I listen to most of the travel hacking podcasts out there. Give me a good podcast about using credit card points to travel and I’ll listen to it. I usually learn something. At the minimum, I feel like I’m just visiting with good friends.
While listening to a recent favorite of mine, a relatively new podcast where the host often interviews folks who are new to the travel hacking world, she invites them to share their journey, and how they’re moving forward in the points and miles world. This is not the only one of those kinds of podcasts I’ve listened to but I really enjoy those episodes. To me these are way more relatable than episodes where the hosts, who have maybe been doing this for a really long time or only shoot for the high aspirational trips, basically ramble on about things that are out of my reach or really even my want.
Something I’ve noticed in almost all of the episodes where the interviewee is relatively new in the points and miles world is that they most almost always all apologize for early moves that they made in this hobby. Be it cards that they have gotten, redemptions that they have made, basically their early choices. You can hear in the voices almost a sense of shame or guilt.
I think this needs to stop. We all need to be happy with the travel wins we’ve made and the amazing sites we’ve seen.
Regardless of how you get started in the points and miles world, travel hacking world, traveling on a budget world, whatever you want to call it, the choices that you made and the travel that you were able to have on points was travel!
You did something. You earned some points, you redeemed the points and you got free travel.
I have never felt ashamed or guilty about the travel that I booked for with points in the past. Others may think it’s not a good redemption, that I didn’t start with transferable points, that I booked through a portal, that I use points for a statement credit, whatever I might have done, and I’ve done it all. But at the end of the day me and mine ended up with wonderful travel experiences that were not possible inside of our budget without the use of points and miles. I wouldn’t trade those travel experiences for anything.
I fully understand that travel points are another currency just like money and there ways to make the best use of this currency. Ask those who utilize points and miles for travel, the more you learn the more you are able to take advantage of this.
More what I’m talking about is when I hear those who feel shameful or embarrassed to talk about earnings and redemptions that they did as they were starting out in this hobby. So what if their first card was a Delta SkyMiles card and they put everything on that card for 3 years. Then they took all those points and they took themselves and a partner to Europe, as an example. There should be no shame or embarrassment in that. They were able to use those miles on Delta and they took a great trip. So what if they didn’t spend hours and hours searching for the perfect sweet spot and jumping through hoops, but booked a great trip on United and hotels with Choice. More often than not what this excited in them was the knowledge and ability to use miles to travel and to extend their travel budget. It wet their whistle, and they were off to the races.
We all started somewhere and as with any skill or knowledge base, you only learn and grow as you continue to practice. We should all celebrate whatever wins we all get in this points hobby and never feel embarrassment or shame ourselves or make others feel embarrassed or shamed either.
Happy travels memories making to everyone.
Another thing not to be embarrassed about is learning a new skill. I’m slowly learning how to make YouTube videos, emphasis on slowly. Here’s my channel. https://www.youtube.com/@TravelswithLlama
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