Travel Rewards 101

 In the previous post, we reviewed how airline alliances can open up the possibility of booking flights with a program that is not the same as the airline operating the flight. The end of that post showed that we can potentially book a Delta flight from Boston to Edinburgh not only with Delta’s own Sky […]

As you delve deeper into the world of points and miles, you’ll notice that many of the airlines that the major travel rewards currencies partner with are not US airlines, or ones you may have ever flown at all.  It may not be clear that some or all of these airlines could be helpful in

  In this post, I’ll outline how to use your points and miles to book hotels at great values. Note that this will be from the perspective of using transferable points to book hotels, as it’s much more straightforward to do this if you’ve earned hotel points directly, say by opening a World of Hyatt,

In an earlier post in the Travel Rewards 101 series, we walked through a few different options for how to use Chase Ultimate Rewards points and why transferring them to World of Hyatt, one of Chase’s hotel partners, could provide serious value for your points. In this post, we’re going to expand that idea and

Now, this may veer into a hypothetical Travel Rewards 201 course, but I wanted to close the points acquisition side of Travel Rewards 101 by walking through a concept I’ve come up with that I think is important to keep in the back of your mind as you dive deeper into the world of credit

Now that you’re familiar with some of the incredible values that are available through transferable currencies, you may want to get a card (or two) of your own! Before diving into applying for any old card, let’s set a general scene for the key banks that offer travel rewards cards and some specific rules they

 Let’s dig into a specific set of travel rewards called Transferable Points and why they hold so much value compared to other points and miles you can earn through credit cards.  Transferable Points Overview Most of the key banks in the travel rewards space offer a currency of their own that don’t relate to a

Before diving further into the world of credit cards, points, and miles, it’s valuable to understand a bit more about credit cards and credit in the first place. I’ve spoken with many people that love the idea of diving into this game involving credit cards, points, and miles, but who are anxious or at the

I mentioned briefly in the first post in the Travel Rewards 101 Series that welcome bonuses are often the fastest way to earn large sums of points, and I wanted to illustrate an example briefly to underscore how lucrative a welcome bonus can be.  Scenario:  Let’s say my normal monthly expenses total to $1500. I

There are many great things about traveling: spending time with family and friends, seeing beautiful new places, learning about different cultures, or sometimes simply relaxing and taking time away from the routine. One thing that everyone agrees is NOT great about travel is the bill you’re left with afterwards. Flights, rental cars, hotels, meals, and