Welcome
How & Why I Got Started with Points
I'm so glad you're here to learn more about miles and points.
"This is my favorite hobby because it has allowed my family to experience travel and the world in a way that our budget would not otherwise allow."
How This All Began
I (Katie) came to miles and points out of necessity: I wanted to travel, but I didn't have the money to do it as much as I wanted to. I was pretty good at finding deals and ways to stretch my dollars.
In my 20s, I worked in the non-profit sector for a small community resource center that served at-risk kids and their families. The work was incredibly rewarding in many ways – but just not financially. At that time, most of my travel involved hostels and finding the best deals I could. Being on a budget often leads to creative thinking — when I went to Mt. Sinai in Egypt, I stayed at a monastery guest house.
When I met my now-husband Micah, I found a frugal soulmate who also loved to travel. In 2011, Micah and I got married. A few months after that I saw a tiny blurb in the Travel section of the Chicago Tribune about a 100,000 point bonus offer on a British Airways credit card. That seemed too good to pass up, so we jumped on it.
That led me down a rabbit trail as I quickly realized that those points were not great to actually travel to England (due to high fuel surcharges they tack on) but had some other interesting uses. After reading blogs and FlyerTalk forums, we were able to use our points for a trip to Jamaica and a few trips to New Orleans. I'd discovered a whole treasure trove of other miles and points information and eagerly dove in. Travel more just for opening a few credit cards? That sounded like my kind of deal!
Our First Big Redemption
I set a goal of covering flights for a trip to South East Asia and started saving up points. When our daughter was born, we used FMLA leave to take a 5 week trip to the Philippines (where my husband had grown up) and Thailand and paid for our tickets with United miles.
We were hooked. I kept reading and learning. We ramped up our earning even more as we prepared to adopt our son from the Philippines. That's when I really kicked it into high gear and never really looked back. We set a goal to pay for all our adoption travel with points — and we did! And then just kept earning and redeeming in high gear.
Why I Started Katie's Travel Tricks
By then, friends and family were starting to ask us what was going on. I was a stay at home mom and Micah was a nurse. But we were taking all-inclusive vacations and traveling as often as once a month. I started sending long emails about points to explain what we were doing.
At the same time, while I was learning from FlyerTalk, Reddit, and points blogs, I didn't really see information that was centered on my style of travel — what I now call "Points for Normal People." There were a lot of dudes flying "bucket list" first class flights or going on about elite status. That wasn't what I cared about – I just wanted to stretch our family's travel budget. I went to a points conference and while I enjoyed the experience, I didn't see a lot of people like me.
In January 2018, I decided to create a website – Katie's Travel Tricks – to try to fill this gap, to help more people learn to travel with miles and points. I realized that the points world was missing the voice and expertise of moms and "normal people" who wanted to learn about the best ways to use points for a wide range of travel. I didn't know exactly what it would become, but I at least wanted a resource to point friends and family to when they had questions.
In August 2019, our family headed out on a 9 month trip, and after dozens of people asking me if I'd be sharing our journey on Instagram, I signed up for that, too. With steadily adding resources and learning how to create content to better teach, my business began to grow more and more.
Katie's Travel Tricks has now grown beyond anything I had imagined — now I have not just the blog and Instagram, but also a podcast, a YouTube channel, a weekly newsletter, and a Facebook group.
What I get most excited about is seeing more people start to learn how to leverage points to travel more — and to feel empowered and encouraged to do that for any kind of travel that appeals to them. When I was starting out I didn't have any other friends to talk about miles and points with – now we have a whole community of women and men who are doing this and learning together so they can explore the world with their families and friends.
Thank You for Being Here and Welcome!
