Points & Miles 101: How Our Family of 5 Uses Credit Card Points to Travel More
How the heck do we afford to travel like we do?
If you have been following along with our family’s travel adventures for very long, you have probably wondered to yourself at some point, “how the heck do they afford to travel so much?”
Totally legit question. We are a regular family of 5, with plenty of bills and a mortgage (although, thank you global pandemic for the low interest rates we scored 6 years ago).
Sure, we road trip versus fly, and we pack our own food on most of our trips to help cut costs. But that still doesn’t add up to enough savings for us to visit Hawaii twice in less than a year.
A few years ago, we were on a tight travel budget that allowed us to take a single trip a year, and maybe an extra weekend away if we were lucky.
So what changed that allows us the financial freedom to travel like we do?
No, we didn’t win the lottery. But we did learn how to use our regular, everyday spend to work for us in ways that would allow us to travel so much more.
In 2023, we took our family of 5 on an amazing trip to Disney. The memories we made were priceless, however, the trip itself was not.
Disney is so expensive. When we returned home, I was on a travel high and itching to book our next trip. Unfortunately, my dearest husband had to break the news to me that we had just blown through our entire travel budget for the whole year, plus the following year.
Are you serious? No trips for 2 years?! That was crazy. Our kids were at the perfect age, and my nomadic heart could not take the thought of waiting so long to travel again.
My husband told me if I could find a way to greatly reduce the cost of another trip, we could go.
So, I started researching “how to travel for free”, thinking in my delusional head that there HAD to be someone out there that could share a secret about traveling cheaply that I didn’t know about.
And I was right. Let me introduce you to the world of travel hacking.
What is Travel Hacking?
In layman’s terms, it’s using your regular, every day spending that you are already doing, but instead of using debit cards to pay for your purchases, you use credit cards to earn points that you can redeem for free travel.
I know, sounds like a scam, right? Nothing in the world is free. And I will be the first to tell you that this hack does NOT make travel free.
However, it does greatly reduce the cost.
In 2025, my family stayed in a hotel over 40 nights, and we didn’t pay cash for a single one of them. My husband and I took a dream trip to Hawaii last spring for our 10-year anniversary, with a cash value of nearly $9,000 for airfare and hotels, and paid for it completely with the points we earned by putting every single purchase on our strategically opened credit cards.
The following year, we flew our family of 5 to Maui and stayed 7 nights in a beach front resort – again, paying $0 cash, and instead using our credit card points and miles to cover this dream trip.
Of course, these trips are not free. We still pay for things like food, activities, and our rental car.
But without the cost of our airfare and hotel, the overall price of the trip is so much lower.
Which means our travel budget stretches farther, and we can take more trips!
So, how? How can you do this, too?
I want to start by stating that I am not an expert in this hobby, by any means. There are some really amazing bloggers and creators out there dedicated to teaching you all there is to know about traveling with points & miles.
They can walk you through how to strategically maximize your spend, and which card to open, to be able to take some insane trips (think Bora Bora overwater bungalows for $0).
But for our family, luxury travel isn’t really our goal. We enjoy road trips and exploring the U.S., National Parks and really experiencing a place and its culture.
I’m not here to teach you advanced award travel or first-class flights to the Maldives. I’m here to show you how regular families can use everyday spending to make family vacations much more affordable, and to encourage you to give this a try.
Once you start, you won’t be able to stop!
Here’s Our Basic Strategy
First, there are a few things you need to know about this hobby.
Never spend extra just to get points.
If we weren’t already planning on buying it, we don’t buy it. We treat out credit cards exactly like debit cards, and every penny we spend on them we know is coming straight out of our bank account.
Pay off every card in full every month
The most common question I get about this hobby: won’t it ruin my credit?
NO! But only if you are responsible with credit cards.
This means paying off your balance in full every single month. If you are paying interest on even a single credit card because you maintain a balance, then it is pointless to play the points & miles game.
My husband and I have over 15 credit cards between the two of us, and maintain a 830+ credit score. How? We pay our balance in full every single month, and always wait at least 90 days between new card applications.
Earn Welcome Bonuses
This right here is the secret to using credit points and miles to travel multiple times a year.
Most credit cards give you a 1x or 2x multiplier on your every day spend. Meaning, you buy $100 worth of groceries from Target, you earn 100 points on your card.
Considering the cheapest flight or hotel you could book on points is roughly 5,000 points, how in the world do you ever earn enough points?!
The secret: Sign up bonuses.
The best way to earn a large chunk of points is by signing up for a new credit card, and earning a Sign Up Bonus (often referred to as SUB in the points & miles world).
This is a large amount of points that will be awarded to you after you hit the cards required minimum spend.
An example would be: The Chase Sapphire Preferred currently has an elevated sign up offer of 100,000 points after you spend $5,000 in 90 days.
These points can in turn be transferred to different hotels and airlines to redeem for free stays and flights.
Now don’t freak out about wracking up $5,000 worth of credit card debt! Remember, you are going to use this card in place of your debit card to buy things like gas, groceries, school fees, ect., and then pay it off in full at the end of every month.
Learn One Card at a Time
Travel hacking 101 can feel so overwhelming when you start out.
My best advice, and what I did when I started in this hobby: Open a single card, and learn how to manage it and utilize your points for maximum value before moving on to another card.
This hobby can be as much or as little as you want it to be.
Last year, my husband and I each opened 4 credit cards, it gave us enough points to book 5 week long trips – one of them to Maui for our family of 5 !
The year before? We opened less, and spent lots of time learning about the how and where we could use those points, easy ways to earn more, and how to manage multiple credit cards.
Start slow, and move on if/when you feel ready.
Earn Double the Points with this 1 Rule
When you apply for these cards, do not put your spouse or significant other as an authorized user or a co-owner of the card!
Instead, have them open their own card by sending them a referral link from your card. This way, you both can earn the sign up bonus.
That means double the points, which comes in handy when you are traveling with a family.
So, what is your first step?
This card, right here.
This is the very first card you want to open.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred is one of the most valuable and flexible travel credit card, and should be your #1 card if you want to earn points to cash in for free hotels or flights.
Once you get the card, put your debit card away and start using it for your every day spend.
Again, remember to only use it to buy things you would normally be buying – never spend outside of your means – and then pay it off in full every single month.
Once you hit the minimum spend, Chase will deposit your chunk of points into your account, and you will be ready to start planning your first free trip.
We used these points to book an this amazing resort in Hawaii for our anniversary trip that cost over $1,000 per night, but instead we paid 30k points, which we were able to transfer over from our Chase account.
We also used these points to book 4 nights in this hotel in downtown Chicago, which would have cost us over $2,000. Instead we paid just 60k points for our stay.
When you don’t have to pay for 7 nights in a hotel, a week-long trip becomes instantly more affordable, and will greatly reduce your family’s cost to travel!
If you are on the fence, I encourage you to give it a try. Start by applying for this single card, and once you earn your bonus points and book those free hotel nights, I promise you that you will be hooked.
This truly has been life changing, and has allowed our family to take some really amazing trips that we would have had to spend years saving up for otherwise.
If you have questions or want to pick my brain about our points & miles strategy, send me a message on Instagram!
