As I mentioned in an earlier post my goal is completely “free” travel. \u00a0By free I don’t mean zero cost. \u00a0By free I mean liberated. \u00a0Liberated from using what I would refer to as my everyday income. \u00a0Income derived from my salary. \u00a0I am naturally a tightwad and I hate spending money. \u00a0The funny thing is that I don’t have that same feeling with the money earned from reselling. \u00a0It almost feels like points, albeit the most valuable kind of points. \u00a0Below is my strategy for liberated, aka free, travel.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I am not the type of travel hacker who hoards miles. \u00a0I earn with a specific goal in mind and target credit card applications for that goal. \u00a0My near term goals are Mexico (winter) and Hawaii (spring). \u00a0Long term I am looking at taking my parents and my family of four to Ireland, hopefully in business class.<\/p>\n
To that end here is a general outline of my free travel strategy.<\/p>\n
CREDIT CARDS<\/span><\/p>\n Going forward I am looking for cards that fall into one of two categories. \u00a0First, cards have nice bonuses that meet my travel goals. \u00a0Given my current goals the cards that are of interest to me are anything that earns Amex Membership Rewards Points, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Avios, Alaska Airlines miles, and American Airlines Miles.<\/p>\n The second category of card that I am looking for are cards that I can leverage for manufactured spending and reselling. \u00a0The cards I am looking at here are the Amex Old Blue Cash and Chase Ink. \u00a0These cards both have 5x opportunities that can be leveraged for points and cash.<\/p>\n MANUFACTURE SPEND<\/span><\/p>\n So the miles and points will get me to my destination, but what about play money and hotels? \u00a0Here is where the MS comes in. \u00a0First for\u00a0for the hotels. \u00a0I am not a huge fan of hotels. \u00a0I will use them when it makes sense financially, but I much prefer vacation rentals. Especially with the two boys. \u00a0My goal with the MS is to earn enough cash back to cover a vacation rental. \u00a0Right now we use the Old Blue Cash card for everyday spending. \u00a0This gets us 5% cash back on gas, groceries, and drug stores (cough gift cards). \u00a0I try not to abuse this generous cash back bonus too much because I don’t want to get shut down. All other MS will be to meet minimum spends.<\/p>\n Currently, I have a RedBird and my wife has a Serve card. \u00a0That is $10k per month between the two. \u00a0I am not likely to max that out every month, but it is there if needed.<\/p>\n RESELLING<\/span><\/p>\n Reselling is going to be my main source of income for the travel slush fund. \u00a0The purpose of the slush fund is to pay for the travel expenses that miles will not cover such as spending money and vacation rentals. \u00a0If possible I will also look to the slush fund to cover purchasing miles and even airfare (gasp!) if the need arises.<\/p>\n BANK BONUSES<\/span><\/p>\n Big banks like to hand out bonuses for opening up accounts. \u00a0Right now I am working on a $300 bonus for opening a checking account with Key Bank. \u00a0My goal is to use this to pad the extra cash made with MS and Reselling.<\/p>\n CONCLUSION<\/span><\/p>\n My goal is to travel on as little of my own money as possible. \u00a0We travel 2 to 3 times per year (less this year) so I think this is a doable strategy for the future.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As I mentioned in an earlier post my goal is completely “free” travel. \u00a0By free I don’t mean zero cost. \u00a0By free I mean liberated….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[2,6,3],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n