[Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Millionaire Mob, an early retirement blog focused on investing advice and travel hacking. Katie and I love to travel but we're not that great at travel hacking. Katie does a better job finding deals than I do, but if you're like us, there's probably something you can learn from this post about traveling more cheaply. We have no financial relationship with Millionaire Mob.]
Travel hacking is such a broad subject that it is hard to determine what it truly means. I’ve come to help break it down in the simplest form and help you use the right tools to travel around the world for little to no cost.
Why Should I Care About Travel Hacking?
Travel hacking has lucrative benefits and is best suited for higher income, strong credit consumers. Consumers with an outstanding financial status can obtain lucrative credit card and travel benefits.
Travel hacking is virtually a no-brainer due to the following benefits:
- Save money on required family/friends travel…. Imagine never having to pay for another out of state wedding trip.
- Work travel? Imagine having all lounge access, upgrades and so much more. Make becoming a road warrior a ‘road hero.’
- Vacation funds? Who needs to save money for vacations when all you have to pay for is food when you travel?
Travel hacking has obvious benefits. What are the downside considerations? Time and learning. That’s virtually about it.
With travel hacking, your credit score is only slightly impacted. I’ve been participating in travel hacking for over a year and my credit score is still 800+.
What is Included in Travel Hacking?
In my opinion travel hacking includes the following buckets:
- Churning credit cards;
- Manufactured spending;
- Booking award travel efficiently; and
- Travel hacking without a credit card.
I’d love to break down these buckets in greater detail to help you plan your first travel hacking experience.
1) Churning Credit Cards
What is churning credit cards? Credit card churning is the act of repeatedly opening credit cards solely for the welcome bonus. The welcome bonus is usually the crux of receiving a large lump sum of airline miles or rewards points. I used credit card churning to take a trip to France, Japan, California, Arizona and Chicago all in the span of 6 months… And completely free.
For example, I recently opened the Chase Ink Preferred Card for the 100,000 Ultimate Rewards points after hitting the minimum spend. This is worth nearly $1,250 of travel rewards. I think I could find a destination for that.
With that kind of welcome bonus, I want to accelerate my minimum spending requirement (i.e., spend $5,000 in the first three months) as soon as possible. How do I do that? Manufactured spending.
2) Manufactured Spending
Manufactured spending is a loophole for generating more points using ‘artificial spending’ to turn credit card spending into cash. This cash, in turn, is used to pay off your credit card leading to $0 in net spend. You do manufactured spending for two primary reasons:
- Meet the minimum spending requirements to meet the signup bonus without buying extra items.
- Generate significant rewards points without actually buying anything.
How do you do manufactured spending? There are plenty of ways to do it and it is ever-changing, so stay nimble. Our guide to manufactured spending can help dramatically. However, there are some commonly known ways to participate in manufactured spending:
- Purchase virtual gift cards and convert them into money orders
- Fund bank accounts with credit cards
Using your rewards card for all of your purchases and bills is another way to increase your spending on the card. With services like Plastiq, you can even pay your mortgage, rent and other major expenses with a credit card. The payment times lag, so you need to plan accordingly.
3) Booking Award Travel Efficiently
An underrated component of travel hacking is booking your award travel efficiently. Travel hacking is solely a numbers game. Once you have amassed a large fortune of awards points, you need to deploy them in an efficient manner similar to how you would with spending or investing.
Some important definitions to consider include the following:
1) Cents per point
To calculate you take the cost of the flight or hotel stay divided by the points redemption. For example, if you could pay $2,000 for a flight or redeem for 60,000 miles, your cents per point would equate to 3.33x. That is a very good redemption. I like to target anything above 1.5x. These are great ways to book award travel.
2) Transferability
The crown jewel rewards programs are typically the programs that offer the most flexibility with the rewards points. Rewards programs such as Chase Ultimate Rewards American Express Membership Rewards offer maximum transferability. These programs have partnerships with virtually every airline imaginable, so you can transfer your point dollar for dollar to other airline programs for maximum redemption value. Additionally, they even offer flexible options to redeem for gift cards at your favorite stores. I would advise against this, however, since the redemption value is lower than travel.
Organization is key here. Track all of your rewards programs in a simple document.
Travel Hacking Without a Credit Card
There is always a consideration to be made with travel hacking beyond credit cards. Far too many people believe that travel hacking only means opening a significant amount of credit cards. There is so much more that you can do other than solely just credit card reward bonuses.
Things that help with travel hacking without credit cards include:
1) Be cognizant of where you stay relative to the location.
Staying in an American branded hotel in a foreign country (even it if it considered a 3-star hotel in America) may be viewed as a luxury hotel in a different country. When I stayed in Japan, there were so many amazing boutique hotels that had an awesome design, comfort, and excellent service. These hotels were nearly half the price as staying at a Courtyard by Marriott or comparable budget American hotel chains. The same goes for Europe. I found myself finding way better values in hotels that weren't international chains but were viewed as budget in the US.
2) Find those hidden deals!
3) Make sure you are earning rewards for anything that you do while traveling (especially work travel).
I’m a bit of a rewards addict when traveling for my career. I need to have my points! You should too, however. Any time you stay somewhere just ensure that you are signed up for that specific airline, hotel or car rental establishment.
4) Oh, keep an eye out for bonuses too.
Oftentimes these rewards programs offer bonuses like a free night for staying 2 nights over the course of a few months. Try creating a dummy email account where you can scrap the benefits for these various bonus options. They are only one click away. I like using a separate email since I don't want to receive a bunch of promotional emails. However, if you can get on all these email lists, you will likely get targeted for special promotions. I ended up receiving a Marriott promotion that included one free night, to be used whenever I wished, if I stayed 3 non-consecutive nights at one of their properties. I had a wedding in Chicago that I needed to stay overnight and used this free night! Bingo!
Travel Like a Pro
In order to travel hack without a credit card, you need to travel and act like a pro. Are you going to be staying in a big city that you will spend most of your time outside exploring all of the landmarks? Well, why should you spend all your money on a luxurious hotel?
Opening a number of different travel rewards programs takes some time and monitoring. It’s not easy. However, there are limited downside risks to travel hacking. It just takes some time and organization.
I don’t know about you, but generating free money and rewards is highly attractive to me.
You will love the benefits of traveling like a pro. Relaxing in a lounge after being on the road for consecutive days goes a long way to making life easier for you. You get to save a few bucks, too!
Are you travel hacking? What are your favorite cards to use for cashing in on travel? What are your favorite ways to find the best deals on hotels and travel? Comment below!
OMG what a phenomenal waste of time.
1+
To each is own. I’m pretty frugal, but I love travel, so this is time well spent for me. You can’t put a price tag on an outstanding travel experience meeting new cultures, people and finding out more about yourself. Especially, when it costs you nothing.
Of course you can put a price tag on it. Are you saying you’ve had a travel experience you’d pay $10 Million for if you had it? Almost surely not. So there’s a price at which you’d rather have the money.
Isn’t that the going rate to take a shuttle ride with the Russians?
Don’t think I haven’t thought about that. That’s one thing I would do if I won the lottery but otherwise probably never will. Unless the price comes down. I could honestly picture myself paying $1M in my 60s to go to space.
Absolutely.
For me, travel experiences are priceless. Rather than price tag, I’d say priceless. If I had the means, I would literally just explore the world all day every day.
A very good travel opportunity is where I find happiness. Money can’t buy happiness right?
It can certainly buy travel. You keep mentioning experiences, and I keep telling you the price tag to have that experience. So they have both a price tag and are not priceless. I think you’re using those terms when you should be using the terms “valuable” or “very important to me” or “very meaningful to me.” Priceless is like your kid’s life, but honestly, I can probably find a price for that too if we look at enough malpractice settlements.
Travel Experiences = Priceless
Plane, Hotels and Tickets Are Not Priceless. Thus, travel hacking.
Travel experiences include:
-Sitting next to a Japanese man having ramen, learning about their culture, discussing what they think about the world, etc.
-Relaxing in a Paris park taking in the scenery while learning French.
-The feeling you get when you walk out of an airport terminal in a completely foreign, unexperienced location.
Don’t be such a realist 🙂
“costs you nothing”
Lol. Aaaah, free travel yeah. How can you resist the allure of free hey?
Free is free! Time is not free though.
JustSayin’
I see too many colleagues eager for free lunch/dinner at speaking gig etc, the ‘drive further to save on gas’, clip coupons mentality. Work an extra shift or 3 for crying out loud – you’re a doctor!
Its a small think – efforts should be placed at income growth not clipping coupons
Look -I paid a handyman to do weekend chores (for the month) and I worked 1 shift to cover all of it, meanwhile I gained tons of free time.
Ones income potential is not capped …remember that
But saving…you can only save so much.
And you can’t save your way to being rich (though agree with smart spending – I drive a beater proudly)
I will add – it does erk me when I’m doing something and I paid more than someone else, but my efforts are at growth not cutting expenses.
Nothing is free…even ‘free time’ was earned through generating enough income to be off (free)
JustSayin’
Income IS capped for most doctors. While they trade their time for money at a high rate, they are still usually trading time for money. You can only “work an extra shift” so many times before burnout rears its ugly head.
Took me a second to find this original thread….
I agree that working an extra night shift is certainly harder as we age which is why I’m aggressive with my investments because once I turned 50 and certainly when I’m sixty I’m not going to want to be moonlighting
My point on a salary cap this more talking about -income potential. Do you see the slight nuance?
One can only scrounge and skimp to save so much, but certainly there are doctors making millions of dollars a year and I suspect you’re one of them. So my point is somebody saying 250k is the most they can make is a bit of a cop out… the only limitation is the way they speak to themselves and the way they think. (Not suggesting it’s easy to do what you did)
But in some sense staying small and thinking small is selfish… Imagine if you hadn’t started this blog? Imagine if you didn’t expand your network? You sacrificed a lot and your unselfish Act but maintaining this blog and grow in this community this probably saved and made people tens of millions of dollars and for that you’ve been rewarded.
JustSayin
| But in some sense staying small and thinking small is selfish…
Really? Try telling that to the 25M small business owners that drive the country’s economy.
You’re suggesting that a faceless, bureaucratic monopoly like Comcast or Wells Fargo is better than an independent shop dedicated to serving their local community of neighbors for decades.
I couldn’t disagree any more strongly.
WCI is tiny. Jim’s company is a two person shop with a handful of network partners. The only thing allowing him to serve a larger audience is he’s in the publishing field which leverages his content by making it available to more people. He’s is 100% a small business owner in every way possible. Silly for anyone to suggest that he should run his business differently to satisfy a larger or small group of customers. Far more often than not, expansion thinking (acquisition, sell out, whatever) is the death of a well-run small operation. I’ve seen it personally countless numbers of times over the years as a business consultant.
Hey! Not counting the kids/models, there are five of us part-timers now. 🙂 Two owners and three independent contractors. We’re big time! Just like Google. We’re going to have a walk-out next week to protest the fact that only 20% of those who work here are men.
…I also find it interesting that docs spend so much time trying to save a few buck here/there but don’t/wont negotiate for a raise or for a lower mortgage rate – really big ticket items.
Jumping over dollars to save pennies….is that the saying?
JustSayin’
Agreed that time is best spent on the big rocks – job, house etc.
It’s not a waste of time if you enjoy travel and would like to save some money on the cost of it.
Go ask for a raise this week.
Or refinance your mortgage tomorrow and refinance student loans.
Delay buying that fancy new car etc
Such little effort and much more effect
JustSayin
You do understand that you can do all those things AND travel hack? They are not mutually exclusive.
I have been doing credit card churning for a while now, trying to always be working on a sign up bonus. This usually yields ~15% “cash back” on the low end, up to 100% on the high end (usually lower amounts like spend $200, get $200).
I keep a spread sheet and from my rough calculations, it has netted me somewhere around $500/hour (after tax, most do not report these on taxes). There are diminishing returns and the $/hr will decrease as you spend more time and try to find and apply for cards after the low-hanging fruit is gone. I could easily see valuations of $1,000+/hr early on. This is a pretty great use of my time as I pursue FI and I am guessing would be for most on here.
, ,., ,., https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwi_xMrjoMPeAhVs7YMKHTmABjsQFjABegQIBBAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Frurl.us%2FEQzz3&usg=AOvVaw1cOYEexRQxuRZzcm6-s4AF
I have seen people do the credit card churning and have gotten first class suite tickets (Dr. McFrugal for example had a free trip to Singapore because of it).
What do you do with all the cards you have opened for bonuses after you receive them? Do you just leave them open? And do you typically get cards with no annual fee? How does this effect your credit score?
I have 2 credit cards I mainly use that offer cash back rewards which I choose instead of travel rewards myself. It seems in this program it is redeemed at an equivalent basis so might as well choose the cash. Do you feel that by redeeming for travel you are getting a better redemption arbitrage than the cash option?
My family of 4 is flying to London from east coast USA for 180,000 miles. That would be $1800 if cashed out. That would be a remarkably good cash price for 4 international flights. The actual flights we are taking would have been about $4400, so points were worth $2600 more than cash for this particular flight.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
I’m a JetBlue guy – I put everything on my card – eared 200k points I last year and have Mosaic status (free bag checking and bags come off first, early boarding etc). Flying family to Florida for Holiday and taking trips to Vegas and still have 50k points left.
Pick one thing and stick to it – but in the end – far easier to just work an extra shift
JustSayin’
Lots of people worried about credit score here. Many of us basically don’t care about our credit score much because we don’t anticipate needing a mortgage or to refinance student loans any time soon, maybe ever again. So in some sense, the credit score is an asset that can be exchanged/lowered in order to get cash/miles/points.
Besides, just putting your gas on a card every month and paying it off automatically is enough to maintain a credit score good enough to do anything you ever want to do.
Its a balance for leaving them open versus product changing them to a non-annual fee card. For cards that don’t have an annual fee, I will just leave open.
I’ve actually seen my credit score increase from this. I’m currently at 822 and was at 790 when I got started. I open business cards when possible, so I don’t see a true dent in my credit.
Yes, you are getting way better value by redeeming with points. I redeemed some Delta miles for a flight to Japan for 60,000 miles. These flights cash value were at least $1,200 roundtrip. Not only that I learned so much about the world and people on that trip. I couldn’t even put a price tag on an experience like that.
I can. It’s about $10K for a family of six. 🙂
I’m curious if you find that business cards have better deals than personal cards. I’ve been frankly pretty disappointed in what you an get for business cards. I’d be happy just to get a basic 2% cash back card for my business like I have from Fidelity on the personal side.
Amazing…cashing Skypesos for 2 cents per mile, smh.
Personal/Business card deals come and go. It varies…or it depends if you prefer.
The Amex Blue Business Plus card is a no annual fee card earning 2% on everything. It’s a no brainer imho. Then again….this is my main hobby, I am doing this since the 90s and…I could go on.
I don’t get less than 2% back on anything. Most things I get 3-6%. Multiply that times 1.5 or so for the value of the miles and I earn 3-7.5%(the 6% card is only straight cash) on almost everything. The bonus miles for initial sign up and spend is extra on top of that.
I like the Chase Ink Preferred, clearly, which is why I included it above. I love that I can make 3x points on phone services, internet and most importantly advertising expenses for social media. This is helpful for online business that use social media ads. You get cell phone insurance as well, so if you lose our damage your phone you can replace for small deductible. For me, the $95 annual fee gets justified pretty quick.
WCI
What’s most disappointing is the small think that’s going on here. Income potential is truly infinite. When you first started your blog did you really think you’d be making this much?
So many people boxing themselves in. Think about the power of statements when individuals continually say’$500 is a lot of money’ or ‘$2,000’ etc
I wish people started living to their true potential and stop comparing themselves and limiting themselves. Ten years ago I never imagined I would be where I am today and I use as much effort as I can to not subscribed by limiting language and beliefs.
JustSayin
The other reality is that more often than not opening new accounts actually increases credit score in the long run due to decreasing total utilization. That was our experience – keeping our utilization at <5% had a much greater benefit than the short term ding of opening new accounts.
Exactly. Thanks for stopping by!
A note of caution: Manufactured spending is something the banks are trying to shut down as much as possible. You risk having accounts closed if you don’t handle manufactured spending with discretion.
A way of getting much of the benefit with relatively little time investment is to open a Chase Sapphire Reserve or Chase Sapphire Preferred card, and learn how to use Ultimate Rewards points to purchase airfare through the Chase portal, or transfer to partners such as Southwest, United, Hyatt, and British Airways.
Agreed on staying cautious with MS. I don’t have much involvement with it anymore, but it’s always an option for those trying to expand their travel hacking horizons.
The combination of Chase Sapphire Preferred or Reserve, Chase Freedom (5x rotating bonus categories, no annual fee), and Chase Freedom Unlimited (1.5 x on everything, no annual fee) is a pretty powerful one for earning Ultimate Rewards points. It’s not as simple a system as a 2% cash-back card, which will deter some people, but it’s potentially more lucrative if you are willing to learn how to search for frequent flyer tickets (which is a bit of work).
If I had a dollar for every “expert” travel hacking blog that is not but a way to sell more credit cars to achieve FIRE I…
Don’t get me started…
Sad to see this here.
The end.
Interesting comment from somebody whose site is “Travel Blogger Buzz.”
I wasn’t trying to push a specific card. Actually, on my site I don’t even promote cards. I just really like the bonus that is offered with Chase. I don’t do travel hacking to achieve FIRE. I just do it because I love traveling and I love meeting new people from around the world. Oh, I take photos as well so it’s a win win for all my hobbies.
Blogs must start somewhere…to achieve those plastic affiliate links 😉
The travel hacking landscape has had a huge transformation…to the worse in the last several years. The good old days are long gone. You are getting into this game a bit late amigo. Oh, the affiliate world has also gotten much worse as the vendors are focusing on a few big blogs.
My beef is that these blogs are deceiving readers touting free travel and all the perks you can get without warning them that there is nothing free, takes a lot of mental bandwidth to learn tricks, keep up with ever changing rules, ever changing offers, so many credit cards (due dates, payments, risk of fraud, etc), so many new fees added and, most importantly, all the ways that perks have been devaluing and award travel bookings becoming so much harder. And of course getting readers to apply and they get into debt that burdens them for years. Of course, these irresponsible applicants are the ones who pay the banks to give us hackers the rewards we pound on….
Ok, my main point is: Big blogs (like the leader The Points Guy) are credit card pumping machines and will say ANYTHING to convert readers to get cards at their site for the sales commission. In fact, that site will not promote a card that does not pay a sales commission. Heck, lately they have been selling the Amex Gold card offering 25k MR points when readers could use referrals to get 50k points. Hey, conversions is the metric that counts on that site, not being a fiduciary to benefit the readers first.
Don’t get me started…
I agree it can be a lot of mental effort/time keeping track of everything. My wife has done it upon occasion and I tell her if she wants to do it, she has to maintain the spreadsheet and open and close the accounts. Other than that, all we do is cash back rewards.
Bloggers have no legal fiduciary duty whatsoever to their readers and very few have any kind of transparency about where their money is coming from. I mean, if you were going to be a fiduciary, you probably wouldn’t plug credit cards at all given how many people use them inappropriately (i.e. for credit, paying interest.)
Most people these days are better served by just focusing on one or two good cash back credit cards.
To do this churning thing you need to, well, here is a post about exactly that, titled: So You Want to Travel For Free Like Me? Catchy heh?
https://travelbloggerbuzz.com/17842-2/
Yeah, I know about bloggers and fiduciary duty or lack of it as you state. And the lack of transparency….which is deafening!
I can’t quite figure out your angle. You say you hate travel sites that push credit cards, then I go to your site and the top banner ad on the right is for creditcards.com.
Meh, not really impressed. I don’t disagree with anything here, but not really sure about the value add for this info. Just seems like a guest post to back link his site. Traveling at off peak times will often get you more savings than some of the things in this article.
Maybe I’m off base and more of the WCI readership gets excited about credit card churning. I certainly cared more about it when I was a med student and didn’t have a paycheck.
Some of us have a hard time traveling at off peak times due to our childrens’ travel schedule.
I just wanted to spread the word and see if other people could learn from it! Understand it isn’t for everyone. I don’t do it for the cash value or the money component.
I just love to see the world and this is my gateway to do so. Hopefully when I leave my day job, I can use it to go on a travel around the world trip over the span of a few months.
I remember a post I think by WCI making the argument that a stay at home spouse can be justified financially by allowing the time to figure out stuff like this. If that situation exists or someone enjoys this kind of thing then go for it.
I use credit cards but just opted for the best cash back for our situation. Cash back is easy. You know the value of it. You can spend it on whatever. I feel there are too many ways to mess up complicated methods like this unless someone is taking a lot of care tracking it all. There comes a point when these “deals” are not worth our time anymore.
$2600 for less than an hour of work is too much hassle for you?
Well, since you make $5 million+ a year apparently, then maybe it isn’t for you.
I disagree with manufactured spending. But I met the minimum spend for bonuses on credit cards easily with insurance premiums and estimated taxes.
That is an oversimplification. Way more then an hour of work goes into getting a potential $2600. It involved me researching cards. Figuring out what I want to get out of my cards. Planning travel around the rewards that I have gained. Monitoring another card. Keeping track of another website. another card that can get lost/stolen. Another entry to stolen identity. Another thing to put in my wallet!
It only takes one trip that you take because you have the miles to undue all that is saved.
I am sure that there is a counter point for all of my issues but it is just not for me. It might be for you but not for me.
I sadly do not make millions. I am a family doc and probably one of the lower earning attendings on this site.
I agree the organizational aspect is key. That’s why I created a tracking spreadsheet. I’ve found this makes it easy for me to keep everything in one place.
https://millionairemob.com/free-tools-to-book-award-travel/
You can choose to not believe my experience if you wish. I fly Delta for work. I got every Delta card I could get. 5 minutes an application. Do it serially and don’t get another until you’ve spent the typical $3-5K. With my insurance premiums and estimated taxes that takes 1-3 months. That takes zero extra time above what it would take to pay anyway. Rinse and repeat. I now have a few hundred thousand miles with Delta and did with American Airlines until I used 180,000 for the referenced London flights. It took maybe an hour to find flights on Google flight and then the relevant airline site.
I’m selling nothing. I don’t have a blog or website. I don’t have a service or product to sell other than my medical practice. I am also a family doctor. Saving $5000 a year on travel is a huge deal.
What?! A doctor who not only doesn’t think travel hacking is crazy but actually does it? Say it isn’t so! Seriously though, one of the first physician financial blogs was a travel hacking blog written by a cardiologist. It’s still up but not very active.
http://www.milesdividendmd.com/
“rinse and repeat”
Only that you can no longer do that with Amex cards as they all have a “once in a lifetime” exclusion. Meaning, you can not get the same sign bonus twice on the same card.
Most banks have started restrictions on getting their cards as the “hobby” is no longer a rounding error…thanks to sites like The Points Guy which, with its amazing marketing reach, has made that more widespread sadly.
I remember milesdividenmd! My site reviews all these travel hacking websites. So many that died, it is a really hard space to make it 🙂
Your last sentence is the most valuable to me. Put a number on the actual annual benefit and anyone can decide whether the considerable time and effort is worthwhile. All the travel hacking sites tout “free travel” without downsides and never seem to mention whether it would save $1,000, $10,000 or $50,000 for the typical family. We’re likely in the same earnings ballpark, but I have better options to save $5K while traveling than learning and managing another complicated side hobby.
I agree on manufactured spending. I have dialed this back quite a bit. It is really the only time consuming part of travel hacking.
I am very disappointed to see this post on this site. I say this because I think your site is very helpful and I have learned a ton of information. Leave this to the click-bait websites.
Thanks for the feedback. I get a comment like that about once a year, often on a surprising topic. Honestly though, I’m amazed I don’t disappoint or offend all of my readers at least once a year.
Travel hacking is an entire niche of financial blogs out there and a common activity for money-savvy folks to do. What was it about this article that felt click-baity to you?
The title seems a bit “click-baity.” IMO, some of the disappointment comes from reading the words “hacking” and “manufactured spending” coming from the site. The connotation of the words don’t align with the general altruistic feeling that usually emanates from WCI.
That being said, as a fairly newer attending, using travel points & credit card bonuses on family trips has tremendously saved post-tax dollars. For 2019, we used travel points and have 3 flights lined up, ~ $4000. With my marginal tax rate, it ends up being close to a $7000 “raise”. It definitely helps early on to be able to travel, and may help later on when trying to reach FI.
Interestingly enough, PoF recently published a post with somewhat similar content. However, his comments section did not have such a controversial tone, despite explaining how to “travel hack”. I’m guessing many readers of this blog also are readers of PoF
https://www.physicianonfire.com/credit-cards/
I agree with Eric. The ethos of WCI is to be disciplined about your finances and “get rich slowly.” This has the feeling of trying to get something for nothing, even if it is something that is commonly seen on many financial blogs. It seems beneath this site. Please don’t take the criticism as harsh but rather constructive, as I am generally a fan.
It’s hardly something for nothing. Not only do you have to keep track of it all, but a certain percentage of people that “play with fire” (i.e.credit cards) get burned and start paying fees and interest and end up overspending anyway. Plus, the credit card companies get their name out there and they get the transaction fees (not insubstantial if you’ve ever had a business where you’re the one paying them, they’re definitely over 2%).
I guess I’m surprised anybody considers this unethical. I have a much bigger problem with people playing the lottery (i.e. a regressive tax) than I do travel hacking. Plus, it is one of those things that you can do as much as you feel comfortable with ethically. Don’t feel right about manufactured spending? Great, don’t do it. Don’t want to apply for cards over and over, great, just do what I do and get the cash back rewards on the same cards for years. But if you’re going to get a Delta card to get the free bag check, might as well get the miles from it by putting a few purchases on the card. What’s so unethical about that?
Nothing going on here is illegal or unknown to the credit card companies. Thus far, it’s worth it to them to offer these perks to those who are willing to jump through all the hoops to get them.
And then there’s the airlines – they set all the rules for how you can use your miles. All this article is suggesting is that you learn that rules and use them to your advantage. That’s no different than the tax code or anything else is it?
To each his own. I didn’t say it’s unethical, but a few people have expressed similar sentiment to mine so I’m not alone. You can take the feedback, which was meant to be constructive, however you like.
So you don’t think it’s unethical, you just think it shouldn’t be discussed on a site that discusses everything else financial from Bitcoin to Public Service Loan Forgiveness? I’m just trying to figure out what it was that made a few of you (and there are probably 10 times as many as those who commented about it) dislike the fact that it ran today. Was the title, maybe the word “free” in it? That’s a little clickbaity, but remember I WANT clickbaity titles so people will come to the site and read it!
Yes it seems like clickbait. To me, that has a negative connotation. You admit that you want titles that are clickbaity but then don’t want it called out as clickbait. Traveling the world is great, but it’s not free. It’s disingenuous to say that it is.
Part of it might be me and the reaction that I have to some of the FIRE posts and blogs that are out there. I like POF site very, very much, but I have read some others that bother me because they seem to be doing certain things that are gaming the system (I could go into specifics). And the problem with that is that if everybody does it, then the whole thing falls apart. It’s the same way with the card churning and manufactured spending. If everyone does it, the banks will lose too much money on it those benefits will all go away. Now I don’t generally feel sympathy for banks or care if they lose money. I’m guessing you would respond, as you have, that nobody is breaking any laws and the banks don’t have to keep making these offers. That is true, but to me it seems wrong and agains the spirit of their rules, which is why some of these banks are cracking down on some of these techniques. That should tell you something.
I don’t mind you calling my titles clickbait at all. That’s the goal of a title of anything published on the internet.
Now I think I understand what you guys didn’t like – the “free” aspect in the title and article. I agree with you, it isn’t free because it takes time/effort, even if it doesn’t cost money. Not my post though and it seemed worth the discussion here (others thought so as well given it had 94 comments on its first day) so I don’t mind too much. Plus if it brings people to my site, I see that as a good thing (and not just from a business sense.)
I appreciate you sharing your opinion that this is somehow morally wrong despite being legal. I disagree with you as do many others, but that’s okay. If we all agreed on everything this world would be a very boring place.
What’s wrong with getting something for nothing, as long as you’re not violating any laws? Travel hacking is no different than taking advantage of those “Get a free coffee for every ten cups you buy!” punch cards that so many merchants offer, or using a coupon to get a price reduction on an item. Making the best use of such offers (including credit card points and miles) can be a part of the whole WCI “get rich slowly” philosophy (which is fundamentally based on saving more and spending less).
Wow! I get credit for coming up with save more/spend less!? 🙂
Eric – Sorry to hear that. Just wanted to help people learn about a way to travel around the world with their family.
“Manufactured spending” has always felt a bit ethically shady to me.
I’ll open up a couple of cards this year for the easy money, but that’s about as far as I take it for now.
I agree, it’s an option for people. I’ve dialed it back significantly. It just isn’t worth the research and time for me.
You can certainly travel hack without doing any manufactured spend. I’ve never done any, and I’ve been travel hacking for years. I just concentrate on earning the signup bonuses, and putting as much everyday spend on my cards as possible.
Doesn’t this negatively affect your credit score?
I’ve actually seen my score increase since I got started. I’m at 822 and hoping for a near perfect score soon!
… Um, *why* are you hoping for a perfect score? Do they give you a gold watch if you hit 850? Etch your name on a “Wall Of High Credit Score Achievers”?
To my mind, pursuing a perfect credit score is symptomatic of this hobby, i.e. the point of the hobby becomes acquiring, whether it is imaginary credit-card points or miles or status.
+1.
A good chunk of credit card scoring is based on credit card utilization. FICO isn’t particularly fond of people who always pay in full and actively dislikes anyone who doesn’t carry revolving credit lines of some type. Paying cash for years made our household a credit outcast until finally getting a mortgage several years ago. Their game, not mine, but I still have to check-in to make sure they haven’t handed out my financial life to a complete stranger without my knowledge. C’est la vie.
Actually, I don’t think you are penalized at all on your FICO score for paying off your card every month.
@csciora I think you are half right. I have never paid credit card interest (or any interest other than my mortgage) and my score is 820 or so. Your FICO is about having LOTS of credit extended to you for Ming periods of time, and using very little of it. Paying my cards in full every month does not seem to hurt it.
In regards to your question about how this affects an “average family” – can only speak from experience but for us it saves about$4-5000 each year net of fees. I spend about an hour a month. I don’t have a website or a blog. I am stationed in Hawaii now but started this 4years ago in MD. I don’t do manufactured spend. We don’t care about flying first class. We love hotel upgrades and perks but wouldn’t pay for them so I only count the cheapest rate as my “savings “ and discount my free nights at luxury hotels when figuring out my savings since I don’t pay for luxury hotels otherwise.
You are right though- this hobby is complex and (like almost everything else) it is only worth it if you enjoy the “game” and learning the rules
When I was actively playing the “Let’s get the perfect credit score game”, the general consensus was that credit card utilization counted for about 1/3 of the total score. Unless it’s changed, paying off the balance in full each month doesn’t hurt your score. It’s treated the same as someone carrying over 15 – 30% of of the available credit on a revolving line which is the “ideal amount” (from the scoring algorithm’s perspective). Meaning someone with $10K available would would ring the bell by either utilizing $2K – $3K over each month (full payoff) or carrying it over. Surprisingly (or not), you don’t get bonus points by paying in full.
It does tail off pretty quickly when you get to credit lines like the two of us likely have ($25K – $100K+). Keep in mind the average consumer is very unlike either doctors (income/assets) or other readers of this blog (personal finance savvy). The edge cases where someone like yourself benefits from points program through real-world spending are pretty small. I had a client once that paid $75K in consulting fees on a personal AMEX card in four monthly payments. Obviously, that was solely for personal benefits.
My foremost goal at the time 15 years ago was becoming debt-free, so maximizing my credit score was a red herring. Using cash and debit cards were far more helpful than establishing a budget or churning through cards.
It did take a couple more years before it dawned on me the business could run exactly the same way (What??!? Run a business without a credit line? Yikes.) Like many small biz owners, I had gotten into the bad habit of basically spending what showed up in the bank account every month. Up and down it went. Viewing it like a cashflow only business, limiting withdrawals during down months and putting aside a fixed amount into “savings” each month made a tremendous difference in profits within twelve months.
You don’t need a “general consensus.” They tell you exactly what makes up the score.
http://www.stellarrisk.com/the-fico-5-components-that-make-up-a-fico-credit-score/
Amount of credit used (credit utilization) is 30%.
Sort of. The scoring algorithms are both confidential and proprietary. Always have been. It’s the secret sauce the credit scoring agencies use to make money. If you’re a developer at the big three or work at FICO, you’ll have a pretty good idea of exactly what goes into them. Everything else published by 3rd parties (including the link) is an educated guess subject to change at any time.
There’s also any number of different models used with new ones constantly being released.
You’ll never know which flavor is being used by any particular creditor to make a decision. All the decision making for both scoring, approval and declines are automated black box systems from the perspective of the end users.
That’s all irrelevant for someone like yourself since there’s never a turn down until someone steals your identity or damaging info appears in the files without your knowledge. Not at all the case for someone with legitimate dings or without the resources to get mistakes cleared up (e.g. late payments on a student loan which never happened but might kill your chances for a decent refi).
p.s. Bonus point: Same kind of thing exists for medical treatments, but without the “public” recourse for fixing mistakes. It’s used quietly by life insurance companies for issuing policies, some banks for financing decisions and in a few other unexpected places.
There’s a lot of negative comments about travel hacking so I wanted to give some positive comments about it. I’ve had a lot of great experiences collecting miles but think the way to go at a physician’s income level is to use miles for only business and first class flights. It’s hard to get excited about saving $500 or even $1000 on a transatlantic ticket but business classes will go for $3,000+ if you were going to buy the ticket and usually only takes 1.5 to 2 times the miles of an economy ticket.
You do have to have some interest in doing the research as it isn’t as easy as paying cash. I’ve never done manufactured spend but have taken my family (including 2 kids) to Japan multiple times in business class where my wife’s inlaws are from. If you’re single or a couple it’s much easier to find two seats. When you first start out it’s very easy to earn thousands of miles as you’ve never applied for any of the cards before and can get the signup bonus for each. Some airlines have multiple cards so you can easily get a lot of miles in one program within a 6 month period.
When I was single I probably flew 30+ long haul business and first class flights, including an 18 segment round the world award ticket to all the continents except Antarctica when I was between jobs. (Sadly this award through American isn’t available anymore). All of these flights were on miles.
If you’re frugal but still want to try upscale travel check it out. For me I’d have to have a very high net worth to be comfortable paying for business class, as typically you’re paying an extra $200 per hour of flight time which doesn’t seem worth it unless you have tons of extra money.
I do know of a couple at my hospital who are a cardiologist and IR who actually paid the ~ $12,000 each per ticket on the first class emirates flight with showers on board, so maybe at a certain income level you don’t care about the cost. For the average physician though it’s probably worth checking out the miles world.
Thanks for stopping by and the comments!
For a poor or middle class person, this is great. For most regular readers of this blog, our income is high enough to where stuff like this isn’t worth the time.
Plus, all these “rewards” subconsciously encourage people to spend more money than they would have otherwise. If it weren’t overall profitable, the credit card companies and airlines wouldn’t have these programs.
Yep, spending an extra $50-100 to get a dollar back doesn’t seem like the wisest course of action.
We do have a Southwest business card for my wife’s practice. As many of the office and surgical supplies as possible go on the card. (We keep pretty tight control on overhead, but there are variable costs you’re going to have if you’re seeing patients.) It hasn’t been a problem to get one or two companion passes per year.
There’s no doubt that the time is a factor. However, for me it isn’t about spending $100 to get a dollar back.
I only spend my routine expenses and I receive a nice upfront bonus just for using the card. I like having the ongoing benefits too of being able to have Global Entry, lounges, upgrade, etc.
Personally, I’m a high income earner myself. The credit card companies are actually losing some big money on their premier cards. I travel quite a bit for work so I love having cards that give me priority access, lounges, upgrades, etc. The bonuses are just the icing on the cake.
Nice controversial post.
I have done sign up bonuses but no manufactured spending. We have taken some great trips that we were going to take anyway, for much much less than if we hadn’t done travel hacking.
1) This is much easier if you have a high income and net worth, but as pointed out for many people in that situation it is not “worth their time”. You have to enjoy the challenge of it to make it worthwhile if you already have money.
2) Regarding what this is worth – remember as of now, this all exists OUTSIDE OF TAXES – none of my “points” have ever been reported as income. So I disagree with the valuations on some level – you are comparing paying “after tax” income for the cash price on the tickets, vs the points. For a high income couple, this means you are getting MORE value when you play this game. Depending on your state taxes, each point may be actually worth 2-6 cents of additional income to take the same trip.
I’m amazed people think this is controversial. Where is the controversy? Do people think this is unethical? Why? It’s just “working the system,” following all the rules which the banks are free to change at any time.
Good point about the fact that miles are generally tax free as per the IRS announcement, although the announcement really only applies to business travel.
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/a-02-18.pdf
This article makes it sound like things are still kind of murky though: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2014/08/28/tax-court-sides-with-irs-in-tax-treatment-of-frequent-flyer-miles-issued-by-citibank/#466cfd5a3fe9
Some of the MS techniques could be shaky/unethical. But not illegal.
As a CFP and CPA….we are good on the tax-free status. For now and probably for the long haul.
Do you have anything more definitive from the IRS or tax court than what I cited? Still looks a little on the “gray” side from what I’ve seen.
@WCI-Controversial in the sense of “is it worth a doc’s time to travel hack?” is all I meant.
Obviously I think it is worth it – I would have to earn more pretax than “a shift” to realize the value I receive and I can do it in little chunks of time rather than working an extra whole day.
There’s nothing unethical or immoral here. It’s no different than understanding the tax system to minimize taxes.
What *does* amuse me is anyone thinking they are gaming the system to “beat the house”. Casinos and banks love to encourage that kind of thinking. It’s precisely the reason they go all out to promote jackpot winners and super-platinum zillion mile frequent flyers.
I’ll bet a dollar that every major credit company has a hand in propping up the big travel hacking sites.
No one is taking that debt. The main source of income for travel hacking sites is credit card affiliate fees. It’s a well-known business relationship. I think I even tried plugging a credit card or two my first year or so blogging. Never really worked for me and my audience and I disliked writing about cards I wasn’t even using.
Definitely NOT well known…especially by the readers of these blogs!
These readers think they are receiving non conflicted advice by experts on the subject…when the reality is they are being sold a false lifestyle and get deceived to keep clicking on affiliate card offers, many inferior to the non affiliate offers available elsewhere.
I could go on…
I guess most bloggers aren’t quite as transparent as I am. But most affiliate deals do require you to at least mention there are affiliate links present.
“””
For a poor or middle class person, this is great. For most regular readers of this blog, our income is high enough to where stuff like this isn’t worth the time.
“””
If you’re poor, these kinds of gimmicks aren’t available to you. If you’re rich, they’re not worth your time. There may be a thin slice of the upper-middle-class population for whom they actually make sense, but otherwise you need to recognize that it’s a hobby and if you have nothing better to do with your time, like hiking or biking or reading or yardwork, then this hobby is probably better than hookers and blow.
Hilarious. I hike, bike, read, SCUBA dive, play with my dog, spend time with my wide &kids – and I still have time for this hobby. I didn’t actually consider hookers and blow as the other option. I just re-allocated some of my “online” time. Which clearly everyone who reads this far into the comments has plenty of!!!?
I love traveling free. One thing not covered that is great for the well educated, like us doctors, is free cruises. I published a piece on taking free cruises as a lecturer. You give a talk, on something you are very familiar with, for 45 minutes every other day and you can cruise free. You can read about that hack here:
https://drcorysfawcett.com/how-to-travel-free-as-a-cruise-line-lecturer/
Thanks for the tips and I wish you fun travels,
Dr. Cory S. Fawcett
Prescription for Financial Success
This is cool! Thanks for stopping by!
We got the Amex Platinum card last year and I love it – enough sign upPoints for some free domestic tickets, saved 10 percent on Delta One tickets to Paris. Delta Sky Club access When flying Delta for me and my family who are authorized users (spouse and 2 kids). Priority Pass lounges when not flying Delta. Also they all got paid TSA precheck clearance. Now travel is much more pleasant for all of us. A game changer to wait for flights out of the terminal chaos.
I have it too! I just went to LGA and was able to relax in the Centurion Lounge after arriving at the airport a couple hours early! I breezed through security via PreCheck. I got a lot of work done in the lounge and saved a lot of time. The free beer helped ease the crazy NYC taxi ride to get there.
Win/win all around.
Appreciate the article. Just a comment regarding people asking about credit scores. Opening multiple credit lines will likely improve your credit score long term, not lower it. The higher your credit limit, the lower your utilization ratio will be, which is a must larger part of your credit score than the new inquiries portion. You may see a small drop right when you make your initial credit applications, but long term, your credit score will go up. The only thing that will trip you up is if you start going over 30% utilization ratio or so by carrying balances that are too high or starting to close your cards.
Pro Tip: Ignore everything in this article. Get a single good cash-back reward card. Alliant has a 3% card now. Use it for everything. Get a second almost-as-good cash-back reward card, for example the USAA 2.5% cash back. Use that for your backup card.
USAA never offered their 2.5% cash back card in my state. The Alliant card is only 3% the first year, then 2.5% after that and has a $59 annual fee. That’s probably a little better than the Fidelity card but not quite as much as I’d hoped when you mentioned it.
Fair points, both (all three, really). It’s a bummer that Utah never got USAA. But then again, Utah got Moab, so I’m inclined to ignore any complaints from the beehive state!
After the first year, the Alliant becomes a 2.5% card. Still pretty good.
Yes, it has a $59 annual fee. For a typical doctor’s spending (even a frugal doctor) that turns it in a 2.4% card.
Important to remember, that is 2.4% with *zero effort*. Yes, a travel “hacker” (haha) can beat 2.4% by anywhere from a tiny bit to little bit. But be careful about how they get to those numbers. If they count first class tickets at face value when they wouldn’t have otherwise paid face value for first class, then they’re fooling themselves (and their audience) and artificially inflating the value of their points.
And don’t be fooled by claims of “just a little effort” to get those great returns. Again, compare many hours of finding deals, applying for credit cards, manufactured churning, etc… to literally 15 minutes of logging onto Kayak and buying a ticket for cash.
You said ignore everything… you forgot to say except your advice.
Sad so many need to scrounge for a couple thousand dollars.
And WCI – earlier comment about income ‘caps’ …. I agree salary is capped for primary jobs but earnings potential is unlimited. Certainly your potential as evidenced by this sites success confirms that fact.
JustSayin
There is more to life than making more money and increasing my earnings potential.
JustSaying is all.
Well I hear that often
Frankly I think its a statement of capitulation and complacency – if that works for you great – I’m wired differently
JustSayin
Below is about me and not meant as a way others should choose to live their life.
I used to be a work hard, lots of hours, and making lots of money. I climbed the chain and my income went with it. It took a while, but eventually I realized that making more money wasn’t making me happier. Having the latest new fast car or electronic gadget wasn’t making me happier either. I thought it was but it took some self realization that I was wasting too much of my life making more money. Since then I have significantly cut my income and time spent working and doing so I am much happier. I have more time with my family and friends. I eat healthier and exercise more often. I have learned new things and improved my life so much more than buying a new shiny toy could have ever achieved.
I will admit that it took that initial drive to create the wealth needed to not have to work that much today. Who knows, maybe I am wrong and one day 40-50 years from now I may say that I wish I made more money so that I could have bought X. I doubt it, but maybe it will happen.
Agree with some of the comments regarding “best times are past” and “using miles for Business and First class only.” We use only an airline related credit card and also fly only with that carrier in the US. We now fly enough to keep low status (used to be top or close to top tier due to work related flights), which saves us bagage fees etc. and we score an occasional upgrade (no thrill ) but never fly any US carrier overseas if we can help it, and never in economy. You get more bang for your buck flying business or first, using miles outright (never use miles to upgrade, also a major and costly mistake). Besides, the service of US carriers pales in comparison to overseas carriers, certainly the Asian ones or the likes of Lufthansa and British Airways (which charges too much in taxes). It used to be easy to get flights all over the world with US carrier miles on foreign carriers but that has changed significantly. We’ve flown all over Europe and Asia in Business and First on miles (and the taxes) only. However, the required number of miles are much higher now, change or redeposit fees outrageous and, indeed, booking for more than 1 or 2 people and in high season is difficult and comes at a premium. As some stated, it takes also time to get the best itinerary (and time is money), which I used to enjoy more than I do now. However, if you are experienced, have the right tools/apps and can score 2 tickets in First class overseas that cost 9-11k each for the equivalent 3k worth in miles, that is quite rewarding and it used to be even cheaper: no churning nonsense needed. You can also do the miles buying game but that takes time and experience as well, however it can be well worth it, especially if you can deduct it for an overseas conference trip.
Just wanted to contribute by sharing my experiences with travel hacking.
All those people who poo poo on it likely make way more money than I do (or did in med school) and perceive less benefit from it. For me the rewards are quite substantial when compared to my resident salary.
Also, comparing 2% cash back to how many cents you get per point is definitely NOT an accurate portrayal of the differences. It’s not considering the amount of spending required to accumulate those points. When you spend $3K of REGULAR spending on a credit card, and are in turn rewarded with 50K miles which can be redeemed for anywhere from 1-6 cents per mile. That was only a few thousand dollars spending to get, at a minimum, a $500 bonus (assuming one cent per mile return). That’s about a 16% return, tax free. Sure beats 2% cash back. Nothing special done here. No need for manufactured spending. Just put all your spending on a single card until you meet the “minimum spend” then move on to the next card.
As a 3rd/4th yr med student, I got the Marriott rewards card with 80K point bonus, as well as the Southwest plus and premier cards with 50K mile bonus each. I traveled free to every residency interview and never had to pay for a hotel. I never spent more money than we had in our budget t achieve these bonuses. Oh yes and with the Southwest cards, I got the companion pass for my wife because I accumulated so many miles between the two cards. She was then able to fly with me for free for the entire rest of that year and the following year. Man alive that paid off enormously for our family, especially as a med student living off student loans.
Now as a resident, I’m accumulating points to go on a trip with my wife to Alaska next year. Will be free. Would otherwise be a couple thousand dollars that would be challenging to make room for in 9ur budget.
Thanks for sharing your personal examples.
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See you tomorrow! Looking forward to it.
I hope the presentation is worth your time. If not, well, hopefully dinner will be good.
First time I am getting into the comments here since the subject interested me 🙂
I just wanted to say that Free Lee knows what he is talking about, impressed by the quality of his comments!
Interesting reading this from New Zealand about three weeks into a 3 month travel adventure here.
I always wonder how travel hackers can afford to eat/drink/party in all these expensive cities. My wife and I greatly prefer staying in Air BnB homes which have everything needed for us to live, make dinner and otherwise continue life as normal with our two girls. No interest in living from hotel to hotel around NZ for three months especially since that would rule out large chunks of the country. There’s a huge difference between being isolated in a posh hotel and interacting with people who live in the area F/T and are happy to suggest many, many, many things you’ll never find through Google or in any guidebook.
That makes us something, but clearly not travel hackers. Here’s my financial “travel hacking” plan from this trip:
1. Drive to San Francisco instead of departing from Denver. 1-2 days drive with a couple interesting sights along the way. That cut our RT airfare from $8K to $4K. Heck, the kids still get wildly excited about making fresh waffles at the one cheap hotel along the way. Caught up with a good friend outside of San Francisco who brought us to the airport and will baby sit our vehicle for three months. Not necessarily my favorite thing in the entire world, but we do enjoy driving and listening to books and stories with the kids. I’ve come to truly dislike commercial airline travel over the years with the unpredictable schedules and security hassles.
2. Air BnB the house. We’ll probably get a few more renters before returning in mid-January, but the first four have already covered 50% of the mortgage, utilities and cleaning expenses. At around 80% coverage, all of our NZ lodging is effectively free (especially with the exchange rate) since the rental properties are less expensive than our home.
3. International per diem reimbursement. Since I’m considering opening a remote office and/or hiring folks out here, many of the trip expenses are deductible. Far better than deductible is taking a flat rate per diem reimbursement for lodging & food which is about $300 – $400 daily depending on the specific area. We’re not spending any where near that amount on lodging and food which translates to a pretty decent chunk of tax-free money (not income) from the business directly to me.
Since I can work remotely from anywhere, maybe I’ll work or maybe not. Clients certainly don’t care where I’m living. Excluding any additional earned income, the entire three months will cost between five and ten thousand dollars out of pocket. The variables are personal spending on a long list of things we wouldn’t otherwise be doing at home. If the house rents out a 3-4 more times or I complete a couple of projects (actually agreed to one this morning coincidentally), the entire travel adventure will be cashflow positive overall.
….WCI- always wondered if a commenter who starts off a robust discussion should receive reimbursement for driving engagement on a website or blog. Not only is it the article but the comments and discussion and engagement the drive eyeballs to your website
Perhaps there’s a business model where buy you could make your loyal readers Partners in your business, evangelists if you will, but paid evangelists
JustSayin
I think you overestimate the value of the comments section. The average time spent on a page is about 3-4 minutes. Start at the top and read for three minutes and see where you get to. You probably didn’t finish the post, much less read ANY comments. I love it when people jump in and make comment 1500 thinking anyone but me is reading them.
Many bloggers have turned their comments sections off completely with no undue effects (except their time is freed up.) I like the sense of community they engender and sometimes I can even help people in the comments section so I leave them on. But pay for them? Dream on. There’s a reason nobody does that, and it’s not just that they don’t have to! I’ll give you a hint…there’s a reason the ads on the page don’t run as low as the comments. 🙂
Why pay for the cow when you can get the milk for free?
Interesting points…you should have the ads move as one scrolls. I pay for a few ads that do that, more eyeball attention.
Always appreciated your engagement, availability, transparency and willingness to educate about your journey.
As I’ve shared before, your site (and ads -SoFi-) have saved and made me tens of thousands. I could easily argue that reading your site has paid me hundreds of dollars per hour (via saving and Investments).
Occasionally I enjoy stirring the pot ?
Justsayin
Interesting commentary. I have a couple cards that I like, including a delta card. My credit reports are frozen and I have no intention of applying for more cards. Between status and my card, I feel like I’m pretty well cared for…I don’t need extra work to hack. I certainly don’t begrudge those that do, but I feel the marginal utility isn’t worth the effort….
I don’t know why there’s so much hate or controversy on this post. How is saving $1000 on travel with a few extra steps in opening a credit card or two any different from taking the extra steps to save $1000 with tax loss harvesting? Same arguments about ethics, whether it’s worth the time, accessible to poor/rich people, etc. apply. A good number of readers (myself included) are in the “Live like a resident” stage after training, and this is just another tool to consider to make that easier. I personally won’t do everything suggested in this page, but there are a few doable takeaways for which the marginal utility may be worth it for me, and I appreciate the suggestions. For others, maybe it’s not worth it, and that’s fine. Thanks, Dr. Dahle for sharing this post.
I think at the high income physician level where time is at a premium it is not worthwhile to manufacture spend. This is especially true if your regular spending can easily make the minimum to reach the bonus. It takes almost no effort to open a card and use it for a few months to do your regular spending to meet the bonus criteria. We get a few cards a year and once every 2 years get a business/first class flight overseas. These flights are usually worth about $16k-$20k per trip tax free. I honestly don’t mind spending 30 minutes a few times a year to keep this up and well worth my time at my income level.
It is not for everyone but I kinda enjoy the process which makes the time it takes seam more like fun as opposed to work. For what its worth I like tax loss harvesting, rebalancing, and making backdoor Roth contributions. All those tasks make me feel like I am winning a game.
well said…I’ll admit one weakness – I don’t backdoor roth – for some reason feel intimidated by process – worried i’d foul something up
JustSayin
As a dentist, this may be a little different for me. I put over $400K a year onto my office credit card, between supplies and lab bills. I think it makes sense to put that dollar volume to work accumulating miles that can be redeemed for travel. Add in some 80,000 bonus mile offers to sign up and the miles become quite substantial.
If all I could utilize the credit cards for were personal expenses, then I tend to agree that it may not be worth the effort.