Nomadic Matt is a travel hacking expert. He defines travel hacking as, “the art of collecting frequent flier miles, hotel, and credit card points and redeeming them for free travel. But it’s not about spending lots of money — the idea is to “hack the system” and use rewards programs against themselves to get lots of points and frequent flier miles without spending a lot of money or travelling a lot. You leverage these systems to your benefit.” This article goes through tonnes of really cool and insightful ways to earn travel points without breaking the bank.
You can read the lengthy article below but here are his basic tips: 1) Sign up for credit cards: When you sign up for a travel card you get some immediate signup bonuses. 2) Spend the minimum you need to spend to receive the full bonus points for the card. If you have multiple cards be sure to budget all of them properly so that you know exactly which card to spend and where to spend it. 3) Spend your money thoughtfully: If you have certain cards that give you more benefits when you spend on groceries, then stick to that card for all your grocery shopping.
I won’t go into all the steps here but if you’re looking to really step up your travel hacking game I think you’d be hard to find a better article than this.