Giving Gifts that Give You Travel Rewards!

Throughout the year, we all give a wide variety of gifts. Whether it's Christmas, birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, baby showers, office parties, and more, we spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on gifts for family and friends in a given year. Since Travel Hacking is simply leveraging everyday expenses for free travel, below you will find simple strategies that can leverage that gift-giving to give you travel rewards along the way.

Strategically Applying for a New Card in the Holiday Season

You can receive large welcome bonuses of travel rewards on a new credit card by spending a certain amount of money in the first 3-6 months of having that card. For instance, I'm currently writing this from a hotel lounge in my hometown. My wife signed up for a new hotel credit card a few months ago that offered us four free nights of a hotel suite if she spent $2,000 on that card in the first three months. So thanks to that, we're staying in a suite with our kids that is right down the road from where my parents live as we visit for Christmas.

My example above is a very low spending threshold for a credit card welcome bonus. Pretty much anyone could spend $675 per month on a credit card. But what about higher spending thresholds? This is where strategically applying for a new card heading into the Christmas gift-giving season can be a big boost. If you know that you'll be spending more money than usual to buy gifts for Christmas, sign up for a new card with a higher spending threshold that you could meet. Depending on the specific card, that could be spending $4,000-$10,000 in the first three months of the card for a large welcome bonus. If you want to dive a little deeper into this, check out this article I wrote last Summer: The Core Structure of Travel Credit Cards

The biggest thing with this is that you must be confident that you can spend the minimum spending threshold in the defined window of time. Never miss a welcome bonus by overestimating your spending and missing the spending threshold. That's one of the biggest Travel Hacking mistakes to avoid!

Give & Use Gift Cards

While many people needlessly settle for 1-3% cash back on their purchases, you can each so much more than that in free travel! Depending on the travel card(s) that you have, you should look at the category bonuses that are offered and buy gift cards through those retailers. (Grocery Stores, Drug Stores, Online Sellers, etc) You can then give those gift cards to others or you could buy those gift cards to use for your gift purchases.

For instance, credit purchases on Amazon will not get you more than 1.5% on almost any travel credit card. Rather than doing that, I can buy Amazon Gift Cards in many places where the category bonus gets me significantly more in travel rewards, then use those Amazon gift cards for my Amazon shopping. Quick caveat based on an objection you might be thinking - As someone who used to use the Amazon Prime Card for 5% Cash Back, I can make a very strong mathematical case for Travel Rewards > Cash Back.

As you think through this, let me illustrate this for you. One of my course students learned how to get 10% back on spending at his grocery store, so rather than buying gifts for people, he bought store gift cards for family, friends, and co-workers earning enough for free flights or hotel stays this Christmas season. He also has begun buying gift cards to stores that he & his wife shop at rather than paying for those purchases with cash or debit cards. That is also earning him 10% back on that spending.

One Thing NOT to Do

Don't excessively buy gift cards in one purchase. One friend adopted this strategy and wanted to go spend thousands of dollars on gift cards in a day to stock up for months to come. It is not recommended to spend more than $1,000 per transaction on gift cards, because retailers and/or credit card companies typically have policies restricting that.

A Simple, Yet Powerful Shift

This one easy shift can earn you hundreds or thousands of dollars in free travel. So think about how you can leverage this strategy with last-minute Christmas shopping, the next bridal or baby shower you attend, upcoming birthdays & anniversaries, and graduation & office parties!