Hey guys, Kristin here from Be My Travel Muse.
Coming at you from a glorious summer day in Berlin.
And I wanna talk about something that I think is on a lot of people's minds when they're
scrolling through their Instagram feed, wondering how in the world do these people afford this
and how can I do the same sorts of things.
In today's video I want to address one very big, very expensive part of traveling at least
it usually is a very expensive part of traveling.
And that is buying your plane flight.
For the past year I've taken at least a dozen international flights, none of which I paid
for.
That might seem like I'm able to do it because I am getting all of these miles from the flights
I've already been taking, but in reality no, I've been doing something that you can do
too and that is travel hacking.
So, let's have a seat and talk about all of the best tips that I have for getting you
on a plane flight for free soon.
So, to get started what is travel hacking?
Basically, travel hacking is a way to use credit card signup bonuses to travel the world
for free.
You can get them in the form of airline miles, Chase points, or American Express points which
you can redeem for all kinds of different travel options.
And you can also sign up for hotel rewards credit cards like IHG or Marriott.
So, these options are mainly available to Americans, I am from the U.S. so, I really
can only speak to my experience here.
So, with that in mind please just take from it what is useful for you.
Before I launch in the most important thing that you must have in order to be able to
make this work is healthy credit and the ability to pay off your debt in full every month.
Another thing to remember, and this is the most important thing I'm going to say in this
video, is that you should only spend what you are already going to spend.
If you carry a balance then you end up paying more in the financing fees than you would
just to get a free ticket.
So, it's really only worth it if you pay off your balance in full every single month.
So, first of all, sign up for every airlines mileage program that you personally use.
So, for me that would be United, American Airlines, Delta, British Airways, and then
all of those have partner airlines.
So, look at the different alliances which are groups of airlines that all agree to collaborate
with each other and those are the ones that you wanna have some membership with an airline
in.
There's the Star Alliance, there is One World, and there are a few others out there as well.
So, get a membership with those partner airlines and then look into what credit cards they
may offer and what the signup bonuses are.
Now, it's very important that you not open up too many credit cards at the same time
because they always have a minimum spend that you need to meet in order to get the signup
bonus.
For example, maybe in order to get 30,000 miles you need to spend a thousand dollars
within the first three months of opening your account.
Now, if you charge absolutely everything on there like your groceries, and your gas, anything
that you could possibly turn into a credit card payment, put it on that card and you
should make the minimum spend within those first three months as long as, again, you're
not overextending yourself in order to do so.
Then pay off the card in full and before the year comes that you would have to pay the
annual fee, make sure that you downgrade to a free card if they have it available.
If not, go ahead and cancel.
So, this is an example of an okay sign up bonus and a pretty low minimum spend.
But sometimes there are cards out there like the Chase Sapphire Reserve that offer a really
attractive signup bonus and they have a lot of really cool options that they offer.
Now, the annual fee for this particular card is $450, and that sounds insane.
However, if you meet the minimum spend which is I believe $3,000 within the first three
months of account opening, then you will also get a statement credit of $300 back to your
account.
Additionally, if you want to apply for global reentry and/or TSA pre-checked, they will
actually refund that money to you.
So, it ends up being quite generous because each of those is around $100.
Also, and this is really, really cool, you get a priority pass membership.
You get lounge access in airports all over the world.
I have used free lounges from my priority pass membership everywhere from London, to
Qatar, to Amsterdam, to Los Angeles, really all over the world on every continent.
Even tiny little airports in Indonesia, I was able to get priority pass lounge access.
Now, not all these lounges are created equal, some are certainly better than others but
they almost always have free food, free coffee, and if you like to drink beer and wine they
almost always offer that as well.
So, the savings if you do fly often from having that lounge access could be huge.
They also have their own free Wi-Fi and it's just a usually a much nicer place to wait
and hang out during the layover than having to wander through the very hectic sort of
airport halls.
You can also bring friends in with you or family, you always have a plus-one.
So, that is super cool as well.
And this is how I have been able to fly business class pretty much for free twice this year.
Once to Thailand and flying from Lima all the way back to Berlin.
And trust me for such long flights that was fantastic to be able to lay down, to get nice
food, to have a nice big screen to watch my movies on, and especially to get some sleep.
And if you can get that kind of thing for just spending the money that you are already
gonna spend, honestly why not give travel hacking a try.
So, this is my favorite offer right now.
I had a referral link that you are more than welcome to use if you want to sign up yourself.
Additionally, I think that American Airlines miles are fantastic.
They have partners all over the world and I have found that United and American Airlines
have been really fantastic.
Delta honestly, not as much .So, I would prioritized Chase, then United, and American, and then
Delta.
One thing to remember is that, some cards have once-in-a-lifetime signup bonus that
you can only get once.
Others like the American Airlines cards and the United cards, you can get that bonus again
every two years.
So, once you get the bonus and you pay off the card, go ahead and cancel it and then
wait another 24 months so that you can open it again and get the benefit again.
For United, for example, I have received the 30,000 point bonus twice.
Also, cards offer different bonuses at different times.
So, if you don't like anything that's available at the moment, wait a little bit and see if
something better comes along.
Another way that I make sure that I can get a lot of points is I will open a card right
before I'm gonna make a big purchase.
For example, I just bought the camera that I am shooting this video on, so, I opened
up a new card to do that with Alaska Airlines.
And then, I used those points to book a flight to Alaska, it was perfect.
It basically paid for this camera.
There is an annual fee with this card but it's under $100 and the benefits for me made
it worth it.
For each card you really have to read into what the benefits are, what the fee is, whether
they'll waive it for the first year or not because some do and some don't.
And really do a cost-benefit analysis for yourself to see if these points will work
for you, if this mileage scheme will work for you.
Now, one big question that you might be wondering is what about my credit?
Is this going to absolutely kill my credit score?
If you're opening a bunch of cards and then canceling them, it can certainly look not-so-great.
However, if you're not making any major purchases like a home or trying to take out any loans,
then, it's okay to open cards periodically and then to downgrade to a free card so that
you don't end up paying the fee but you don't have all these cancellations on your account
either.
I find it really helps me to keep a spreadsheet of everything.
I also set up automatic bill pay so that my whole balance is completely taken out every
month and I don't have to do anything to make sure it happens.
Finally, you're probably wondering how you find these bonuses?
I have a blog post linked below with some of my favorite ones that are out right now.
I also really like thepointsguy.com, he talks about the best cards every month and then
you can go on his blog and see what's good right now.
Finally, when you're doing your shopping, see if any of the credit cards that you use
are offering any kind of bonus for certain merchants.
For example, if you're going to be buying some electronics, maybe they are working with
Best Buy right now and you can get an extra few points for every dollar that you spend
at Best Buy.
Around the holidays, there are often a lot of bonuses like this.
So, make sure to take a look at things like that.
Finally, I just want to say that there are a lot of very sophisticated tips and tricks
that people use to really get a lot more points.
It can be a really fun but also very time-consuming process.
So, if it's something you really want to get into, I encourage you to look into it more.
My friend Matt wrote a really helpful book on the topic which I'll link in the show notes
below.
But for getting started with travel hacking, you can really get a lot of amazing points
and fly around the world more or less for free just by using the simple tips and tricks
that I just described.
So, I really hope that this video helps you out to maybe learn some things that you didn't
know about before about travel hacking and traveling the world for free.
If you like this video, please, give it a thumbs up and share it with your friends and
subscribe for new videos every Wednesday with all kinds of amazing travel tips like this.
And some fun videos on the road.
See you guys soon.
Bye.