How to Redeem Credit Card Points for (Almost Free) Travel

This week Kelsi Sullivan joins us to talk about redeeming credit card points for travel! You’ll learn all about practical ways to maximize your credit card points for the best travel experiences!

You’ve earned credit card points and you’re ready to book a trip… now what?

Here are some practical tips that Kelsi shares with us!

Know the value of your points

  • A lot of people earn points but then get stuck. It’s important to understand what your points mean! At minimum, you want to get at least one cent per point. But higher is better!

Transfer partners

  • Transferring your points to transfer partners is how you get the best bang for your buck! Chase, Capital One, City, and AMEX all provide the option to transfer your points to third-party vendors to book flights and hotels.

    • Listen to the podcast for lots of great examples of how this might look for you!

  • Tip: Find the flight that you want on a specific airline before you start transferring your points to random places in hopes that you’ll find something!

  • You can also transfer points to book hotels! Kelsi recommends checking out Hyatt hotels because they have a large variety of rooms. One of the only cards that will transfer to Hyatt is Chase.

Be willing to reposition 

  • Repositioning is when you leave your local airport to get to a bigger hub. This brings great value to your points. You do have to consider the cost of repositioning, but it will often save you points in the long run. In conclusion, don’t be locked into looking at flights only from your home airport!

  • Kelsi recommends going to Google Flights and entering your local airport. Then put in your destination, and look at the flight path (where the plane stops). From here, you can look for specific legs of your trip that you want to spend points on.

Status

  • Chasing the highest status should not always be your focus. This includes airline seat status or the level of hotel rooms that you purchase. However, sometimes you can save a TON of money on business class airline tickets or nicer hotel rooms, so it’s something to look into!

If you have any more questions, reach out to @pointsisters on Instagram!

Budget Friendly, Family Travel, International Travel, Podcast, Travel Tips, USA TravelLisa AndrewsComment