The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: deek on April 04, 2019, 01:09:09 PM
-
A friend from my gym recently told me one of his hobbies is travel hacking and I find it very interesting. Being someone who loves low spending and traveling, I'm interested in finding some good resources to learn more about how to travel hack. Any info would be greatly appreciated!!
-
Credit card bonuses are your friend.
Flights, hotels, and trains can be had for free or a low price.
-
Credit card bonuses are your friend.
Flights, hotels, and trains can be had for free or a low price.
Does this require a certain amount of spend in a set amount of time though?
-
doctorofcredit.com is a good resource. No affiliate links, so no bullshit peddling of suboptimal cards (like you'll find in MANY other similar blogs).
-
We did a free online class - Travel Miles 101. It broke all the steps/strategies down into understandable chunks and helped us develop a clear path. The founders (who I have no affiliation with) also have a Facebook group where I continue to learn things.
We started travel hacking in 2014 or so, and have done extensive travel via points/credits (Europe, Australia, many domestic trips and an upcoming trip to Asia). It's been extremely fruitful for us and I recommend the Travel 101 class to friends and family all the time.
https://www.travelmiles101.com/
-
Reddit's /r/churning (https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/) forum is probably where you want to get started. DoctorOfCredit is a regular participant there and I agree with ketchup that he's got one of the best non-bullshit websites for churning and bank bonus info.
On /r/churning, please consider reading the sidebar FAQs before posting questions in the forum.
Good luck!
-
Credit card bonuses are your friend.
Flights, hotels, and trains can be had for free or a low price.
Does this require a certain amount of spend in a set amount of time though?
Yep. The standard is around $3000/3 months.
That can be tough for those who spend little. We time it for large bills (our house and car insurance take cards) and buy grocery gift cards if it's getting close. There's an advanced technique that "manufactures" spending, too.
There are a number of cards that rebate $150-200 for $500-1000 spend. Get a few of those and you'll soon have $4-600 for a trip. If your SO plays, you could get $1000 for a trip pretty easily.
However, there's an order to getting cards due to bank restrictions. If you can manage the minimum spend, you should start with the Chase non-branded cards.
-
+1 to Travelmiles101, it gives a great overview to a beginner. A lot of other sources can be pretty hard to sift through if you don't have a pretty deep background already.
The Daily Question thread on r/churning can also be a good resource.