If you know either of us very well, you know we love to travel.
I’ve mentioned before that one of our family’s goals when the kids were young was to try to get to all 50 states before they graduated from high school. A goal we met—with North Dakota being the final state! One of the only ways we were able to do that was that we owned a business for 20+ years, and we racked up a lot of credit card points that we used for airlines and hotels.
What we were doing, without knowing it, was essentially travel hacking. We were cool before our time.
Over the last decade, travel hacking has gone mainstream thanks to social media. What is “travel hacking”? It’s strategically using credit card points or miles for future travel or stays or other travel perks. There are other things involved in travel hacking as well, and we have two guests with us today to talk about their experience.
Ben & Alaina Blaylock
Introduction… how long have you been married? What do you do (Otago/tennis, PA school).
Got married in May of 2022 in the same month as your college graduation. We had several family celebrations that month—our daughter & SIL were graduating from graduate schools at the same time & we had an opportunity for all of us to go on vacation (more and more rare)…so we went to Tulum, Mexico.
At the end of that vacation, we went back home, but Ben & Alaina….you had different plans.
What made you start thinking of taking that year as a “travel year?” (studying abroad together getting cut short? Mutual love of adventure & travel? Knowing you’d have lots and lots of time for working and adulting later on?)
Who set the itinerary?
How did you decide where to go?
Where did you go? Can you name all the countries you went to that year?
The Travel Hacking Part
So you were just out of college, pretty young. It wasn’t like you had a boatload of money sitting there to burn through. What on earth made you think you could afford traveling the world?
Did either of you have jobs and how did that figure in?
Where did you start in the process?
Were there particular books you read? Accounts you followed? Resources or research that was especially helpful?
What’s travel arbitrage?
How did you determine how much it would cost and how long you could be away?
Or was it more of a … let’s just go and see how long we can stay and how far we can get?
Was all of it planned out ahead of time or did you do it as you went?
Credit Card Points & Airline Rewards
What card did you use & how did that work? What perks did you get? (upgrades? Airport lounges? Free stays?) You weren’t spending thousands like we did on our business so how did you get lots of points? (we helped out some: rehearsal dinner, engagement ring, wedding expenses, ….later on, big purchases like pool liner, big quarterly tax payment…)
Category bonuses
Annual spending bonuses
Extra points for certain purchases…
You need good credit to get some of these cards (can start your kids early as auth user)
You need to pay off balance every month; point is not to rack up lots of debt!
Annual fees?
What sort of travel are we talking about here? First class? Lux hotels?
Airlines: Tell us how you got cheap flights.
Certain websites to use for searches?
Airlines that partner with one another like British Air & American?
2 categories: Flights from US overseas and then shorter flights within Europe etc.
How did you score the 9 legs around the world & how did that work?
Did you use your points mostly for transportation or stays?
Did you use dining rewards or shopping portals?
Nearly every major loyalty program has a shopping portal you can earn rewards with, whether it’s your card issuer or your chosen airline. You’ll earn at least one extra point per dollar spent, plus the points from your credit card.
Here are a few examples:
- AAdvantage eShopping
- Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Shopping
- Delta SkyMiles Shopping
- JetBlue TrueBlue Shopping
- Rakuten (partners with Amex Membership Rewards)
- Shop Through Chase
- Southwest Rapid Rewards Shopping
Bonus: your parents can come visit you and foot the bill for part of Scandinavia!
Some quirks or a funny story from a particular stay?
What did you learn?
(maybe that you preferred to see some areas quick & cursory and others slow and leisurely? That you actually really loved Indian food? That you really don’t NEED all that much to live an enjoyable life…you lived out of ONE carryon suitcase and backpack each for 8 months!!!)
How did you travel together? That’s kind of a risk to get married & travel together for a year! Getting to know each other 24/7 in close quarters right off the bat. How do you think that shaped your relationship/new marriage?
Has the experience satisfied your wanderlust or has it just whet your appetite for where you can go next?
(On your first substantial break from PA school, you took off again to Finland, Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania…)
RESOURCES BEN MENTIONED DURING THE EPISODE:
Cheap $ Flights:
skyscanner
Momondo
Google flights (great map feature, not super accurate on best prices)
Scott’s Cheap Flights (now Going)
Daily Drop Pro
Cheap (pt) flights:
points.me (paid)
pointsyeah
Nomadic Matt’s PDF
thepointsguy.com
Daily Drop newsletter
YouTube
Reddit (r/churning)
Others:
mistake fares
5th freedom flights
flying blue promo
SW companion pass deals
Even Antarctica has deals
Best Credit Cards:
Use Bilt if you pay rent
Chase MR points are worth more than most other general programs
Citi ThankYou
Amex points
Capital One Miles
Note on business cards–don’t shy away,…there’s a higher spending requirement, but oftentimes an outsized points value