Paid Student Loans Off Early While Earning Some Free Travel

[AK]

Hey Fellow Mustachians! I just hit submit to pay off the remaining $30K on my graduate student loans. It feels meh but am glad to see them gone.

Luckily, business has been good this year so far so I decided to save up and pay off my student loans. Along the way, I started dabbling in Travel Hacking with credit card bonuses which led to the Southwest Companion pass and other points and miles. To earn the sign-up bonuses, Gift of College gift cards were purchased using the credit cards and then paid off allowing 2 of our upcoming vacations to be mostly paid using points and miles.

On to paying off the car loan next. Good luck in your badassity too!

[lexde]

Where are you now purchasing GoC? I haven’t been able to find any since TRU announced they were filing Chapter 7.

[AK]

Hey Lexde. First let me say you were one of the people that inspired me to dabble with Travel Hacking so thank you!

Originally, I got them from Toys R Us before they closed. Now, I've been paying the 3% fee on the giftofcollege.com website using their "Gift" option on my own account. It allows up to $500 gifts at a time but you don't have to redeem gift cards and it'll automatically send the payment to the account if there's only one. Unfortunately, I was denied my last Chase credit card and recon wasn't any help so I decided to just pay off the rest since 3% was too high for me and I want to stay under 5/24. I think paying 3% only works with a sign-up bonus or if you can stack so that you come out ahead.