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The not-so-secret travel hacking 'game' that allows you to travel the world for free

Free to learn, complex to play and totally worth it.

The not-so-secret travel hacking 'game' that allows you to travel the world for free
Photo by Serey Kim on Unsplash

The points and miles game is free to learn, complex to play, but totally worth it.

If you have friends who post drool-worthy photos of luxury resorts in beautiful, tropical places and you wonder how on Earth they can afford such amazing vacations, there are four main possibilities: 1) They're rich; 2) They saved up for a long time and splurged; 3) They went into debt to make it happen; 4) They spent far less than you think—perhaps close to nothing—because your friends know how to play the travel hacking game.

If No. 4 intrigues you, buckle up, because I'm about to take you on a mindblowing trip through Travel Hacking Land. But before we embark, I want to make something clear: Everything I'm about to share with you is legitimate, legal and honest. I say that upfront because often people's initial response when I describe how travel hacking works is, "That sounds sketchy." They usually respond with 1) This is a scam, or 2) This is unethical. Neither is true. More on that shortly.

Luxury travel is far more doable than you might think. Photo by Paolo Nicolello on Unsplash


Okay, off we go!

Welcome to Travel Hacking Land, where if you learn to play the game well, you get to travel for free.

A few things to keep in mind as we take this tour:

1. Think of travel hacking as a game rather than a "hack." Like any game, the more strategies you master, the better you get at playing.

2. The game is simple in concept, but complex in practice. Don't expect to walk away from this article knowing exactly how to book a free trip to Europe. There's a fairly steep learning curve, but speaking from experience, it's 100% worth the time to learn it.

3. (Almost) anyone can play. If you have a good credit score, you can play this game. (That being said, people with more spending power will be able to play it faster. No way around that really.)

4. Be ready to unlearn some things. Most of us come into the game with major misconceptions about how credit card points and airline miles work.

5. It truly is as mindblowing as it sounds. Yes, the people who play this game really do travel the world regularly—often in luxury—for free or nearly free. No, it's not an exaggeration. (I'm not selling anything here, by the way—I love to travel, I love saving money and I love strategy games, so this hobby just hits all my happy buttons.)

Also, I didn't make any of this up or figure it out on my own. I learned it from Bryce Conway, founder of 10xTravel, a website where anyone can learn all the ins and outs of this game and see how other people are playing it. (10xTravel Insiders is also the largest and most active Facebook group dedicated to this game, with more than 113,000 members, so Conway definitely is the go-to expert in this space.)

As we take our tour through Travel Hacking Land, I'll share what Conway says about how the game works and what anyone who's interested in it needs to know.

The travel hacking game is played with three main pieces: credit card points, hotel points and airline miles.

On a basic level, the goal of the travel hacking game is to optimize credit card points, hotel loyalty points and airline miles and make the most of how those award systems work and interact with each other. You have to understand these pieces of the game to strategize using them.

The first thing to understand is that credit card points are the most powerful pieces in the game. Everything else stems from there.

Each credit card grouping (Chase, American Express, Citibank, Capital One, etc.) has its own points-earning system. You earn points by spending with a credit card (i.e., "earn 1% cash back on purchases") or by signing up for new cards and qualifying for sign-up bonuses ("spend $4000 in the first three months and get 100,000 bonus points"). Most of us most likely have points-earning cards of some sort, because they're so common.

Generally speaking, the cash value of a credit card point is one cent, so 100,000 points would have a cash value of $1,000. If I have 100,000 Chase points, for instance, I can trade those in for $1,000 cash back.

That's exactly what I used to do—get cash back for the points I earned on my Chase cards—and I thought it was pretty awesome. Now I kick myself for it because those points are sooooo much more valuable when used in the points/miles game for travel.

Credit card points become more valuable when they are transferred to travel partners.

Transferring credit card points to airline or hotel partners greatly increases their value.

Photo by Trac Vu on Unsplash

As I said, the game is complex, and there's no way to explain it all in one article. But here's one example of what it means to optimize the points and miles systems.

Recently I wanted to buy a one-way ticket on Southwest airlines. The cash price for the ticket was $88, but I could get the exact same ticket for 4,400 Southwest Rapid Rewards miles.

Southwest is a travel partner with Chase, which means I can transfer my Chase points to Southwest and they count as Rapid Reward miles. 4,400 Chase points would be worth $44 if I got cash back for them, but if I transfer them to Southwest to purchase that $88 ticket, I've just doubled the value of those points.

Double the value is pretty good, right? But that's just scratching the surface. As another example, with 100,000 Chase points, I could get $1,000 cash back or I could transfer those points to Hyatt and get four nights at the Grand Hyatt resort in Kauai—which, on the dates I just looked up in August, would cost $900/night cash. So for $1,000 worth of points, I could get a $3,600 stay at a luxury resort. Almost quadrupled their value.

But keep in mind, I'm not actually even paying that $1,000 out of pocket. These are points I earned for free, just by signing up for and using my credit card (on things I'm spending money on anyway) to earn points.

When people say they're traveling for free, this is what they mean.

If you want to play the points/miles travel hacking game, you can learn how for free.

I had a vague understanding of airline miles and credit card points before taking Conway's 10xTravel course. I'd used frequent flyer miles before and my husband and I have used credit cards for everything (paying them off every month—that's vitally important) to earn points for cash.

I don't even remember now what made me click on the course, but I'm so glad I did. There are multiple travel hacking websites and courses out there, but I appreciated the way Conway laid the whole thing out and that he was totally upfront about how he makes his money with a free course. (Basically, he asks that course participants use his credit card referral links if/when they start getting into the game, which is beyond fair for the amount of knowledge the course provides.)

Conway started puzzling out the game himself when he was in college, when there were only a handful of online forums and Reddit discussions about how to optimize points and miles. His friends would see him traveling all the time and ask him how he was doing it, so he'd explain it. Eventually, he got tired of having to go through the whole game with new people over and over again at parties, so he wrote it all down in an email that he could just forward to whoever asked.

Finally, a friend told him he should turn it into an ebook. That ebook eventually morphed into the course and the 10xTravel website and a full-fledged win-win business. We win by getting free knowledge about how to game points and miles to travel for practically nothing. He wins by earning credit card affiliate income each time people use his referral links to start playing.

The biggest travel hacking hurdle to get over is our misconceptions about credit cards.

Credit card points can be incredibly valuable for travel.

Photo by Pickawood on Unsplash

One big key strategy in this game is regularly signing up for new credit cards to take advantage of sign-up bonuses, as that's the quickest way to accumulate a lot of points. But most people think that's nuts.

"When I tell people that I generally open 10 or more credit cards a year, almost every single person … their eyes get bigger and they kind of freak out," says Conway. "And the next question is always, doesn't that destroy your credit score?"

No, it doesn't.

"It's very straightforward how that works, but of course, people have a bad association of credit cards with debt and bad credit," he says. "So you have to kind of get past that."

But won't credit card companies get wind of people doing this and shut it down? Conway says nope.

"They know that this exists. In some ways, they kind of encourage it because most people aren't able to make points work or are not willing to put in the effort to make points work in a way that is really advantageous to them," he says. "So it's kinda like the banks are making a bet like, 'Hey, we have this cool point system. You probably won't figure it out. It's profitable for us anyway.'"

"Credit card companies make a lot of money when people use their product, both on interest charges and fees—kind of the negative side of credit cards—but also just on swipe transaction fees," says Conway. "People forget that credit card companies make a large portion of their money on people who don't even ever pay interest or have credit card debt."

Credit cards are profitable for banks, so they incentivize people opening them. And banks compete to get you to open their cards, so all we're doing here is making the most of that competition and the incentives that come with it. No one is getting swindled. You have to spend on the cards to earn the points—even the sign-up bonuses—so banks are still making their money.

The key is to use your credit card for every transaction possible, pay off the balance each month before any interest posts and keep getting new cards for the sign-up bonuses.

Here are some examples of people who have learned how to play the travel hacking game and won big.

The places travel hackers go for free or nearly free is mind-boggling.

Photo by Ittemaldiviano 🇲🇻 on Unsplash

One of the things you start seeing after you take the 10xTravel course and join the group on Facebook is people sharing the amazing trips they've taken for free or close to free. Some of those stories get posted on the 10xTravel site, too.

For example, one couple took a two-week, five-country, $17,000 trip to Europe for just over $1,500 out of pocket. Another family detailed how they saved $14,000 in travel costs on trips to Puerto Rico, Europe, Costa Rica and Canada—not to mention getting a ton of free travel domestically—over a two-year period.

Some people in the Facebook group have shared trips where they've gotten redemption values of 10 or 20 cents per credit card point or more (essentially turning what would be $1,000 cashback into $10,000 or $20,000 in travel value). Those are exceptionally amazing, but it's not unusual at all to see 3x, 4x or 5x point values being redeemed by travelers in the group.

Often the only cash people have to shell out on their trips is for food and a modicum of taxes on flights, which don't get covered by points. At all-inclusive resorts, food is covered, so all they pay for are any extra activities.

And we're not talking cheap places or terrible traveling conditions. You know those over-the-water bungalows you see in the Maldives? I've seen people fly first-class there and stay in those places, all on points and miles. It's bonkers what people can do if they play this game well.

Why don't more people play the travel hacking game if it's really so great?

Again, the game is simple in concept but complex in practice. There's a lot to learn and a lot to unlearn at first, and how the various points and miles systems intertwine and interact can make your brain hurt until it all starts to click. But a lot of what stops people from even starting to learn is simply not believing that it is what it is.

"I think it doesn't really make sense to most rational minds," Conway admits. "Because things don't just kind of come for free in life. There's always gonna be some sort of catch down the road. So when you can show them how easy it is to book a meaningful amount of travel—and good travel—using simple tactics with points and miles, it seems too unbelievable."

This is especially true with business or first-class airline travel. The redemption values for points on those seats can be simply astounding.

"People assume that I'm gonna do a bunch of work just to be able to get a three-stop red-eye flight to Vegas—is that even worth it? And that's just not the case," says Conway. "My wife and I have flown first-class all over the world and can do so pretty much whenever and wherever we want, thanks to this."

The only thing better than hanging out in paradise is hanging out in paradise for free.

Photo by Serey Kim on Unsplash

Travel hacking (a term Conway bristles at because it makes the whole thing sound sketchy) is a long game—and more chess than checkers for sure—but for those who wish they could afford to travel more, it's definitely a game worth learning how to play.

Thanks for coming along on the tour of Travel Hacking Land! And hey, if you see your friends sunning themselves in Fiji or exploring Machu Picchu or galavanting around Europe, don't assume they have gobs of excess wealth. They may have just learned to game the points and miles systems in a way that lets them travel for ridiculously little money.


This article originally appeared two years ago.

via James Breakwell / Twitter

Raising kids is tough, but there's a lot of laughs along the way. Comedy writer James Breakwell has four daughters under the age of eight and shares their hilarious conversations on Twitter. And, from Breakwell's tweets, it looks like his five year old has a future in comedy. Here's a sampling of some Breakwell's funniest kid-inspired tweets.


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His 5-year-old isn't the only (often unintentionally) hilarious child in the house; the 7-year-old and 3-year-old turn up from time to time. There's also a 2-year-old, but she hasn't been the subject of many tweets yet.


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This article originally appeared four years ago.

All screenshots from @lakynbowman on TikTok.

It was Grandma’s 71st birthday, and granddaughter Lakyn Bowman came up with the cutest, cleverest and most thoughtful way to honor the occasion.

Bowman (@lakynbowman) shared in a TikTok video that after going through old photos, she realized just how much they both looked alike. And so, to thank grandma for passing down the good genes, she decided to recreate each signature look. After a few rounds with a curling iron, some pale blue eyeshadow, and throwing on some charming floral prints (plus some filter wizardry to give the pics that retro look) the resemblance is just uncanny.

People were delighted to see such a loving tribute. The video quickly racked up over 8 million views, with more than a few comments talking about how emotional the tribute made them. Can’t say I blame 'em.

Screenshot of a comment

Such a heartwarming tribute obviously moved some to tears.

TikTok

But how did grandma feel about it? Well, in a follow-up video, we see a genuine ear-to-ear smile. Suffice it to say, the idea was a hit.

As one person wrote to Bowman, “you’ll never be able to top this gift.”

It certainly helps that Bowman is vintage savvy. She even helps others find amazing secondhand items through her company Nine Oh Six. So getting the clothes and accessories was a piece of old-fashioned pineapple upside-down cake. And the results were just as sweet. Take a look below:

@lakynbowman Happy birthday, Grandma! Thanks for the good genes. 💕 #recreate#photoshoot #birthdayphotoshoot #vintage #grandma ♬ What Once Was - Her's
@lakynbowman

Reply to @katemason06 The audio didn’t save. 😭 But here’s her reaction. I love her so much! 💕

These videos are not only an instant dash of joy, it’s also a heartwarming reminder that our elders provide the prologue to our life stories. Honoring them can be as simple or creative as we want them to be, but be sure to include them. As we can see with this grandma-granddaughter duo, it’ll mean the world to them.


This article originally appeared three years ago.

A dad got a sweet note from a fellow father after camping with his kids.

One of the hardest parts of being a parent is never being sure whether you're doing a good job or totally bombing it. If you're conscientious enough to even wonder if you're a good parent, you probably are, but parenting entails a million little choices and interactions, and there's always a lingering voice in your head saying, "What if you're really screwing this whole thing up?"

Reassurance and encouragement are always appreciated by parents, but not always received, which is why a note from one camping dad to another has people celebrating the kindness of anonymous strangers.

"You are killing it as a dad."

Someone on Yosemite Reddit thread shared a photo of a handwritten note with the caption, "To the man who left this thoughtful note on my windshield at Lower Pines Campground this weekend, I extend my heartfelt gratitude; your acknowledgment of my efforts to be a good father means a great deal to me."



The note reads:

"Bro,

I camped in the spot behind you last night. Let me just say, you are killing it as a dad. First off, I watched your wife guide you in as you backed up your trailer and nailed it on the first try without any yelling. Then your kids unloaded from the truck and were mild-mannered and well behaved. You told stories around the campfire and I had the pleasure of listening to the sounds of giggles and laughter.

From one dad to another, you are killing it. Keep it up.

P.S. Whatever you cooked for dinner smelled delicious!"

How often do we share these thoughts with strangers, even if we have them? And who wouldn't love to get a surprise bit of praise with specific examples of things we did right?

Everyone needs to hear a compliment once in a while.

So many people found the note to be a breath of fresh air and a good reminder to compliment people when we feel the urge:

"That would make any daddy's eyes water."

"It’s always nice, as a guy, to get a compliment."

"I complimented a guy's glasses at work (I'm also a guy, and btw they were really cool glasses, I wasn't just being nice) and now he keeps trying to tell me where he got his glasses and how I should get some. But I'm just having to be polite because I already have glasses and I'm not in the market. I finally had to tell him I'm not going to buy them lmao I just like them on him.

Made me feel like that's the first compliment he's had in years because he can't stop talking about it. Also I mainly liked the glasses because I think he's cute but he really thinks it's just the glasses haha jokes on him that cute bastard."

"I was in the store with my wife and one of our 'adopted nephews' yesterday (we’re close friends with his parents and we’ve known him and his brother since they were newborns and 2yo, respectively). A woman came up to me at checkout while my wife was running out to the car and said 'I’m not sure what your family relationship is here, but I just have to tell you how nice and refreshing it is to hear all the laughter and joy from the 3 of you. You both seem like such a good influence on him and it warms my heart.' It’s such a small thing but as a dude, I can’t remember the last time someone gave me a compliment in public and it made my freaking day."

"10/10 letter. The and not yelling part gave me a good chuckle lol."

"We need so much more of men getting such heartfelt and sincere compliments. Thanks for sharing. ❤️"

"I’ve never considered leaving a note, but when I see a harmonious family with good parenting, it’s healing for me. My childhood was awful."

"Such an awesome compliment! Even though I don't have children myself, I like to remind my friends too that they're doing great & it brings them happy tears."

"This made me cry. I love that you are getting your 'flowers.' My dad sucked, I’m so glad you are one of the good ones."

"This made me cry too. It’s so hard to be a human. Let alone a parent. Getting a good job sticker every now and then really means a lot these days."

"I'm a big bearded guy and I would cry if I got this note. More people like this, please."

The best part of this story is that no one knows who the dad who wrote the note is, not even the dad who shared it. It wasn't written for clout or notoriety, it wasn't to get attention or make himself look good. No name or signature, just an anonymous act of kindness to uplift a stranger whether he needed it or not.

We all need to hear or read kind things said about us, and sometimes it means even more coming from an anonymous stranger who has nothing to gain by sharing. A good reminder to share it when you feel it—you never know how many people you may move and inspire.

This article originally appeared last year.

Man praised for not switching seats with dad traveling with daughter

Airlines charge for everything but breathing nowadays so people tend to be protective of their seat assignments. They picked them with their own hands with their needs and preferences in mind before paying the extra money to confirm the seating. Choosing your own seat can range from $5-$80 extra per ticket depending on where in the cabin you choose to sit, barring first class options.

It's for this reason that people aren't keen on trading their seats with someone who chose to let the airline auto-assign a seat for them. This doesn't stop people from asking unsuspecting fellow travelers to swap seats with them, likely relying on the social pressure of the situation to coax a yes. But one man refused to be swayed, even when the other passenger points out that he would like to sit next to his minor daughter which may have been enough to encourage others to oblige the request.

The passenger who was being asked to move had already paid additional money to sit in an aisle seat he explains, "I always book an aisle seat. My company allows me to add the small surcharge for an aisle seat (it was $18). I sat early and this guy comes with his daughter. His daughter had the middle seat next to me. He had another middle seat elsewhere. He asked to switch with me. I said I would if he had an aisle seat. He said he has a middle seat."

Season 9 Ugh GIF by Curb Your EnthusiasmGiphy

The middle seat is typically the least desirable seat due to being stuck between two other passengers, no designated armrest and nothing to comfortably lean your head on should you fall asleep. Waking up only to realize you've been asleep on a stranger's shoulder can make for an awkward interaction, so there's no surprise the man didn't want to trade seats with the dad on those details alone. But the man didn't choose the aisle seat because he was afraid of drooling on the shoulder of a fellow passenger.

"I said sorry, I am a big guy (6 feet, 260+ pounds), I am [un]comfortable in middle seat. It's a 4.5 hour flight," the befuddled passenger shares before adding. "I explained I am physically uncomfortable in the middle. The aisle gives me more room."

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One might think the interaction would end there but it didn't. According to the six-foot-tall man, the dad then involved a flight attendant to encourage him to give up his seat so the dad could sit next to his child. But the man continued to refuse the dad's request which resulted in the dad having to sit in his original seat and the teenage girl being seated next to the original man. He had no desire to be uncomfortable for a fairly long flight and while he was expecting for people to disagree with his actions, they were overwhelmingly on his side.

"You paid extra for that aisle seat, and it’s your comfort on a long flight. The guy should've booked better seats if he wanted to sit next to his daughter. Plus, it’s not your job to accommodate his poor planning," one person writes.

No Way Beer GIF by BuschGiphy

"If you want to sit together, pay for the seats. Good for you, people like that need to learn they cant have their cake and eat it too," someone else says.

"I hate it when a FA asks you to move one you've already said no. They should stand by their company who sold you the seat and reiterate that to the person asking," another chimes in.

pushing air travel GIFGiphy

"I’ve been in the situation traveling, when my kids were small and flights were canceled, etc. that we were seated separately. When you REALLY do NEED compassion, people are generally OK with it and they are understanding and will likely move if able. I’ve also raised my kids to be independent and as teenagers they would have been just fine. In a case where it really is a need (like a special needs teen), the airline owes its passengers some sort of a solution like upgrading an inconvenienced traveller," someone else adds.

The man does admit that maybe the dad assumed the solo traveler would be inappropriate with his daughter saying, "Maybe he thought I was some creeper? I AM NOT. I popped a prescription muscle relaxer, put on relaxing music on my earphones and zoned out." In the end the man did not give up his seat and the teen girl and her father were both fine sitting in the seats assigned to them.

Life is bigger than the U.S.!

Dreaming about moving to another country and starting over is no longer just a dream for some people. A growing number of millennial expats are finding their American dream in another country. And they're taking to social media to invite us to follow their journeys. Living comfortably in America is merely a dream for most people, so seeing expats doing it in other countries is inspiring more people than ever to seek a better life than they can achieve in the United States elsewhere.

Influencer and educator Olumide Gbenro has made a life in Bali that would be unattainable to most Americans. When Gbenro was around 13, his family immigrated to Columbus, Ohio after living in London. Gberno spent the first six years of his life in his home country of Nigeria, so relocating was not new to him. Before deciding to leave it all behind as an adult, Olumide was on a different path. A path his parents had set before him, but one he didn't want to follow.

In 2016, Gberno graduated with two master’s degrees from San Diego State University. One master’s was in epidemiology and the other in behavioral sciences. The new graduate was primed to go on for his PhD just as his parents wanted, but enrolling in a PhD program meant traveling the world would be off the table and the soon to be expat wasn’t ready to give up on it. The choice then became to become a doctor or travel, and since traveling was in his blood it was a no-brainer.

Gberno told CNBC Make It, “All of my life, I just followed the rules, whether it was from my parents, religion or society,” he says. “But deep down I knew that if I took the position in the PhD program, I could never go back, I could never travel abroad...I’d be stuck to a lab, so I decided to say ‘no.’” Shortly after coming to the conclusion that a PhD wasn’t for him, he packed up his belongings and headed out of the country.

Olumide took some time in a few other locations before settling in Bali; the new expat first stopped in Berlin on a three month tourist visa, staying in hostels and couch surfing at friends' houses. Gberno didn’t have much savings when he left America, so not working wasn’t an option, and eventually he struck success with his online business in social media marketing. He was able to grow his Instagram following fairly quickly by posting photos of his adventures and dance videos. With a larger following, he started reaching out to other creators and businesses offering to help improve their social media strategy for the small fee of $250. Eventually, it enabled him to turn it into a lucrative business that helps sustain his lifestyle.

After Olumide’s three months in Berlin were up, he traveled to Mexico and then back to San Diego where he launched his business, Olumide Gbenro PR & Brand Monetization, in 2018. While scrolling through Instagram he saw a post from a friend visiting Bali at the time. The scenery appealed to him, so he decided to go. After many flights back and forth to Singapore and Malaysia to extend his visa 30 days at a time, he was granted an investors visa.

Gberno earns about $140,000 a year and his biggest expense is his rent and utilities which total $1,010 a month. He spends about $600 a month on take out and eating at restaurants and continues to travel at least once a month. Gberno told CNBC “I’m probably spending about the same amount of money I would each month if I was living in San Diego, but my quality of living is much higher,” he says. “I’m living a life of luxury.”

These expats make living abroad look like a feasible goal and for some it is. Be warned that following these adventurous souls on social media may make you want to pack a few bags and never look back.


This article originally appeared three years ago.