If you've known me for a while, you know there's no way I do something for full price if I can do it for less money. My view: If I save money in one area, it gives me more money to spend in other areas. Which leads me to my current experiment - travel hacking.
What is travel hacking? It's using points and miles (usually accumulated by frequent user programs and credit card purchases) for travel instead of actual dollars from your bank account. You usually get about 1 cent per point in travel rewards, so it takes a while if you're just using the card for occasional purchases. But, the sign on bonuses for the cards are what make it worthwhile. For example, one credit card gave me a 25,000 point bonus for signing up, the second gave me 80,000. That's $250 and $800 for travel, right there.
So, here's my experiment. I'm planning to put all travel-related expenses on these two cards, in the hopes of building up points faster. I also want to try and put monthly expenses (mortgage, electric, etc) on the card as well to help build up points. The trick - remembering to pay it off each month. I'll write about the progress here, and we'll see if it turns out to be worthwhile.
In the meantime, happy traveling!
