discipline, and possibly a wise aunt to show you the tricks of the trade.

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That’s what Kara Greene does for her nieces and nephews — as well as the 61,000 followers on her Instagram account. Going by the handle Aunt Kara, the 51-year-old IT professional and mother of two has taken leveraging loyalty points to an art form.

Since 2012, Aunt Kara, who plans to retire in four years and lives 100 percent debt-free, including free of a mortgage, has traveled alone and with her family on 55 trips worth $96,000 — using points and miles from various travel loyalty programs and credit card offers.

Despite her successes, Aunt Kara doesn’t advise travel hacking for everyone. You should do it only if you are paying off each and every credit card every single month — and never, ever carrying a balance from one month to the next.

Can’t live up to her no-debt standards? Stop reading right now.

Ready to hear her secrets to success? She shared her top tips with us.

1. Start small and work backwards

Don’t start with which credit cards or loyalty programs you should sign up for. Instead, start researching one specific trip first to pinpoint your destination and the accommodations. If you’ll need to fly to the destination, search on Google Flights to see which airlines offer the best routes.

“You can do all of this without signing up for a credit card,” Kara points out. “Once you have this information, then you start looking at what card you should get because with travel hacking, one card does not fit everyone’s needs.”

Kara owns roughly 10 credit cards, with each one catering to her different spending habits, travel preferences and ability to earn and redeem points in various ways.

2. Once your credit card point balance gets low, start to get strategic about accruing more points

For instance, if you always want to stay at a Hilton hotel instead of a Marriott hotel, that factors into which card will get you more points to redeem at your preferred brand. And if you mostly fly American Airlines, why try to earn Delta points if that airline doesn’t fly out of your home city frequently?

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A big fan of sign-up bonuses, Aunt Kara strategically signs up for a new card to accumulate a lot of points very quickly. For example, one popular credit card rewards you with 75,000 points for signing up once you spend $4,000 within the first three months of opening the account. Kara does this several times a year to get multiple sign-up bonuses. Once she meets the initial spend required, she might put that card aside and not use it often or at all. Sometimes she even cancels the card, then signs up again months later to reap another sign-up bonus.

She also advises against making your partner an authorized user of the account. Why? Because you can refer your partner — earning you referral points and earning your partner the sign-up bonus.  

3. Maximize the earning rate you receive by using different credit cards for different types of purchases

Aunt Kara calls this the “sweet spot” for using each card, as some earn higher amounts of points in specific spending categories such as groceries, gas or dining. Aunt Kara outlines her spending habits on her blog. Here, she explains the specific cards she uses to earn points, highlighting some of the cards she uses for different types of purchases. They range from dining and streaming services to cellphones and groceries.  

4. No matter how many cards you own, you must use them responsibly. That means paying all of them off in full each month 

“My golden rule? The only way you want to get involved with travel hacking is if you are financially disciplined and you have zero credit card debt,” she warns. “You will never earn enough points to cover the type of credit card interest rates you’d be paying if you can’t pay off your balances and you carry that debt.”

Share Your Experience: Have you ever been able to take a trip using rewards or loyalty points? How did you do it? Leave your story in the comments below.

Lisa Beach is a freelance journalist and content marketing writer. Her work has been published in The New York Times, Condé Nast Traveler, Good Housekeeping, Eating Well, USA Today, Parade and dozens more. Check out her website at LisaBeachWrites.com.

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