Originally Posted by
calwatch
Do you want this to be a day job? If you can do the research yourself (because no one will share on public forums) some people have turned travel hacking into a full time job, which works great if you want to travel the world. But if I already have a day job, this is just gravy and something I can do as a hobby. Low hanging fruit on this forum, which is all that I do, is sufficient to get the annual vacation paid for at a fraction of the cost.
I agree with this. Wife and I have full time jobs which regularly go over the norm in hours. We also do ms'ing for once a year big travel as well as to pay for other things via cash back. We started small, steady, careful. To any new folks at this, don't get pressured or tempted to do too much too fast. Just when you think this is easy and you can do no wrong you'll find some unpleasant circumstances that many can avoid by studying the intro thread and heading wise advice. It took many of us many months to learn and we all continue to learn more about what works, what doesn't, when to pull back, when to modify methods and more.
I'm not a heavy hitter and yet we can go completely free each year to places like Bora Bora, Venice for fireworks over the Grand Canal, Bastille Day in Paris and on to other places. But, we also do this for cash needs and we also give back by donating at least 10% to charity. We have a ton of cards and 800+ credit scores which we protect evey month.
It's important to only do the amount that remains fun as a hobby. But, there are some who've had to use this method to feed their family and that's great. This is a wonderful opportunity if we all treat it right.