How I Got Started with Travel Hacking (and Unlocked $30,000+ in Free Travel)

Although I've shared bits and pieces of my Travel Hacking success story, I wanted to share the full story with you so that you can understand the life-changing potential of all of this. Maybe you're wondering how to get started with Travel Hacking and this will provide both motivation and inspiration for you to dive in. I'll walk you through how I got started with Travel Hacking, the mistakes I made early on, and the breakthrough moment that made it all click. If you’ve ever wondered “Is Travel Hacking legit?” or “Can I actually do this?" My story is for you.

My Backstory

I live in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania with my family (If you're a fan of The Office - We're just south of Scranton!). My wife Heather & I have been married for almost 10 years, and I'm a girl dad - Lucy is 8 and Emily just turned 6 today! I've had the privilege of leading in community development city-wide and living in the poorest communities for the past 13 years. In my full-time job, I work in the non-profit world and I've had the joy of being a part of hundreds of transformational stories with people coming out of homelessness, addiction, prostitution, gangs, prison, and more. As exciting as those stories have been, it was equally exhausting that for years my family barely made enough money to live on, and never made enough money to travel and be replenished from the compassion fatigue of our urban investment.

As I began my search for solutions many years ago, I stumbled into Travel Hacking and didn't even know it...

The First Travel Hacks I Tried

 During the time Heather and I were engaged, I signed up for a couple of the rewards credit cards I had seen advertised online. While I earned a number of points, I unfortunately cashed in those points for gift cards and cash back, and rather than using that money for travel, we ended up spending that money on household expenses, not travel.

A few years passed, and we really wanted to travel to Michigan to visit my parents. Since our family had grown, they didn't have the room for us to stay with them, and we couldn't afford to pay for a hotel. So I signed up for a hotel credit card that earned us four free nights in a hotel for Thanksgiving weekend. As great as that was, we burned through all of those hotel points in less than a week and found ourselves with nothing leftover for future trips.

It really seemed like credit card miles and points didn't really do much to solve our inability to travel, so I just reverted to using a cash back card for everything...

My Breaking Point

Over the years, desperate to find a way to travel, we suffered through time-share pitches, bait-and-switch gimmicks, off-season travel, and low-quality budget travel options... It felt like we had to beg, borrow, and barter every year just to get a vacation. While the picture above looks happy, this was the trip that broke us. Someone had offered us 10 days at a beach house in Cape May, New Jersey. We were so excited! Until, we showed up and found that the place was mold-filled and mosquito-infested. We had to spend two full days cleaning this disgusting place... That's what broke me. I remember thinking, "I really don't want my kids to grow up and remember that their dad took them on crap vacations, because we could never afford anything better from living, leading, and investing in an impoverished community."

That experience sent me on a relentless pursuit of finding a solution...

When Everything Changed

It took me a little while to find a solution, but eventually, I stumbled upon a Travel Hacking course. I was skeptical at first, especially since credit card miles & points hadn't worked well for me in the past, but I was desperate enough to give it a try. That was my breakthrough moment, because I finally understood how it all worked!

I was now confident to maximize earning points and also saw how to redeem points for maximum value. Both of those key components were missing from my prior experience. Within the first nine months after taking that course, I earned over 1.2 Million Travel Points, and I finally had a solution that would take my family from being broke, burned out, and stuck at home to actually being able to enjoy the freedom of free travel. 

I've now earned over 3,000,000 points and miles, and my family has the opportunity to take multiple trips per year and travel all of the world for free. This is something that we'll be able to do for years to come. One of the many fun things I have planned is that I've told my girls that for their 18th birthday, I will take them anywhere in the world that they want to go!

My Story Can Become Your Story! 

After mastering Travel Hacking for myself, I started personally coaching some family and friends to help them unlock the secrets of free travel as well. They repeatedly told me how incredible Travel Hacking was for them. They also encouraged me to start a business to teach more people and that's how Travel Multiplier was born. Having known first-hand what it feels like to not be able to afford to travel, I'm now really passionate about helping you experience this same life-changing opportunity!