How to Travel for FREE With Points and Miles

If you told me that I would travel over 8,000 miles from Denver to Australia and New Zealand FOR FREE, I would’ve questioned whether or not you were delusional! A flight that normally costs over $2,000, for mere pennies? 

There is no way!

Well, that’s what I thought when I was planning a trip to Australia and New Zealand in early March of 2024. As I was looking through the list of flights from Colorado to Australia, I realized that my dream of traveling to P. Sherman 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney was looking more like a fantasy, rather than a reality.

As if Instagram was spying on my search history, I received an email from my preferred travel airline, United, stating that flights to Australia and New Zealand were forty percent off, when booked with airline points. As a hoarder of my hard-earned Mileage Plus points, I knew I had to jump, like a kangaroo, on this amazing opportunity.

Here it was…MY opportunity to use my airline points on a flight that was indeed “too good to be true”. In an industry that continuously gets more expensive, I found a flight valued at over $2,000, and I only paid the taxes for it (~$100)…for BOTH myself and my boyfriend.

Free flights to destinations halfway across the world?

COUNT ME IN.

Booking with Points – How to Do So, Effectively!

Take Advantage of Sign-On Bonus Opportunities.

This tip comes with a VERY important caveat! Many travel credit cards such as the Capital One Venture One (which I love, by the way!) and the United Explorer Visa (also one of my favs!) have opportunities for new members to receive a large sum of bonus miles after opening the card.

In many cases, airline and hotel miles don’t expire, and can be redeemed on a plethora of travel experiences. This is considered a “sign-on bonus” – an incentive for new cardmembers to open the card and start spending money. Credit card lenders rely on members to use their credit card and only pay the minimum payment, rather than paying the full card balance. Therefore the member accrues interest, and the lender gets paid.

The caveat is that you need to spend money to earn miles! This is the case with most earning programs. The “bonus” is only awarded to members who spend a certain amount within a few months. 

My favorite saying for people who bend over backwards to save money, to their fault, is this: you’ll go broke spending to save money. Don’t live beyond your means.

Opening a new credit card can have its perks, such as free travel, but wise spending is always encouraged! So if opening a new credit card and spending the money necessary to receive the sign on bonus is within your means, go for it! Oftentimes, regular purchases can be used to accrue travel points. Know and stick to your budget. Once the points are posted to your account after the required spend period, you’re free to use those on anything you want!

In a lot of cases, if you choose the right destination, the bonus miles can reward you with a *FREE* round-trip international flight!

Realize That, In Order to Accrue Points, You Need to Spend: The most misleading word used on travel-gram is “FREE”. Nothing is ever free.

SIDE NOTE: There is only one time where I can confidently say that I traveled for free. During my undergrad, I spent countless hours writing scholarship and grant essays to receive funding to study abroad for two weeks in Norway. One of my school’s most expensive programs abroad, a two-week trip to Norway to study Scandinavian culture and history, was turning out to be an unattainable dream, unless I covered the cost with scholarships and grants.

The semester leading up to the program, after I had optimistically applied thinking, “I got this covered”, I tirelessly wrote applications and emailed scholarship donors and grant programs explaining my need for support. My efforts were met with lots of success, and I received the full tuition amount in scholarships and grants necessary to pay for my study abroad experience…a $10,000 program cost me ZERO dollars. I have to brag about it!

In order to accrue points, you have to spend money. Regardless of whether or not you are accruing points through regular spending or not, spending is spending. However, you can certainly strategize a method for faster point earnings.

For example, one of my travel cards earns 2x points on restaurants, hotels, and United flights (United Explorer card – not sponsored), while the other earns 5x points on hotels, when booked though the travel portal, and 1.25x points on all other purchases (Capital One VentureOne – not sponsored!).

It’s important to strategize which card to use when making purchases to optimize accruals. I use my United Explorer when I go out to eat, and my VentureOne on all other purchases. Develop a spending strategy to optimize point accruals based on the cards you have! Credit cards with point earning systems are pocket “assets”. I find it incredibly rewarding to save my hard-earned points to book a trip at a later date!

Don’t Use Points DIRECTLY Through Credit Card Travel Portals! It’s counterintuitive, but TRUST me on this!

A common misconception, and the most frequent mistake travelers make when booking with points is by booking directly through their credit card’s travel portal.

Capital One has an excellent user-friendly booking portal hosted by Hopper where travelers can book directly through the travel portal. Other travel credit cards like the United Explorer, Chase Sapphire, and hotel-specific credit cards also have similar features.

But what if I told you that your miles could go FURTHER than a simple 100 miles = 1 cent conversion factor, a typical conversion rate for miles to dollars? Hard-earned miles and airline points are valued much higher when points are transferred DIRECTLY to the airline associated with the credit card.

Points, for cards like the Capital One VentureOne, can be transferred directly to airlines such as Turkish Airlines, Air Canada, and even hotels like Wyndham, to secure deals on flights and hotel stays when using miles instead of money.

Fewer transferred points can take you even farther and save YOU more money than when you book directly with the credit card’s travel portal.

Note: check your credit card’s travel partners before deciding which card to open so you can tailor your point accruals based on the airlines you prefer! The moral of the story is TRANSFER THOSE POINTS to increase their value!

Oftentimes, airlines will discount the price of the flight when paid using points. That’s how I traveled to Australia and New Zealand for the price of taxes and fees (a ticket valued at $2000+ became the dollar equivalent to $700, round-trip, when purchased with points!).

Take Advantage of Shoulder and Off-season Discounts.

In my opinion, the best time to travel internationally is to visit a country during its shoulder season, or early off-season. By doing so, travelers can take advantage of lower prices, fewer crowds, and lower temperatures! Forget about European summer, it’s overrated…how about European fall? Or a tropical escape absent of scorching, skin-burning temperatures? Count me in!

Oftentimes, hotels and airlines incentivize low-season travel by offering special discounts. After living in Florence, Italy for five months, I vowed to never travel to a country during high-season again. I prefer the fall weather over the summer heat anyways! Shoulder and off-season is the best time to secure airline deals when booking with points. 

Spontaneity is in Your Favor!

Oftentimes airlines will reduce the cost of a flight when booking with points for last minute travel deals. This is a last minute effort to sell remaining seats. If you can be spontaneous with your travel dates and plans, discounted travel will not be hard to find. However, highly sought after travel destinations, like Greece and Italy during the summer, rarely see discounted travel with both points and miles.

Flexibility is an important skill to have, and can certainly be deemed as a luxury (raise your hand if you’re in corporate America and have to plan your vacation time months in advance! *raises hand* Woohoo!). Websites like PointsYeah, Going, and other platforms can help with the search! If you have the luxury of flexibility, you will certainly be rewarded with special deals and unique offers. 

As a veteran of booking with travel points (and a gold medalist in savvy traveling), I have a lot of knowledge to share about reward travel! I hope this mini guide helps plan your next *free* travel adventure! Email me if you have any questions! And be sure to join the newsletter to hear about the latest travel tips from the blog!