I've always wanted to see the world, but money is the number one obstacle that holds me back. I'm a college student and would like to find ways to make traveling more feasible.

I started browsing the Flyertalk forums only to realize that I couldn't even get the gist of what everyone was saying--I have no experience with any of the programs that everyone on her seems to be so familiar with.

Is there a thread that can guide me in the right direction? I don't even know where to start.

Thanks,
Anna

I'd start small. Find a trip that you'd like to take and research the points/miles required to get you there.

I find working to a concrete goal can assist with the educational aspect as you are forced to think through things.

Let's say you want to fly to Hawaii. First understand which airlines are most convenient for you and research their availability for flying to Hawaii. You can do dummy bookings on most sites. If availability seems tight, I'd suggest looking at alternate airlines that may not be as convenient.

Once you have an idea as to how many points/miles your flights will require, come back to FlyerTalk and begin researching the best way to accumulate those points.

Or, step 1 check your credit report free at annualcreditreport.com (do NOT use any other service or website).

If your credit is okay, apply for a Chase Sapphire Preferred card for 50K bonus, make the spend ($5K?) and collect your first bonus. This will inspire you to work a little harder at getting miles. All the info you need is on FT. Read it.

A great place to look for advice is ThePointsGuy.com. He has a beginners guide tab that explains the basics clearly and concisely. Familiarize yourself with the airline alliances, partnerships etc.

It's a slow and long learning process. Good Luck!

Anna,

Welcome to FT!

It helps to have a goal in mind. We can provide more specific thoughts, once we know where & when you want to go.

Good luck and this can quickly get addictive!

Anna,

Welcome! The good thing is that when people say money is the number one obstacle, that is usually the easiest to fix. Finding cheap travel and discussing tips, tricks, and the like are what Flyertalk is all about, so you've come to the right place.

I'd recommend starting small as well, thinking about where you want to go first. And actually, like someone else mentioned, you should check your credit score first. If it is good, then you can start joining the game. If you have any specific questions, feel free to private message me or to send me an email through the blog.

Good luck! It can be daunting at first, but once you get the hang of it, you'll find out how addicting, and lucrative, it can be!

Just use kayak.com to find cheap flights and travel. If you get a job that gives you the ability to work overtime, then you will probably gain a lot more money by working a few hours overtime per week than you could save by spending those hours learning points systems.

Also, be careful and avoid advice that is a year old. Credit inquiries can build up fast.

I traveled to Russia the "old fashioned way" of finding the cheapest flight possible, and it involved an airline that does little or nothing involving points systems.
I value my time at about $25 per hour, and that price will increase dramatically after a few years. So, it's a tradeoff of my time working/studying, versus learning the points systems and the effects that it can have on credit scores.
Assuming you can get 2 points per dollar spent on everything in life (and good luck getting points for mortgage or insurance expenses), and each point is worth $.015, that's only 3% of spent money that you get back. A person can probably save that much by leaving 10 minutes early for work and driving more efficiently to save gas.


But other than that, the 50k Sapphire card sounds nice, IF you can meet any spending requirements.

Also, if you someday own a company, then collecting points is DEFINITELY worth it. It can effectively add an extra percent or two to profits, and is tax-free.

Welcome to FT.

Where to you want to start? To find cheap air fares? Mileage earning techniques? Both?

I agree with you on this - often some people overlook actually paying for tickets out-of-pocket because they are too hooked on points, and don't necessarily get the best value. I routinely buy tickets to and from Europe for around $400 on my preferred alliance, and this isn't all that difficult. It doesn't necessarily involve fuel dumping, but might require usage of nearby airports and being flexible with dates. Realistically speaking, the flight is often the least expensive part of the trip.

Of course, collecting points is valuable, but I would kick myself in the face if I redeemed my miles for a flight then found a similar flight available for 500$. It's a lot more difficult to obtain 50,000 miles than $500 IMO. However, learning the ins and outs of the trade will help you amass a stockpile with relative ease. Still, you need a definite plan, and if that plan is a basic trip with flexible dates and non-peak travel times, I would start tracking airfares before automatically assuming points are the best solution.

Like others have said, points can be harder to get than money. Being in college is another challenge due often to low income and spending habits. Credit card bonuses are great but without decent credit you may end up running in circles. Check into your credit before you run off playing the points game. Read the blogs, most have a beginners page. You can check out my site at www.simplypoints.com which is more about getting points than redeeming then.

Read the blogs that others have listed, they will help you greatly. Traveling for next to nothing is a bit of a challenge and the majority of people would rather just pay regular price.

Hi Anna and welcome to FT.

I've been in your position and the good news is that it IS feasible, but you will need to wrangle to make it work. Here's my quick list of places to start since you're in college:

0. Get your passport.

The first step is to get your passport, if you don't already have one. Invest in your passport now and you'll start finding excuses to use it. Otherwise, not having it will always be a barrier (more mental than anything else) to traveling.

1. Use your university as a springboard

I can't emphasize this enough. If you're at a larger university, there are plenty of ways to start traveling with their help. This is a great way to get introduced to international travel and there are three ways that you can use your university to get you there. Study abroad programs are excellent and you get credit for it too. The cost of the program is pretty marginal and financial aid can be usually be used on studying internationally. Another way is to start studying the language and then apply for scholarships that specifically assist students with doing a language focused study abroad. If you drop by the language department, you might be able to find someone who will pay you to travel abroad. The third way is to see if there are any programs or projects that have an international component. I have a friend who builds race cars for the school and travels with the car as they compete internationally. I ended up in Shanghai, thanks to a project I was involved in.

2. Prioritize travel

There's a lot of stuff that costs us money that we don't really need. A couple of years ago, I gave up my car and started taking the bus. It literally saved me thousands of dollars, which I used to buy plane tickets instead of gas. Not everyone lives in a place where this is possible, but not owning a car is a huge boost to your travel funds. In general, look at your budget, see what you're actually spending money on, and ask yourself whether you really need it or need it as frequently as you're buying it.

3. Keep an eye on FT.

The travel deal section here of FT has some killer, but short lived, deals. I flew to Japan a couple years back for $430 round trip, which was a deal that lasted about 2 hours before the price went up to $750+. Once you have a little travel fund and your passport, you're good to go. As you're in college, you should have the flexibility to take advantage of the deals and travel cheaply. The other week, there was a fare to Madrid from Seattle for less than $350.

4. On that note, travel cheaply.

I don't know what your travel preferences are, but being flexible will help you travel cheaply. If you aim to stay at a nice hotel every night you will run out of money quickly, but hostels and B&Bs can be much less expensive depending on who you're traveling with. Self-catering is just fine when you're on a budget: There's nothing wrong with bread, cheese, and some fruit from the store. You can also spend less by avoiding the touristy restaurants and eating like a local, where the locals eat. For example, while I was in Shanghai, I spent $30 on a nice meal at a decent better restaurant, but the next night's dinner was $5 including drinks total at a local place near my hotel out in the suburbs. When I was in Mongolia, I paid $7 a night for a place to stay vs. over a hundred for a regular hotel. If you do your research and feel adventurous, you can keep costs down pretty well.

5. Start playing the mileage game.

Here on FT, mileage is king and you can travel pretty far with miles. Do a little research to figure out which program will work best for you (which really is about which airline alliance flys from your home airport and goes where you want to go and then how reliably you can redeem miles), and sign up. There are ways to start boosting your account, like credit cards if your credit will allow it, which can get you towards award travel. However, the biggest thing here is not to spend money on miles. Airline credit cards cost money every year and if you're not careful you can end up spending more money than the "free" travel is worth. Some crazy people even fly just to earn the miles (*cough*I'veneverdonethat, no...*cough*).

The point is not to jump at every possible mile you can without regard to the cost. For example, if you have to spend $100 on something you don't need to earn 5,000 miles is it worth it? No. 5,000 miles is 1/5th of an award ticket to anywhere in the US, yes, but if you saved that $100, you're also 1/5th of the way to buying a $500 ticket to anywhere you want. On the other hand, if you can earn 100 miles for spending $100 for something you actually need, that's better than spending that $100 with 0 miles.

6. Get started!

This might sound simplistic, but travel is about practice. The people on FT are good at getting around the world because they have invested time in figuring out how to do it. It's logistics and you can practice it by figuring out where you want to go and start planning a trip right now. Figure out where you want to go and try to figure out how you would get yourself there. You can always ask here on FT and you'll get advice from the community, usually from someone who's been there and knows what's going on. I don't know how much experience you have traveling, but assuming that you're just starting out with zero experience pick a place that is easy (basically anywhere in Europe; Perhaps Paris?) and plan a trip. Figure out who flys there from your city, which hotel/hostel you hypothetically would stay at, how you would get from the airport to your hotel, and how you would get around the city. Figure out what sights you would want to see, how you would go from one to the other (including how long it will take), and research to figure out what days they will be open. If you feel fancy, plan a day trip to Versailles or Monet's garden and figure out which railroad goes where, and what train you would need to catch.

In practice, you don't need to have this all figured out before you buy a ticket, but it's good to practice actually building a trip that works. Good advice is to allow more time than you think you will need to get between different places and double check what days things run when planning a train or bus connection. The other piece of advice is not to over plan your stay: You need to get from A to B, but what happens at A, B or between is best experienced with a flexible attitude.

Hope this helps!

Welcome to FT Anna,

What part of travel do you find least feasible, i.e. Is it the flight costs, hotel costs or something else entirely?

To get started learning about miles/points you should start reading about the airports in your area and what airlines are based out of them. Finding which airlines have a strong presence in your airports and to destinations you are interested in will tell you which frequent flyer programs you should begin to learn about first. Read the Newbie Guide and FAQ's in the programs dedicated FT thread and start discussing how to leverage that program.

Start learning about affordable travel as well. You do not need points to make travel student budget friendly. There are great sites like ita matrix, hipmunk, kayak, priceline and hostels.com that can get you to and start enjoying a destination.

I can completely relate with feeling helpless to satiate your need to travel while being on a tight college budget ( I am still with you). But being a college student also affords us discounts on many travel related items and access to budget travel options that become a bit less tolerable as the years pass. I would not write-off the power of student discounts.

Points and miles are nice but they are not always the best option. When you are ready to get started with credit card offers you should research how credit scores work and what goes into them. You can get free access to your credit report and estimates of your credit score from various wesbites offered by previous posters.

If you do not yet have a line of credit you should start with a student card and build up your credit history before applying for these offers you see listed here. Your credit score needs to be guarded dearly while leveraging its power to get you 100,000s of points/miles.

Good Luck with your travel plans.

Welcome to FT,
Sometimes it is forgotten to be mentioned here becasue it is considered a given, but if you carry a balance on your credit cards, the credit card game is NOT for you. Many will talk about the great sign up bonuses with credit cards. and they are great but if you play this game to get cheap travel you must pay all your credit cards in full and on time, everytime. the interest rates are very high on most milage credit cards so only you can decide if you have the dicipline to moniter your balances, only charge what you can afford to pay off, and make sure you are never late on a payment.

1. What city are you in for school and home?

Need to know to identify those airlines that hub near you to round up
the usual suspects.

2. Try creditkarma.com for a shadow of your equifax score.

3. Learn how to use kayak.

4. Pick a list of potential countries to visit.

5. Are you a credit union member?

Sometimes you can tag along with your parent's membership and
sometimes CU's are an easy place to build credit starting out.

6. Do you have a passport? If not get one.

Afraid most of us entitled to fly free forever are a bit beyond college age with high credit scores, relatively high income, or road warrior careers.

First country for you to bag probably ought to be Canada if you have not already done so.