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Hi, I'm Kevin and I'm an attorney, sharing economy expert, and the blogger behind Financial Panther. I paid off $87,000 worth of student loans in just 2.5 years by choosing not to live like a big shot lawyer. I started this blog to share all I know about personal finance, travel hacking, and making more money by side hustling. Click here to learn more about me.
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embracing fast travel

Travel Hacking, Work, and Embracing Fast Travel

Last Updated on May 29, 2018May 29, 2018 8 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links.Financial Panther has partnered with AwardWallet and CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Financial Panther, AwardWallet, and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

The great thing about getting into the world of credit cards and travel hacking is just how much it opens up the world to you, not just with where you can travel, but also with how often you can do it. Inspired by traveling attorneys like MVMT blog and Jen on a Jet Plane, I’ve been on a bit of a mission to get in as much travel as I can this year while also working as a full-time attorney without a lot of vacation time. 

So far, things are going well. I’ve gone on six trips since the beginning of the year, with more planned in the coming months (I basically define a trip as any time I take a plane to go somewhere – I don’t travel for work, so a plane trip is still a special event for me). As I punch this post out, my wife and I just got back from a four-day trip to Iceland for the Memorial Day weekend – a European destination that surprisingly isn’t that far away. The weekend before that, I went to Las Vegas to celebrate a friend’s graduation from law school. And last month, my wife and I traveled every weekend around the country to visit friends and family. 

My recent Iceland trip – I’m tiny next to this giant waterfall.

For most people, travel (at least plane travel) is a big deal – something that has to be planned out, saved for, and completed over a long(ish) period of time. From a personal finance and value perspective, this makes sense. If you’re going to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on flights and hotels, you don’t really want to spend all of that money just to hop on a return flight a few days later. You need to make your flight worth it, which often means that travel is something you can only do once you’ve saved up the money or, more likely, once you’ve saved up the vacation days.

But when you’re sitting on a ton of points and miles (and accumulating more points and miles every few months), destinations suddenly become much closer than you think. Instead of having to wait to travel, traveling becomes possible even without a lot of time, money, or vacation stored up. Despite all of the travel I’ve done this year, I still haven’t paid for a flight yet. And I’ve only had to use one vacation day this entire year.

Embracing Fast Travel in 2018

Having this big stash of points and miles is pretty nice. So far in 2018, I’ve traveled to the following places, all using the points and miles I’ve accumulated from the past year of travel hacking:

  • February = Arizona to visit Saguaro National Park and enjoy some warm weather
  • April = Atlanta to visit friends; Chicago for our 1-year anniversary; DC to visit family
  • May = Las Vegas to hang out with friends; Iceland just for fun 

Along with free flights, I’ve also been able to avoid paying for hotels during this travel spree.

  • In Arizona, I paid for our hotels using points.
  • We stayed with friends and family in Atlanta and DC.
  • In Chicago, I used points to book us a room downtown.
  • And in Las Vegas, I used points to book me and my friends a last minute room on the strip (the value wasn’t too bad either since there was some huge music event going on that weekend that resulted in really high hotel prices).

The only place I’ve paid for lodging so far is this recent Iceland trip, where my wife and I opted to go with the Airbnb route. Hotel options weren’t that great and we had a few hundred bucks of Airbnb credit to use from being Airbnb Superhosts.

Later this summer, I’ll fly to South Dakota for a wedding – a surprisingly expensive flight when paid for with cash. It’s a Friday wedding, so for the rest of the weekend, my wife and I will hike to Harney Peak (the highest point in South Dakota), hit up Mt. Rushmore, and then probably try to swing by Wind Cave National Park or Badlands National Park before we return home on Sunday evening. In July, we’ve got another wedding to go to in DC, so we’ll be back out that way again for a weekend.

Since my wife and I have the Southwest Companion Pass, we’re sticking to domestic travel in 2018 (if you don’t know, the Companion Pass is basically the best perk you can get if you want to do a ton of trips with your significant other like I’m trying to do).

I’d like to try to get another international trip in over a long weekend or holiday – somewhere in the Carribean would be nice, especially since it’s not that far away. We’ll see how things shake up with our free time. Ideally, I’d love to do 10 to 12 trips by the end of the year. With 6 trips already in the books, plus another 2 planned, I think I can get there.

Appreciating the Advantages of Fast Travel

Naturally, slow, longer trips would be preferable – I’d love to be able to spend a week or two in a place before having to leave. But the problem is, I’m not financially independent and my job isn’t that great on the vacation front. I only get two weeks of vacation each year, plus holidays. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for me to go on extended trips.  

What embracing fast travel does is that it makes travel possible for someone like me. I’m just a regular working stiff. I need to make travel work with my lifestyle. And while traveling to exotic, really far-off destinations can be fun, there are advantages of opting for the quick, weekend trip, including:

You Get To See Your Friends And Family. Probably the best thing about accumulating all of these points is that it lets me see friends and family that I otherwise wouldn’t see because I can’t afford the flight. I flew to Las Vegas a few weekends ago to celebrate a friend’s graduation from law school, and given my work schedule, I arrived on Saturday morning and left Sunday night. There’s no way I would have paid for that kind of flight if I had to use cash – it wouldn’t have felt worth it to me to drop the dough for such for such a short trip. But when you’ve got points, who cares? A three-hour plane ride and I was able to be there in Vegas celebrating with my friend. 

You Save Your Vacation Days. I wish we were like other countries that had more vacation days, but sadly, this isn’t the case here in the US. I only get a measly two weeks of vacation per year. What I do get though are weekends and holidays. By taking advantage of this fact, it’s possible to travel a lot without having to burn through your vacation days. For my trips, I try to leave on Friday evening and return on Sunday evening. Most of the time, my employer doesn’t even know I went anywhere. And it’s usually enough time for me to explore a place, at least for a little while. 

Travel To Recharge Your Batteries. Traveling can be stressful for some people, but for whatever reason, it’s never really stressed me out. I always feel invigorated once I get back. If you’re like me, this is a great way to recharge your batteries and do better at work.

Tough not to relax in a place like this.

It’s Fun. I’ve been having a ton of fun looking at a map and figuring out random places I can go to for free over a weekend or long weekend. Since I live in Minneapolis, a lot of places are only a few hours away from me, so I’ve got a lot of options for places to go.

Travel Hacking Makes Fast Travel Possible – Take Advantage Of It

For a lot of people, travel hacking is something that requires travel to far-off, exotic places – that’s all you’ll see in the blogosphere, in any event.

Unfortunately, my situation doesn’t really work with that type of travel. But it doesn’t mean travel is out of reach. By travel hacking and using points and miles, I can hop on a plane whenever I have the time, visit a place over a weekend, and be back at work on Monday, all without having to feel like I’m not getting the full value out of my plane ticket. 

If you’re thinking about embracing this fast travel lifestyle, here are some things to think about:

Don’t Underestimate Domestic Travel. We live in a huge, varied country, and I think a lot of us forget that. I’ve been in the Midwest for a while now and the way things look here is totally different compared to other parts of the country. I’d never really thought about desert locations until I went to Arizona this past winter. I was in Atlanta in 80-degree weather while a foot of snow dropped on Minneapolis. And there are many more places in this big country that I’d like to check out. Domestic travel is legit travel – don’t forget that.

Nearby International Destinations. It’s actually interesting just how many international destinations aren’t really that far away. Iceland was only a 6-hour flight from Minneapolis – easy enough to do for a long weekend. Places like the Carribean or Mexico aren’t very far away either. And any city in Canada is easy enough to get to from anywhere in the US. 

Keep Accumulating Points (And Actually Use Them). One thing that a lot of travel hackers do is constantly hoard points and miles, waiting for that perfect, optimal use for them. This is totally fine, but in my view, points and miles aren’t really that hard to come by. You’ll always spend your points and miles, but you’ll just keep getting more of them.

Marvel At How Far You Can Go

I still get amazed whenever I step off a plane and realize that I’m hundreds or thousands of miles from where I started a few hours before. It used to take people months or years to make those trips – now we do it in hours. It’s pretty incredible when you think about travel in that way. 

If you want to embrace this fast travel lifestyle, playing the credit card game is where it’s at. It’ll allow you to fly for free, so you won’t feel like you’re not getting your money’s worth. I keep adding more and more cards to my collection (currently sitting on 15 credit cards now), and at the moment, I pretty much have more points than I even know what to do with. I don’t think I’ll have to pay for a flight for at least another year or two – and that’s assuming I don’t keep adding more points and miles to my stash.

There’s a lot that goes into the travel hacking world, but if you want a starting point for your travel hacking journey, consider starting with the Chase Sapphire Preferred or Chase Sapphire Reserve. If you want to do it the best way possible though, you’ll want to snag them both at once (read my post about the One Sapphire Rule to understand the process of getting both cards and make sure you understand the 5/24 rule). And if you can get it, the Southwest Companion Pass is probably the best thing you can ever have when it comes to fast travel.

Or consider starting off your travel hacking journey with a business credit card like the Chase Ink Preferred (and read my post on business credit cards to understand why they’re the ultimate travel hacking tool).

Travel is attainable, even if you don’t have a lot of free time on your hands. You just need to understand the ways you can do it and figure out how you can fit it into your lifestyle.

How do you fit travel into your world?

financial panther

Kevin is an attorney and the blogger behind Financial Panther, a blog about personal finance, travel hacking, and side hustling using the sharing economy. He paid off $87,000 worth of student loans in just 2.5 years by choosing not to live like a big shot lawyer.

Kevin is passionate about earning money using the sharing economy and you can see all the ways he makes extra income every month in his side hustle reports.

Kevin is also big on using the latest fintech apps to improve his finances. Some of Kevin's favorite fintech apps include:

  • Personal Capital. One of best free apps you can use to monitor your portfolio and track your net worth. This is one of the apps Kevin uses to track his financial accounts.
  • SoFi Money. A really good checking account with absolutely no fees. You'll get a $50 welcome bonus if you open an account and fund it with at least $500.
  • M1 Finance. This is a great robo-advisor that has no fees and allows you to create a customized portfolio based on your risk tolerance. You also get $10 for opening an account.
  • Dobot. This is a great microsaving app that monitors the cash flow in your bank account and saves away small amounts for you each week. It's free and you'll get $5 when you use it.

Feel free to send Kevin a message here.

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Filed Under: credit cards, Travel Hacking

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Comments

  1. Ken Locklin says

    May 29, 2018 at 11:19 pm

    My wife and I were inspired by your description of travel hacking and have already earned ~200,000 points in a month and a half through credit card sign-ups! We’re going to visit family in WI in December, but we also talked about starting something fun with the kids. We haven’t decided exactly what yet, but we’re thinking of either eating at a park or taking a picture on 1st Street in all 48 continental states.

    As a teacher, I have a lot more time off, and we’re going to start this summer with a couple states around us, just driving. I’m excited to see what hotel options points can cover with four kids!

    Reply
    • Financial Panther says

      May 30, 2018 at 1:45 pm

      200k points in a month! That’s awesome. Enjoy the credit card journey (and take your time with it too – there’s always more points to get out there!)

      Reply
  2. Mr. MFC @ Morning Fresh Cent says

    May 30, 2018 at 1:31 am

    I had no idea you can get two of the same business credit cards from using your SSN and EIN. The in branch 100k sign up bonus is a hidden gem too. How does that work, just go into the branch and say you want the 100k bonus? Thanks for the tips!

    Reply
    • Financial Panther says

      May 30, 2018 at 1:47 pm

      To get the 100k Chase Ink Preferred offer, you need to go into a branch and talk to a Business Relationship Manager. Basically, let them know you heard there is a 100k offer and ask them for it. But, you also need to have a real business (or be good at bsing them).

      If you already got the first Chase Ink Preferred, then no need to go in branch, just refer yourself using your referral link from your first Chase Ink Preferred and you’ll get the same 100k.

      Reply
  3. MrFIREby2023 says

    May 31, 2018 at 9:58 pm

    Thanks to travel hacking my wife and I recently visited Rome, Italy for FREE! We flew business class and stayed at a Marriott luxury hotel (a part of their “autograph” collection) all by using miles and points. It was a trip of a lifetime and we pulled it off without a hitch, thanks to travel hacking.

    Reply
  4. Mrs.Wow says

    June 1, 2018 at 8:36 am

    In a world full of people talking about “slow travel” it is great to hear your take. I tend to travel a lot and mostly it has been internationally, but because I run my own practice, I get the luxury to make my own schedule and take vacation time. I have a lot of friends that just scoff at what I do because they only have 2 weeks of vacation time a year. I think your take on this is great for people who want to travel, but don’t have a lot of time. Would love to hear more about your trip to Iceland. We absolutely loved it there!

    Reply
  5. Christine Schwalm Design says

    June 4, 2018 at 3:00 pm

    My husband and I specialize in the quick trip. And we definitely use our Southwest Companion pass/Marriott points to do it. I’m on a mission to hit all 30 ballparks (25 down, 5 to go) and so we’ve been taking weekend trips for the past 2 summers to knock out a bunch. We were in Dallas over Memorial Day weekend and have Minneapolis planned for July (hello!). Last year we hit Cincinnati (Oktoberfest, a lot of fun!), Denver, Seattle, Phoenix and Oakland. It’s been a lot of fun, though the breakneck pace is tough at times. It helps having a travel bag ready to go with toiletries already packed.

    I like the idea of travelling domestically. Our country is pretty diverse and I can honestly say I’ve benefited from meeting people from different walks of life/political views through these trips. We like to grab meals at the bar, it saves money and allows us to chat with the locals, and chat.

    Reply
    • Financial Panther says

      June 5, 2018 at 1:39 pm

      That’s an awesome goal. Agree with the pace being a bit tiring, I’ve been getting pretty exhausted lately too. If you’re up for it, let me know when you’re in Minneapolis. Would love to grab a beer if I’m around.

      Reply

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