The latest reader success story is to the Dominican Republic and comes from Kate. She was a newbie in 2021 and didn’t have the greatest credit score but still managed a free trip! Here is her story:

Hi Pam! My name is Kate and I am so excited to share my VERY FIRST travel hacking success story! I haven’t been following you long, but I started listening to your tips and tricks from the get go.

Since I started following you back in December 2021, I started learning your tips and tricks pretty quickly. But my first thought was “There is no way we can do this. Our credit scores aren’t even good enough to even get a credit card with good point rewards”. My husband and I dont have the best credit scores, they are around 670-690 range. So here we are, longing for a vacation away from our toddler (other mommas will get it!) but no way of getting to that point. So I started following Travel Hacking Mom and wow, what an amazing and informative account to follow!!

We got the Capital One Venture X Credit Card when the reward bonus was 60k miles after spending a certain amount. We switched over all our bills to the card and were able to collect 88k points in just 6 months! Since then we have officially booked our VERY FIRST travel hacking trip!

So where are we going? To the DOMINICAN REPUBLIC! We were able to find a hotel for 43k points for 5 nights. This resort is in Punta Cana and is all inclusive. We had some leftover points that we then used on our flights. We had about $450 of Southwest credit that we needed to use so we used our credit with Southwest, then paid about $350 for the remaining amount. We paid that amount on our credit card, and then erased it from our bill making it A FREE TRIP TO THE DR! I mean WHAT?!? Am I dreaming?

I am so thankful for Travel Hacking Mom, they have given me something so amazing. And while this may be my first trip, we are looking forward to many more in the future. My husband and I have been wanting to take a trip just the two of us since our son was born in May 2020.  2020-2022 have been such difficult years for so many of us. We haven’t been able to take any time to ourselves since my son was born. Wherever we go, our son goes. But we are excited to finally have an adult trip after so long!

I also want to tell those of you who think it may be impossible because of your credit score, or because of your debt or thinking it will be expensive. It’s not! You can do it! We did it with such low credit scores starting out and now, our credit scores are so much better because we responsibly used the cards AND got a free trip out of it! If we can do it, YOU CAN TOO!