So, I have this friend Jessica that loves to travel. And not just that – but she is always going places. But how on earth can someone afford to take as many trips as she does? Travel hacking.
In this interview, I sat down and talked to Jessica from Our Long Life to talk all about how she’s able to take luxurious vacations and trips all over the world and not spend a fortune doing it. (All photos provided by Jessica from her travels)
Where did your love of travel come from?
Part of me thinks certain people are really drawn to traveling. I am definitely drawn to spending more on experiences rather than things. When I was little, my Mom would take me to Disney World every year, and even as a kid I enjoyed going around the world at Epcot to see all the different countries. Then, once I got to college I had a lot of friends that had traveled internationally, and I felt pressure to have my own international experiences and I traveled a lot on my summer breaks from college.
How would you describe what you do?
In the last 15 years, I have traveled to over 18 different countries, and now that I have a family my 4 year old has taken over 50 flights. We really love traveling, but in the past two years I have really learned a ton about using rewards points and miles, which has been a total game changer for me. Essentially, you sign-up for a travel rewards credit card, and spend on your typical spending to earn a lot of rewards from the sign-up bonus, then you transfer those to a travel partner like Southwest Airlines or Hyatt Hotels and have free flights and hotels for trips. Learning a lot about this hobby has saved me so much money and allowed me to stay at hotels we could never afford otherwise.
What was your first trip using points/some sort of deal?
I took a couple small trips, but I love to talk about my first big points and miles trip to Maui, Hawaii in April 2021. We booked every flight and hotel on points and miles. We ended up saving over $6,500 on that trip paying for every flight and hotel with points and miles for our family of 3. Hawaii was on my bucket list, but I had heard from everyone how expensive it was, so I knew I had to wait for a special occasion where we had like $5,000 saved to spend on a vacation which is more than we’ve ever spent on a vacation!
What’s been your favorite trip so far that you’ve taken?
After our trip to Hawaii in April 2021 on points, we took another trip to Hawaii on points in December 2021, 8 months later, where we saved almost $10,000 again paying for all flights and hotels with credit card points. In just the two years I’ve been doing this, we’ve traveled to Miami, Disney World, San Antonio, Austin, San Diego, Washington DC all on points. Something really cool is that I used what I learned to earn extra perks too, like hotel status with Hyatt allowing us to also have free breakfast, free valet parking, free room upgrades, gifts in the room, club access, etc. We also visited exclusive airport lounges on our trips that gave us free food (and alcohol for those drinking) and nice spaces to hang out. Honestly, it’s a whole new world I never knew about.
What’s the most amount of money that you’ve saved on a vacation through travel deals?
On our last trip to Hawaii, we saved almost $10,000 we stayed in Hawaii for 8 nights and paid for all flights and hotels on rewards points. Each hotel was over $3,500 for 4 nights at each place. We had free valet parking, breakfast, no taxes or resort fees, club level access for free snacks and alcohol. The list goes on and on. That left our biggest expenses to be food, tipping, rental car, and some family excursions.
What’s your favorite travel tip to tell people?
I was raised to be scared of credit cards, because they are made to profit off of people who can’t pay a bill off on time and in full. If you are at a place in your life where you can pay off these high interest cards on time and in full every month, then you can be the one benefiting off of these banks. If you can pay off your monthly credit card balances, you can save so much money on travel using credit card points. One of the biggest tips is to make sure to transfer the points to the travel partners. The points go a lot further that way and are easier to cancel and get returned to you. Another tip is if you are married, do not add your spouse as an authorized user on the card. You can add the card to their apple pay or google pay to put all expenses on that card, but after you achieve the bonus, you can refer your spouse to apply for the card, and you earn points for the referral and your spouse earns a sign-up bonus too.
How can someone get started in traveling like this?
One of the best cards to start with is the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. If you are approved for the card, you have to spend $4,000 in 3 months to receive the sign up bonus. I like to time signing-up for cards when I know we have bigger expenses coming up, like paying car insurance, home insurance, Christmas presents, etc. We don’t use the card as an excuse to buy something we weren’t planning to buy already. The bonus is currently 60,000 points but has been as high as 100,000 in the past. On our trip to Hawaii, we stayed 8 nights for 200,000 points at hotels that were well over $600 per night.
How long does it take to accumulate enough points/rewards to travel this way?
Most cards have a three month spend bonus, so it usually takes 3-4 months to earn a sign-up bonus. This would give you enough points to save a significant amount. It depend on the trip you want to take and how much your family spends too. Earning enough for a week long trip to Hawaii could take a little longer. Business cards have allowed me to earn even more points as well.
Does point accumulation negatively impact your credit?
Point accumulation has not affected my credit score. It can actually help your score because sometimes it increases how much credit you have. When you first apply for a card, you can see a slight dip in your score, but it quickly returns or goes higher. Paying off your card on time and in full is also important for helping your credit score. When you have several cards, it is also good to put your payments on auto-pay. My score is currently 775 and my husband’s is 800, but while I do monitor it, I don’t worry about it. We don’t have any plans to take out any major loans and we try to pay things off when we can. If I was planning to buy a house, I might study it a little more for the 6 months before. But our scores are still considered “excellent”.
What’s one thing to avoid when starting this process?
Make sure to sign-up for the hotel and flight rewards programs when you are traveling even if you are not using points, such as Southwest, United, Jet Blue, Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott, IHG, etc. Make sure to transfer points to travel partners and not use the points for cash back or gift cards if you would like to travel. You can save so much more using these points towards travel. One of the big recommendations is to set up auto-pay on your card so you never miss a payment. Another great tip is if you are married, don’t put your spouse on your card as an authorized user. You can refer them to sign up for their own card so you receive referral points and your spouse receives their own bonus. You can always add the card to your spouse’s Google or apple pay.
What’s your dream location that you’d like to travel to?
I would love to go to Greece, New Zealand, the Virgin Islands.
Where can people find more information about you?
https://www.ourlonglife.com/blog/
https://www.instagram.com/ourlonglifeblog/
Special Offers
- If this information is helpful and you want to sign up for a card, check out this blog post where Jessica mentions different cards she has and why she likes each one.
- If you’re interested in Southwest Airlines’ card offer that includes a companion pass for one year, visit this blog post for more information.
If you’d like to see more travel tips like this, SUBSCRIBE to my Youtube channel!
