Affiliate Disclosure: Melissa's Travel Addiction has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Melissa's Travel Addiction and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers.

What is Award Travel?

Award travel is the art of using points and miles earned from credit cards for nearly free travel. The idea is that you open up a credit card for a welcome bonus, meet the required spending to get the bonus, and then earn the bonus. You can earn tons of points by getting your travel partner involved, who is called player two. You can earn referral points by referring back and forth between you. Then repeat this process with different cards. To earn even more miles, you can open up business cards, if you have a business or even a small side business. Then you use those points to redeem for flights and hotels. Most of the time, you will want to transfer these points to the transfer partners for maximum value, and NOT use the bank’s travel portal.

This will apply to you if you are:

*Have your finances in order and can commit to paying your statement balance each month

*On a strict budget and cannot afford to pay for a vacation

*Not on a budget but do not want to spend money on vacations

*Would like to travel more frequently

*Have a large family and you would like to offset some of that cost

*Would like to experience hotels/resorts that you could not normally afford

*Would like to experience flying 1st class without the price tag

*Would like to experience free lounge access at airports and free checked bags

*Would like to be upgraded and get freebies at hotels

What this requires:

*Good-Excellent Credit 700-750+

*Ability to spend 2,000-3,000 on a credit card in 3 months, (although there are some cards with less spend)

*Planning and time

Continue reading below for a step-by-step guide on how to book an almost free vacation with points and miles.

Where do I Start?

There are two parts to award travel… earning points & redeeming points.

When you are first starting, you should start with Chase branded cards such as the Chase Sapphire and Chase Ink cards. Rather than having to spend $60,000 to earn 60,000 points, you can earn points fast through card sign-up bonuses.

For instance, the Chase Sapphire Preferred offers 60,000 points after spending $4,000 in 3 months. Then refer your partner to earn 15,000 referral points plus they can earn the 60,000 bonus points as well by opening the card and getting approved.

If you don’t have a business, start one! It doesn’t have to be a big business to get approved for a credit card. It can be as simple as selling your kid’s clothes on the Facebook marketplace. You can use your social security number and apply as a sole proprietor. Read this article to learn how to apply.

The Chase Ink Cash is a card you want to have in your wallet because you can earn 5x the points at Office Supply stores. It’s also a good idea to get this card first because the approvals tend to be higher if you haven’t had a lot of credit cards.

Next, you will want to get the Chase Ink Unlimited and Preferred. Spread applications out by at least 90 days. You will need the Chase Sapphire Preferred, Reserve, or Ink Preferred to be able to unlock the ability to transfer points.

From there, you can apply for Chase hotel-branded cards, like the Southwest card, Hyatt card, Marriott card, or IHG card.

Keep track of your 5/24 status and apply for business cards as much as you can to avoid going over 5/24.

Please remember to pay your statement balance each month. If you are paying interest or getting into debt, you are not saving money.

For example, currently, these are some of the credit card offers (offers subject to change):

1) Chase Sapphire Card -60,000 bonus points, after you spend $4,000 in the first 3 months from account opening, the annual fee is $95. .

2) IHG Card- 140,000 bonus points after you spend $3,000 in the first 3 months from account opening. The annual fee is $99.

3) Southwest card- 50,000 bonus points, after you spend $1,000 in the first 3 months from account opening. The annual fee is $69.

4) Capital One Card- 75,000 bonus points when you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. This one is good for general travel spending such as cruises or Disneyworld.

5) Capital One Venture X-75,000 bonus points when you spend $4,000 in the first 3 months and pay a $395 annual fee. This card comes with an annual $300 travel credit.

Sample Vacation using these miles/points

For example, you could use the Southwest points to fly your family round-trip. You can use all of those chase points you earned by transferring those points to Hyatt and booking a stay with points. You could also use the IHG points for four nights at a 40,000 points hotel or more nights at a lower-end hotel. IHG hotels booked with points get the 4th night free, so you only need enough points for three nights. IHG has both value hotels and luxury hotels within its brand.

For instance last summer, our family stayed at the Holiday Inn Express & Suites Panama City Beach Hotel for 120,000 points. It sleeps six, has cute bunk beds, a free buffet breakfast, a lazy river, and best of all, it is directly on the beach! It was perfect for a family trip! To be this close to Seaside, Florida for (almost) FREE (we just paid the resort fee) is an amazing deal. I also wrote about how we stayed at a higher-end hotel with the IHG points and our annual free nights here.

How to Maximize Your Points

After receiving your new card, maximize your points by referring your spouse. Then you will earn referral points, plus you will be doubling your points when combining with your spouse. Some miles and points programs allow you to combine points and some do not. Either way, you will still have a lot of points between the two of you. If you have a business, then you can get a 3rd card or 4th card! See how this works!

Will this hurt my credit?

This will help your credit score if you pay your balance every month. Although I have over 20 credit cards, my credit score is excellent and this works because the amount of credit you have is expanding, but you are not using the credit (after you make the minimum spending requirements and go back to your usual credit card). Make sure that you have some time in between applying for the credit cards. If the offer is available for a couple of months, this may be possible, if not, you may be able to wait a couple of weeks before applying for the second card for your spouse. To keep your credit high, I would recommend applying for a new card no earlier than every 90 days. However, if you are applying for business cards, you may be able to apply sooner. Pay your statement balance in full and on time each month.

See other credit card FAQ’s here

Canceling the card and Annual Fees

When a year rolls around, you will notice an annual fee is charged again or possibly for the first time if it was waived the first year. Should you keep the card and pay the fee? If you were not able to use your points, you may want to keep the card, although most programs allow you to keep your points without the card. You will need to weigh the cost and benefits of the annual fee. Does this card offer free checked baggage? Does it give you access to airport lounges? Do you get an annual free hotel night with your annual fee?

If you call the bank, you can let them know you would like to close the card. They may offer you a retention offer to keep the card open. Sometimes they can offer a credit on the annual fee. If you would like a points retention offer, let them know. If they cannot offer you anything, then perhaps it’s time to downgrade the card to a no-annual-fee card.

Annual Free Nights

Most cards are worth keeping but some are not. When you close credit cards, it can hurt your credit and drop your score a few points, but it will bounce back up. For example, I choose to keep my Hyatt credit card because I earn a free night for hotels in categories 1-4 each year by paying the annual fee of $95. This is much cheaper than most category four hotels. However, sometimes you want to close the account because you can get the welcome points again 24 months later!

When to use your miles and points

After meeting the required spending and receiving the points in your account, you may be very excited to book your free hotels or flights. However, you may need to wait for the best time to use these points. This mostly applies to flights. For flights, you may be looking for a flight, and discover that you would use up most of your points when booking just a couple of flights. Keep your eye on the points’ values and wait for sales. We were able to book five round-trip tickets from Phoenix to San Francisco for 5,000 points each! Normally that would cost between 10,000 and 20,000 points each. This is where the time comes in. Doing a quick search a couple of times a week will ensure that you are maximizing your points.

When reserving hotels, book early. The earlier you reserve your hotel, the more reward nights will be available since hotels do limit the number of reward nights. A great benefit of booking with points is that there is always free cancellation if you change your mind or you find flights for different dates. There are some great tools to help you find hotel reward night availability. My favorite is maxmypoint.com.

Getting the biggest value out of your points

Most of the time redeeming the miles/points through the bank travel portal is not going to give you the best value. For example, you could take the 60,000 points you earn from the Chase Sapphire card and convert them 1:1 for Hyatt points. You can book a category one Hyatt for 5,000 points per night or a higher-end Hyatt, such as the Grand Hyatt of Kauai for around 30,000 points per night. At 5,000 points a night, that would be 12 free nights!

Before booking travel with points, take some time to research all of the redemption options and transfer partners. Always look at the cash value of what you are booking with points to make sure you are maximizing the value.

This is a basic overview of booking vacations with miles and points. I will share a lot more detail in future posts, but hopefully this is enough to get you started. Are you currently booking vacations this way? Let me know in the comments!

Affiliate Disclosure: Melissa's Travel Addiction has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Melissa's Travel Addiction and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers.