After seeing travel hacking mentioned again and again in the forums and various FI-oriented websites, I'm starting to want to get into it more. But I have a persistent mistrust of more extreme versions of the strategy.
We are ideal candidates for travel hacking: we keep a detailed and rigid budget, all of our bills and expenses are paid via credit cards and then paid off every single month without fail (we've been very disciplined about this for the past decade, never letting a balance ride ever), and we are mainlanders living in Honolulu, which means we have to travel if we want to see family.
I've had a Chase UnitedPlusRewards card for around seven years. That was just fine when I was single; I could always accumulate enough miles for two free trips to the mainland every year. But now I'm married with two kids, and mainland trips necessitate three tickets (four in a couple years). This is getting crazy.
I signed up for a HawaiianMiles card for the 50k miles bonus and "buddy travel" award. That netted us a trip for three to LA for $744. As of now, we have no miles left on that card or on the Chase United card (used our miles on that one to pay for a ticket to Memphis this summer).
I'm hooked on the signup miles! If we're going to travel home next year at all, we're going to need another bonus award somehow. So I'm researching...just applied for the Chase Sapphire Points card that has 50k bonus points and waives the $95 fee. I found the whole points thing to be very confusing, which made me avoid the exciting Chase Sapphire $450 points card that is now no longer being offered.
But the points thing is actually good, right? You can apply it to any airline? How does it work?
My husband is a bit skeptical of all this, as it makes our financial lives a bit more complicated to have to keep track of various credit cards. I have this nagging fear that I am making a deal with the devil by getting into the travel hacking thing more seriously. Reassurance?