 Hi friends! Welcome to our little corner of the internet! We are so excited to get to know you! First things first, let's introduce ourselves. We are Teejay and Britney! We are just two best friends, who happen to be married, and we love spending our days together sharing about Jesus, raising our family, traveling, and having tons of fun! We met in college in 2007 (yep, we're getting old!) and we had quite the journey in our pre-marriage lives. Thankfully, Jesus stepped in and radically changed both of us, (in completely different ways, fun story for another day!) we got married in 2012 and made the commitment to do our best to know Him and make Him known.
Our favorite things in life are Jesus, travel, marriage, family and fun, and we can't wait to share more about how we live those things out day to day! Thanks for joining us! Teejay and Britney
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 Every time we share a trip that we are taking with points, we get TONS of questions on how we do it. It might seem overwhelming at first, but you can do it too, by just putting one foot in front of the other and GETTING STARTED! It's not as hard as it seems! To put it simply:
Let's walk through the basics. Applying For A Credit Card There are SO many card options out there! Our personal favorite for beginners is the Chase Sapphire Preferred (<That's our referral link!). We like this card for beginners because it has an attainable minimum spend, and there are many different options on how you can redeem your points. Chase has a travel portal that you can book travel through, or they also have many transfer partners, like hotels and airlines, that you can transfer your points to in order to get a greater value for your points. Our favorite Chase transfer partner is Hyatt! Check out our blog post on how to get 12 nights at Hyatt for free by using your Chase Sapphire Preferred card! Welcome Bonus Most credit cards offer a welcome bonus. This simply means, you apply for a card, spend X amount of dollars in X amount of months, and VOILA, you earn X amount of points! Every credit card has different levels of welcome bonuses, and even with one particular card, they may raise or lower the welcome bonus from time to time. Meeting the Minimum Spend Let's talk about meeting the minimum spend, because this is where a lot of people check out. The general response is, "Welp, there's the catch." or "There's no way I could spend that much." or "I don't want to go in to debt to get credit card points." Let's break down these thought processes. Trust when we say, we NEVER want you to go in to debt to get credit card points! That would defeat the entire purpose of "free" travel if you are going in to debt and paying crazy interest rates to be there! We only recommend getting in to travel hacking if you can be disciplined to NEVER charge anything you can't pay for immediately, and ALWAYS pay off your bill at least monthly to avoid interest charges. In order to meet a minimum spend, for example, "spend $4,000 in the first 3 months to receive 60,000 points" we simply put all of our regular, every day expenses on that card. We charge things like gas, utility bills, groceries, eating out, car maintenance/repairs, etc... You can also use a time when you know you have a larger expense coming up, like a home repair or renovation, or even Christmas shopping. Travel Hacking With a Spouse or Friend Let's be honest. The best way to rack up tons of points to schedule multiple travel experiences is by applying for multiple cards and getting multiple welcome bonuses. Here's a little breakdown of our strategy for doing just that:
***Let's pause here and evaluate. If we are speaking of the CSP card in this example, you now have 135,000 points combined! That's enough for 27 nights at a Category 1 Hyatt hotel, or even 7 nights at the All-Inclusive Hyatt Ziva in Los Cabos!*** Now that you have dipped your toe in the water, so to speak, you simply repeat this process with other reward cards! This is where you really have to decide what your travel goals are and match which cards might meet those needs. It could be the World of Hyatt card, a Southwest Rapids Rewards card, a Marriott Bonvoy card, or many others. Annual Fees One thing to consider, is that often these credit cards will have annual fees. The CSP card for example has an annual fee of $95. For us, that annual fee is more than justified by the rewards we get from the card, but that is something that you will need to factor in to your decision. If you have a business, either an LLC or a sole proprietorship (this isn't as hard as you might think!), Chase has a couple of great reward options with no annual fee! Wrap Up Travel hacking is something that we only started a few years ago, and we have gone from just trying it out to see how it went, to being all in and traveling for nearly free. We love sharing our strategy with others because we know how much of a blessing it has been to our marriage to be able to travel and spend time together without having to worry about the financial aspect. Are you ready to begin your travel hacking journey? Our referral links are linked throughout this blog! We'd love it if you use them when you're ready to jump!  Hyatt is hands down one of our favorite transfer partners! The value that you get for your points is unmatched when it comes to our personal travel goals!
Keep reading to find out how we get 12 nights at Hyatt for FREE! Alot of the time, when you sign up for a credit card, they will come with a welcome offer. Generally something like, "Earn 60,000 points when you spend $4,000 in 3 months." Once you have met that minimum spend requirement, you can often redeem those points in many different ways. Hyatt is a transfer partner for one of our favorite cards, that usually has a 60,000 point welcome bonus. Right now, until 6/1/22 at 6pm EST, that welcome bonus is 80,000 points! The great thing about Hyatt is that their base level rooms at many of their properties are only 5,000 points!!! That's 12 nights of free hotel using your 60,000 point welcome bonus! As always, we do not recommend using a credit card for any purchases that you cannot pay off immediately. If you are charging things that you can't pay off, then you are likely paying high interest rates, and defeating the purpose of traveling with points! BUT, if you charge your normal, everyday expenses, and pay your card off regularly, this is a great option for you! You could also plan your minimum spend around a large purchase that you have already saved up for! If you're ready to travel for nearly free, we'd love you to use our referral link for our favorite card! https://www.referyourchasecard.com/6p/XVI82J05WH |