So you’re ready to save money on travel, and start traveling for nearly free.  You’re ready to travel more, take more trips with your loved ones, and have more experiences.  Where do you start?  Award travel essentially comes down to three things; what I call the three pillars of award travel.  This is what you need to consider as you start this journey: mindset, financial discipline, and strategy.

The excitement can quickly wear off once you’ve redeemed your first trip on points and miles, if you don’t have a long-term strategy that takes into consideration your travel goals and lifestyle.  It can feel overwhelming not knowing which credit card you should get and when.  For starters, there is no right or wrong way to do this – rather, preferred ways that can help you gain a good foundation into the world of award travel.

Mindset.  It starts with how you think about your monthly expenses, bills, and everyday spending.  You have to pay those bills; there’s no way around that unfortunately.  But, why not make the most of it?  Why not charge all your expenses to credit cards that earn you travel rewards?  Now there may be some exceptions, but for the most part – just this strategy in itself, can help you earn points and miles for travel.  But it’s definitely not enough – you’ll need to apply for more credit cards to replenish your points balance on a regular basis.  I should add that it’s important to stick to a budget, regardless, and only spend money that you need to.  Don’t spend more money for the sake of earning points – the goal is to minimize travel costs.

Financial Discipline.  I can’t reiterate this enough.  Before you start award travel, you need to be in the habit of paying all your bills on time, each and every month.  This also goes back to only spending money that you need to, have, and can afford to spend.  The point is not to spend more money, it’s to change the method of payment.  By using a debit card or cash, yes, you’ll feel good about paying expenses off right away.  But you won’t earn any points, miles, or travel rewards by doing so.  If you treat your credit card(s) like a debit card, then award travel can be very, very rewarding for you and your loved ones, and well, your wallet!  Our family has saved thousands of dollars yearly by using points and miles!  As a family of five, it would be nearly impossible to travel the way we do if it wasn’t for points and miles!

Strategy.  Don’t get shiny new card syndrome.  There will be lots of great offers, sometimes increased offers will come around.  Start with a flexible rewards currency program such as Chase; Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is a great starter card for beginners.  As you develop and focus on a strategy, think about your travel lifestyle: number of people in your family, how you travel, what’s important to you during travel, what perks you do/or don’t really care about, do you (eventually) want hotel/airline status?  There are multiple factors to think about.  This is where you will start to understand what cards are keepers, when you should get a new card, and when you should downgrade and/or cancel a card.  Again this a brief overview, but it comes down to understanding the various benefits that different cards can provide you, at different points in time, depending on your travel lifestyle.

Ready to get started, but don’t know how?  Reach out for a personalized consultation – I’ll work with you to develop a credit card strategy.  I love working with individuals, hearing their specific travel goals and dreams, and also gaining future travel inspiration!  (Please note that I have not a travel booking service, nor a financial advisor by any means.  All advice given is from my personal research, experiences, and learned expertise.)  Let’s get you traveling more, for less – come holiday with us 😉