Our Friday Family Vacation to South Korea is our latest reader success story, too. We often get asked how to travel hack Korea, so we are so happy to present Katelyn’s story to you!

My name is Katelyn. I grew up traveling from a very young age and have been to more than 26 countries. I have always loved traveling for as long as I can remember. Relocating to Hong Kong at 3 years old opened our chances to travel more as a family. Later, I moved to London during my college years which were the years I traveled Europe and now in California. Traveling always gives me inspiration for creativity and life. 

I am quite new to travel hacking, and I believe Travel Hacking Mom’s Instagram page was one of the first travel hacking accounts I came across somehow. It has helped open my eyes to better ways of traveling with kids and helping our family to be able to travel more! 

 

Flights

The very first international trip we took on points as a family of 4 was to the island of Jeju in South Korea, also known as the Hawaii of South Korea. We had opened the Chase Sapphire Reserve, Chase Freedom, and the Capital One Venture Card in a year’s time.

 

 

We transferred points from Chase Ultimate Rewards, which covered our flights on United (a partner of Asiana Airlines) for our flights. We used about 380,000 points for the 4 of us to fly from SFO to ICN airport, and from ICN we transferred to the domestic airport in Gimpo to get to Jeju Island. Our domestic flight was only an hour-long flight, so we paid out of pocket which wasn’t much. 

 

Lodging

We used our Capital One Venture Miles for our stay at an Airbnb (some of it). Since we were there to visit my family and stay for a good 2 months, we wanted a place that would be spacious enough for our kids to roam and feel comfortable staying for a longer period of time. 

 

 

My daughter loved the Airbnb so much, and there were 3 floors, a beautiful open kitchen, a large living room, a loft where the kids could play, and an outdoor mini-pool.

 

 

We were also only 5 mins away from the beach, which made it so convenient and fun for my toddler. We went almost every other day! There were so many amazing places for our kids to explore, and we are immensely grateful for having been able to really explore and live as locals on the island. 

 

 

Bottom Line

We are slowly learning more about travel hacking and accumulating points to help make our travel goals into reality. Thanks to that, we have a month-long trip to France that we will be taking in the summer using points and miles. We are grateful for all the amazing content and help that you give us to take travel hacking to another level.

Thanks, Katelyn, for sharing your trip with us on our Friday Family Vacation to South Korea! We love that you made this trip happen with only a few credit card sign-ups!