How We Use Credit Card Points To Travel

We try to live a debt free life as much as possible. We have paid off our student loans and we don’t carry a credit card balance month to month. But if you love to travel and you’re not taking advantage of the free money out there in the form of points… you’re doing it wrong.

A few years ago, on the recommendation of a few other travel-loving creatives and 20-somethings (and The Points Guy), I ditched my other credit cards and switched to exclusively using my Chase Sapphire Reserve card.

Now, I put EVERYTHING on this one card and pay it off right away. It’s the best card for beginners who are looking to earn and use points on travel because redeeming your rewards is so, so easy. I typically use the Chase online portal for booking but you can also transfer points to travel partners like Southwest or Marriott. We get 1 point for every dollar spent but 2x the points on anything travel related and their definition of travel is super generous (street parking, Uber, Lyft, rental cars, tolls, airport parking, flights, food, Amtrak and so much more).

We have also benefitted from having the primary rental car insurance that is included and then the fact that there are no foreign transactions fees. The yearly card fee is reimbursed if you spend the same amount on travel in the year (and remember the definition of travel is really loose).

We haven’t had to use the other benefits yet but there is trip delay insurance, trip cancellation insurance and baggage delay insurance.

We don’t have a credit card strategy for traveling but we do use our Chase Sapphire Preferred for every purchase which means I’m earning points constantly. So far, we’ve used points to pay for 2 different multi-day car rentals and almost all of the flights we have taken in the last 2 years. This isn’t a scam… it’s literally free money. These massive companies have the ability to reward you for doing your spending through them so do your best to take advantage of it.

If you use my unique link below to sign up, you can 60,000 ($1,200) bonus points!

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