Free airfare and discounted traveling? (Extra Pack of Peanuts)

[nipponahito]

So in the vast interwebs there is this dude, Travis and his wife Heather. His claim to fame is that he games the frequent flyer mile system to get incredibly cheap flights. His methodology from his blog and such seems to be to use a Chase credit card for nearly all his purchases to rack up points and then exchange them for flights and hotels and such. He even goes so far as to have 15+ of these things to maximize which points are available and what. I've got quite the wanderlust and I could really see myself going nuts after FIRE with travelling. So this seems tempting on the surface; but seems honestly like an unstable game playing with the fire of credit card debt. That doesn't seem mustachian at all, even if cutting expenses while travelling seems very mustachian. But before I wrote it off, I figured I would pose the question to the greater mustachian community. Outside of the game of frequent flyer miles, is there any mustachian advice on traveling, especially internationally?

Website: http://extrapackofpeanuts.com
Podcast on iTunes

[Dicey]

Well, first and foremost, carrying a balance is verboten among this set, so no significant worries there. Good tracking is essential. There is an extensive thread here about hacking the Southwest Airlines CC to get a free Companion Pass for two years, plus tons of points for travel. I can't fly enough to make it worth it right now, so I never followed it  but I'm sure the thread is chock-full of related tips & tricks.

[Catbert]

Even the non-mustachian credit card travel hackers emphasize that you can't win if you carry a balance. 

[lbmustache]

There are a couple of blogs that send out great pricing for flights - I like Scott's Cheap Flights. Ex, $500 trips to Paris, $300 trips to Stockholm, etc. I like him because he tries to find nonstop flights on good airlines, available for a wide variety of dates (e.g. August 2017-March 2018). You can save a lot by using sites like that. There's another big one that I am blanking on the same of.