Travel does not have to be expensive, you just have to be informed.
We get asked a lot about how we are able to travel so frequently and the answer is simple, miles and points. We do a fair bit of research on what travel cards are offering sign on bonuses or transfer deals to book flights, rental cars and stays.
Travel does not have to be expensive, you just have to be informed. We try to coordinate opening a new card with where we are seeing the best flights for a destination on our bucket list. For example we flew to Italy in 2025 for $XXX total for our family, when we flew out of Toronto on Air Canada. Our oldest was 15 months at the time so he was still a lap infant, so we only needed two tickets, for Chris and I. We saw that Air Canada was running a deal with a higher than usual sign-on bonus when you signed up for their credit card, so we both opened one, this covered our flights in two separate transactions. We purchased two one ways and used the points from each of our cards, essentially only paying for taxes and fees. We break down how we did this in more detail over on YouTube.
This hack, if you want to call it that, more working the system, but either way, no matter what you call it, it’s worked for us several times.
We do not just use miles and points for flights, but for rental cars and stays as well. Anywhere it can help us stay under budget, we will use them. The trick is making sure that you are getting the best value out of your points though. So we will always compare outright cost vs amount of mikes and points. There are always outliers as well, there are times we save points for larger trips too.
The biggest savings hack we have found is checking transfer offers. If you have the Chase Sapphire or Capital One Venture Cards, there are sections on their sites that show transfer options. Our best transfer deal this year has been transferring miles to Air Canada. We opened an Aeroplan card with Air Canada two years ago to afford to fly to Italy on miles and points. At the time you got 75,000 miles as a sign on bonus and after purchasing our flights we still had some points leftover. Since we are married, they allowed us to combine them on one account. We did not have enough to afford flights for the whole family with what was left but using the transfer bonus from capital one allowed us to afford 3 tickets. Plus with the transfer you are able to pick the exact amount you want to move, so we did not run into the same predicament where we would have leftover points/miles. This really makes us feel like we are getting the most out of our miles and points.
If you are not traveling on miles and points, tou are missing out on huge savings. I honestly do not know how people could afford to travel without it. Take a look at a couple of the cards we mentioned above and see if any of them fit your lifestyle and travel needs.
Safe travels!