My Story

Hi, my name is Yehuda.

This is the beginning of a guide to traveling the world for free. I’m going to share my knowledge and experiences in the credit card/airline rewards industry with you – hopefully, in an organized and easy-to-follow fashion. Realize now, though, that this is not a quick-free-flight scheme. This takes time. A lot of it.

There are many blogs and forums out there where you can really learn all the nitty gritty details of the industry. I learned all I know from a forum called DansDeals [DDF]. The knowledge base of information there is extremely vast, seemingly endless. I can only share with you what I know, that which I’ve learned from the members there. On DDF and all the other forums, you’ll find people who are much more expert on these topics than I am, but in my short history in the credit card world, I’ve learned a ton and want to share it. I'll be the first to admit I am far from an expert, and therefore, I hope you will comment on my posts so I can revise them to present accurate information.

Here’s my story. I opened up my first credit card when I was 18 at my local bank with my mom as a co-signer. I’m not even sure if that card had any rewards program associated with it, but I definitely did not care back then. When I was 20, I opened up a card that gave me something like 50,000 American Airlines [AA] miles as a signup bonus.  (For the true beginners out there, reward credit cards offer big bonuses like that for opening up a card and spending a certain amount of money within a certain amount of time. I like to refer to that as the spending threshold.) Soon after that, I opened up a GAP card to get rewards at their stores, including Banana Republic, which I happen to frequent ;) . I opened up a Target card to get the 5% discount on every purchase and free shipping on online purchases. I opened up a cash back card [AMEX Blue Cash] because I was told it was the card I should use for daily purchases (I now never use that card). And then this past summer I opened up a Southwest [SWA] credit card to get 50,000 signup miles once I realized SWA had the best flights from NYC-DEN (hope I don't need to spell those out for you), which is where my now-wife lived during the summer. But I don’t really count those cards as part of my history in the credit card rewards industry. I got those cards without knowing anything about credit other than, “Open your first card when you hit 18” and knowing one benefit that I wanted from each of those card.

In September, that all changed. I had heard about DDF, but never looked into it until I had some time in my schedule. I spent 2 weeks reading the DDF topics and threads. 2 intense weeks of sticking my newbie face into a pool of gurus attempting to glean knowledge without getting in their way. Forums like these have rules to follow to stop the noobs from making the place a Q & A mess. Rule 1 is read, read, read. After reading the forums, threads, and posts for 2 weeks, I saw how conversations took place in that environment, what information was already provided by others, and the appropriate manner to ask questions that will elicit responses from those who knew more than me. If you’re interested in scouring the forums yourself (go for it!), be prepared with one thing: humility. Don’t go in expecting people to help you. Build knowledge from reading through what you can yourself and trust and respect from posting in a friendly manner with relevant comments and questions. Now, the knowledge in there is incredible and overwhelming, but honestly, it could probably be arranged in a more organized fashion. Hence, my humble attempt at putting a more structured medium together. I will be the first to tell you I know a fraction of what the experts know, so if I ever write something you disagree with, please comment and let me know! I plan to update my posts as often as people keep adding valuable ideas to them.

In the 2 months following my real discovery of DDF, I opened 13 credit cards (SP, SWA Biz, Hyatt, Marriott, UMPE, BA [now closed],SPG, SPG Biz, PRG, Delta, AA, AA Biz, LH [I also have IHG which I opened a little while afterwards]), 5 more for wife (Freedom, Hyatt, SPG, LH, AA), spent over $40,000 on them hitting the spending thresholds (without actually spending "real" money – we'll get to that) to collect the big mileage/point bonuses that awaited me. We have both flown for free to her parents in Denver 3 times and still have 30K SWA points. We're now planning our honeymoon travelling through Europe, not backpacking, but lying down in business class.

One more thing. Get the "cc's kills your credit" myth out of your head. I'm still happily sitting at 745+.

This will take time, but I'd love if you'd come along for the ride.