Travel hacking is easy.

I dont spend hours plotting which cards I should use for specific purchases.

My credithas not taken a hitin fact, its improved!

(But well get to that later.)

Weve gota few guidelines.

All six flight legs cost me $400 and 45,000 points.

I used the Chase Sapphire Preferred to land the sign-up bonus of 40,000 points.

That massive bonus is the primary way travel rewards hackers get free flights.

This card also had an authorized user bonus.

So I added my now-husband and we got even more points.

Pay attention to the annual fee, though.

Our Chase Sapphire Preferred card came with an annual fee of $95 (waived the first year).

We later canceled the card to avoid the fee.

You get 1-3 points for every purchase, depending on the punch in of purchase.

I didnt think these points would add up, but they did.

The key to doing this is to put every expense on your credit card.

Many rewards enthusiasts use different cards for different purchases.

For me, thats just too much work.

It sort of feels like shopping at five different stores to save $10 on groceries.

Sign Up Before a Big Purchase

Another way to hack the system?

Take advantage of a cards sign-up bonus before a major purchase.

My husband and I signed up for the highly publicizedChase Sapphire Reserve.

With a wedding to pay for, we had no problem hitting this bonus and then some.

But that can get tricky with fees and budgeting.

This would have otherwise cost $2,000.

The same disclaimer applies: double-check youre not spending money you dont have just to earn rewards.

Plus, it was a massive pain to pick seats and stuff through Chases portal.

Some people spend more time than this opening and churning card after card to score free travel.

And they travel often and in luxury!

In the past three years, Ive only opened two cards and Ive stillsaved thousands in travel.

Opening cards candefinitely affect your credit, but maybe not in the way that you think.

Thanks to a concept called credit utilization, mycredit score actually went upafter opening these cards.

To keep your score (and your spending) intact, you want to keep your utilization low.

One final word of warning.

Mortgage companies and other lenders dont like that.