Our most comprehensive (and totally free!) online course—

Unlocking the Power of Points

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What You'll Learn

You want to cut your travel costs with credit card points, but you…

  • aren't sure where to start.
  • have very little free time.
  • have a partner who isn't on board.
  • are overwhelmed by all the offers.
  • don't want to mess up your credit score.

Hey, I'm Katie, and I felt many of those things when I started dipping my toe in the travel points water in the early 2010s (you know, way back when the term "selfie" started taking off).

At the time, we were a single-income home with a growing family, and I was determined to make travel happen on our limited budget. Now, a decade later, we've traveled all over the world, creating unforgettable memories with our kids. I created this free course to help you do the same.

. . . I tried to understand the process on my own by reading posts and stories—there was too much to learn. After taking Katie's course, I feel so confident [using] her step-by-step instructions and recommendations of apps and websites to keep me organized along the way. We are ready to start traveling! Thank you, Katie!

Amanda

Wait, if this course is so good, why is it free?

Everything we offer on this site, our podcast, and our social channels (including this comprehensive course!) are absolutely free to you. That might make you skeptical about hidden motives, upsells, or crappy content. So, let me explain how we fund our work. When you use our links to apply for credit cards (instead of searching for the offer directly), we earn a commission. But this is important—we only share the best offers, even if we don't make a dime. Things tend to balance out in the end! So as long as you keep voluntarily using our links when it makes good sense for you, we'll keep producing the best travel point content on the internet (if we do say so ourselves!).

Can't wait another second? Dive in right now!

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Walk in curious.

Walk out a master.

When you complete the course, you will know how to:

Earn points.

I'll show you the easiest ways to collect points—starting with credit card sign-up bonuses and everyday spending. You'll set your travel goals and figure out how to quickly rack up the points you need for your next trip.

Save points.

You'll learn how to stockpile points (if that sounds appealing to you!) so you're always ready when a trip pops up. Plus, I'll share simple tools and tricks to help you stay organized and keep track of your cards, bonuses, and rewards.

Use points.

This isn't about splurging on luxury flights. Instead, I'll teach you how to stretch your points to cover more flights, hotels, and rentals, making the most of every point for practical, real-world travel that works for you.

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Browse Course Modules

If you're interested in learning how to travel for nearly free, you're in the right place. Katie will teach you everything you need to know to get started in travel hacking-from earning your first credit card bonus, maximizing your miles/points, how to stay at beautiful hotels without spending a fortune and so much more. Using Katie's lessons, our family of four saved over $5000 for our flights to Europe. We're already planning our next trip and now I'm confident in saving more money on our family vacations.

Jo

It's like I'm downloading the travel-points

portion of my brain directly into yours.

Truth be told, there's a learning curve when it comes to this stuff. If you're game to get specific, I'll teach you everything. Just browse through the modules to see exactly what we'll cover. (It's a lot, yes, but I promise: bite-size portions, straightforward information, and fun along the way!)

The full course has 15 modules! Here's a sample of the first 4!

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Sound like more than you can commit to right now? No worries, start with my Travel Points 101 guide instead!

Meet your teacher… me, Katie!

When I met my now-husband Micah, I found a frugal soulmate who loved to travel as much as I did. Thanks to some wild circumstances, our second date ended up being a five-day trip to Philadelphia and New York. By our third, he flew me to Germany, where his parents were living at the time, and we spent two weeks exploring Germany, Switzerland, and France. His Navy savings made it possible, but that trip cemented our shared love for travel and our determination to keep exploring, even with a limited budget.

I quickly got the hang of using travel points, spending hours on popular sites and forums to learn the ropes. But honestly, most of the advice was coming from dudes checking off bucket-list, first-class flights—not families like ours. I had to figure out my own system. As we kept traveling on all-inclusive vacations, my friends and family started asking how we were doing it, especially since I was a stay-at-home mom and Micah was a nurse. I wanted a place to point them, so in 2018, I started Katie's Travel Tricks to help other families learn how to use points for their own adventures. What began as a way to answer questions from my small circle has grown into a community of travelers discovering how to take multiple vacations a year on average budgets!

You might still be wondering…

It's completely free! I get it—free might make you skeptical, but let me explain. This course, along with everything else on the site, is funded through affiliate links. When you apply for a credit card using one of my links, I earn a commission. But here's the thing—I only share the best offers, even when I don't make a dime. It all balances out in the end, so as long as you're using the links when it's right for you, I can keep producing top-notch content at no cost to you.

You can go at your own pace, but if you want to get through it quickly, you could probably finish in a weekend. Some people like to take it slow and really dig in, while others breeze through and revisit certain sections later when they're ready to dive deeper. It's flexible, so you can make it work with your schedule!

Absolutely! You can go in and out of modules as you need them. I wrote and recorded the course in an order that made sense to me. But you can go in any order that works for you.

The course was first published in January 2023. In August 2025, we went through every lesson to make sure it was still up to date. Every year we have added more information to keep it as up to date as possible. While offers change and some program details change, most of the general concepts are pretty stable when it comes to earning and redeeming points. My goal in the course is to teach you an overview so you can apply it to your specific situation and trips. We don't include specific flight redemption details in the course, for instance, because those change too frequently! We keep those on our website instead and do our best to keep them up to date.

Nope! My take is that you should be earning while you're learning. You'll know within the first couple of modules where to begin—and you should start there! Don't wait until you know everything. Trust me, I've been at this for years, and most people say, "I wish I would've started sooner."

Yes! If this feels a bit overwhelming, I've got you covered with my Travel Points 101 guide. It's super simple; you can get through it in an afternoon. It'll give you a great lay of the land so you can confidently jump in with your first card.

Have another question? Reach out.

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Katie's course is not only beginner-friendly, but it also gives insight to people who have been doing it for years. She provides all scenarios one could come across, all the resources and tools to help you stay organized and maximize your miles in points to the fullest. I enjoyed the fact that because we are budget-friendly, and did not fly business class or stay at luxury hotels all the time like most content creators. . .

Jasmin