Travel hacking is a term that is very popular in travel circles these days. You’ll see articles, videos and even eBooks on the subject – all selling the dream of free travel or nearly free travel. But it doesn’t have to be a dream; free travel is possible. And you don’t need to spend money on subscription websites, newsletters or books to get in on the action. We’ll show you how.
Laura and Lance of Travel Addicts in Pompeii
Fundamentally, travel hacking involves two related goals:
- Traveling and experiencing the world for the least amount of money possible. The goal is to reduce your expenses to practically zero.
- Traveling above your means by employing upgrades and perks that you would not otherwise pay for. The goal is to make the experience of travel more relaxing and enjoyable.
In essence, travel hacking is about value – getting the absolute best travel experience possible for the least amount of money.
Every month, we’ll explain the tips and tricks of travel hacking to get you where you want to go in style. Our travel hacking tips will show you how reduce your travel expenses to practically zero for everything from airfare to hotels to museums and attractions. We’ll be sharing our tips for navigating frequent flyer and loyalty programs. Specific topics will include:
- Earning and redeeming frequent flyer miles
- Maximizing the benefit of hotel loyalty programs
- Decoding how to leverage reward credit cards for maximum benefit
- Learning the single greatest travel hacking benefit available
And once you’ve earned those perks, we’ll show you how to use them to the greatest benefit. Many loyalty programs have so many blackouts and restrictions that using your miles and points can be difficult. We’ll share strategies for getting around blackouts and restrictions.
As an introduction, we are Laura & Lance Longwell. Since 2008, we’ve been writing about our travel experiences at Travel Addicts. But our travel origins go back much further. Lance began traveling as a child with his parents. By the time he was 15, he’d visited all 50 states and spent a summer exploring Asia.
After graduating college, we moved to New York City. Our corporate jobs had us doing a significant amount of travel. Through experience, we learned about frequent flyer and loyalty programs. Over the years, we’ve leveraged that experience into a significant amount of free travel. We’ve had free airfare to Italy and France. We’ve benefited from free hotel stays in luxury accommodations from Istanbul to Muscat, Oman. We’ve had free museum admissions across the United States.
Lance Celebrating Free Travel at Mont St. Michele
We’ve learned travel hacking by trial and error. We look forward to sharing our experiences with you and helping you unlock the secrets of travel hacking, too.
What are you curious to learn about travel hacking?
Always happy to see more information out there on exploiting frequent flier and guest programs. Out of curiosity, Michael, is this something you take advantage of?
As a permanent traveler this will most certainly come in handy. I’ve taught scuba diving, worked at resorts, and taught english on my travels, and I think travel hacking might just mean less work and more travel for me. Looking forward to your tips and tricks!
Thanks. We’re excited to be contributing and sharing our experiences with the community!
Thank goodness, I read this post! I need to learn a lot about earning perks and redeeming travel benefits, because I am clueless about such stuff.
Thanks. Tune in every month for a new article!
Very excited about this! We use a travel rewards card to get some extra money back into our account but haven’t looked through other options. Hoping to learn more!
Travel hacking has allowed me to 41 nearly free flights in the last year and travel all over the world for very little money. Looking forward to learning more from you Lance and Laura!