Travel, Drive, and Stay for FREE

Several years ago, my daughter-in-law told me that she and my son were going to Europe and it was all FREE except for the food. I got curious. I asked a few questions. I started on the road to FREEdom myself.

Her process is simple. First of all, both she and her husband joined frequest flyer programs for a number of the major airlines. Both she and her husband then applied for frequest flyer reward credit cards from each of a number of airlines. Northwest, Delta, United, American, Continental and others are available.

She only applied for the cards that had no annual fee for the first year. She got the cards, used them the minimum that was required, and after 4 to 6 months... she canceled them. She always paid the balances in full each month so there would not be any interest charges.

During the time she was either not using the cards or had canceled them... she did the same with hotel rewards cards. Marriott, Holiday Inn, SPG, Hilton-Honors etc. After the cards had been cancelled for 6 months, she again applied through the airlines' (and later the hotels') websites for new cards with new bonuses.

The cards were approved and their frequest flyer accounts were credited with the points. She always followed the instructions and restrictions that the airlines, and credit card companies had listed and left the decision as to whether her applications would be accepted to the credit card companies.

(It should be noted that she closely followed her credit score and credit rating while she was doing this and it never suffered.)

Since I have started doing this I and my husband have taken 2 free trips to the far east and 1 trip to hawaii. And I currently have over 80,000 miles on NWA (my husband has 70,500) 63,000 miles on American Airlines (husband - 46,500) and the same level of points on United and Continental. In addition we have over 86,000 combined points with Marriott and about 30,000 points with Starwood.

Again, all of this is legal and actually it is an expression of the generosity that the airlines have shown in the past. (even if they do charge a few fees now... it is still a great deal.)