How to travel for free

Register for Loyalty Programs

Start by signing up for any airline, hotel, and car rental loyalty programs that you may use, so that you can immediately begin earning and tracking your reward points. Once you are registered with a loyalty program, you will start earning reward points for your flights, hotel stays, and car rentals.

Most airlines and hotels are grouped into a handful of loyalty programs. This makes it easier to earn and redeem reward points while still using a variety of travel providers and brands. For example, United, Air Canada, and 24 other airlines are a part of the Star Alliance loyalty program. Loyalty members can fly on other Star Alliance airlines while earning reward points for their airline of choice, say United. When it comes time to redeem the reward points, members can choose to use them on a flight with United or other Star Alliance airlines, although some restrictions apply.

Sign-up Bonuses

The easiest way to earn miles & points quickly is through credit card sign-up bonuses. In most cases, you will be required to spend a certain amount of money within a specified timeframe (e.g. $4,000 within three months of receiving the credit card).

The best sign-up bonuses typically range between 50,000 and 150,000 reward points, which can translate into thousands of dollars of free travel.

Everyday Spending

You should strive to earn at least one reward point or more on everyday spending, including dining, groceries, gas, wireless service, and business expenses. The Capital One Venture X card, for example, provides 2x Venture reward points on every dollar you spend.

Once you have begun to accumulate reward points, it helps to have a travel goal in mind where you can use them. There are three basic ways to use miles and points:

Frequent Flyer Miles for Airline Tickets and Upgrades

If you have Delta miles, for example, you can use those miles for free flights and upgrades with Delta and its loyalty program partners.

Hotel Points for Free Nights

Similarly, if you have Hilton points, for example, you can use those for free stays at all of the different brands owned by Hilton Hotels.

Credit Card Reward Points 

Most credit card programs (e.g. Chase, Citi, American Express) have their own travel portal where you can book travel and pay using your reward points instead of paying cash. In most cases, 100 credit card reward points = $1. Alternatively, you can also transfer your reward points to any of the credit card’s travel partners (e.g. airlines and hotel chains) and book directly with that partner. Smart travelers will compare the cost of the two options before deciding on how to best redeem reward points.

The number one rule of using a rewards credit card is to pay your interest-bearing balance on time every month. It makes no financial sense to pay 15 – 25% of interest in order to earn 1 – 10% back in reward points.

By using a credit card instead of a debit card, however, you are able to earn valuable reward points that can be used for your next vacation. In addition, you’ll also get useful benefits like airport lounge access, travel interruption or baggage delay insurance, and so much more. 

Points earned using a rewards credit card (e.g. Capital One Venture X) can be used to book travel directly through a credit card’s travel portal OR can be transferred to a variety of airline or hotel travel partners. Reward points earned directly with airlines or hotels can be used at brands within the same loyalty program, but often cannot be transferred. Thus, reward credit cards provide more options for redeeming points than those earned through a specific loyalty program (e.g. Star Alliance).

Each credit card company has a specific set of travel partners, so it is best to use the credit card that allows you to transfer points to your travel partner of choice.

There are a lot of misconceptions about how credit scores work. Many people believe applying for a new credit card hurts their score. In reality, New Credit applications make up only 10% of our credit score.

When we apply for a rewards credit card, the New Credit part of our score may drop a couple of points, however, many of the other components of our credit score can actually increase as a result of new credit.

As long as our credit utilization (calculated as total credit balance/total available credit) remains low and we make payments on time, we shouldn’t see a negative impact on our score from applying for new rewards credit cards.