She's saved $80,000+ in travel with rewards points and miles -- here's her best advice
Get this world traveler's exact process for researching and booking rewards flights to get the best deal
Hi there, my friend.
A random travel coincidence led me to introduce myself to Janice Kho.
It started with this post…
I didn’t know her, but it turns out I had been in and around Yellowstone at the same time with my family, and the weather was bananas. On Sunday, June 22, my son and I did an obstacle-course race in Bozeman, MT — just up the road from Yellowstone — and it snowed in the middle of the day. The day before, it had been in the 60s. A few days later, when I was in Yellowstone with my wife, son and father-in-law, it was in the 80s, downright warm and sunny.
Of course, I knew it would be cooler in Yellowstone than back home in Austin, Texas, but we weren’t quite ready for the weather whiplash that we faced.
Janice’s post about this meteorological madness caught my eye, as did her stunning photos of the park. It is hard to do justice to the spectacular beauty that is Yellowstone, but her pictures did an amazing job.
After checking out a few more of her posts and learning from her bio about her passion for rewards travel, I asked if she’d be willing to share with “Ask, Save, Earn” readers some of the wisdom she’d gained from her travel experiences.
She was nice enough to say yes. Here’s our email conversation (edited lightly)…
MS: First, can you tell me a little about yourself and your Substack?
JK: I’ve been working as a pharmacist in Australia for over a decade, but I recently had the opportunity to live abroad in the U.S. as an expat for two years.
Travel and photography are big passions of mine. I was fortunate to hop on an airplane when I turned two to travel overseas with my family, and since I started working, I’ve prioritized traveling and exploring the world. So far, I’ve had the privilege of traveling to and photographing 28 countries.
During our time abroad in the U.S., we made traveling around North America and Europe a top priority. We pretty much traveled somewhere new once a month -– sometimes even twice a month! -– to make the most of our time away from Australia.
I’ve also always been a huge fan of collecting points and miles and using them to book award flights and hotel stays, including some very luxurious flights that I would never dream of paying cash for, such as Emirates First, Qantas First and British Airways Business Suites. Points and miles have been the fuel for a lot of our travel. In the U.S., the points and miles game is even better than it is in Australia. Despite not being a citizen, there were just so many great credit cards and opportunities to earn points on the ground.In two years, we used around 1.6 million points to make 25 flight and hotel-award redemptions. I estimate it saved us around $81,000+ in cash for two.
I’ve been taking photos for the last two decades, both for myself and clients, but my true passion in photography lies in travel and nature photography. Seeing the world through the lens of a camera has helped me slow down and appreciate the destination more.
I love walking around with a camera in hand when exploring cities, national parks and everything in between.
Taking photos to remember our travels and experiences with loved ones is such a great way to experience joy — and you don’t even need to spend a lot on cameras these days to take great photos. I can almost guarantee the camera in your pocket will do you just fine if you know the basics of photography and how to use the great in-built features in your phone’s camera.
I believe that creating memorable travel experiences is a smart use of our time and money and creates so much joy in our lives.
That’s why I created my Substack, Travelling Lens Insider. It covers travel, photography and optimizing points & miles to travel more without breaking the bank so you can create more memories with those you love — and take great photos along the way that you can look back and enjoy for the rest of your life.
MS: My Substack and my book are about helping people pay less, earn more and keep more of their hard-earned money by asking the right questions in various everyday situations. There’s no doubt that travel is one area of life in which speaking up and advocating for yourself can make a big difference, especially financially. Have you seen that in your own travels? Do you have an example or two of when you’ve helped yourself simply because you were willing to ask?
JK: Absolutely! A very relevant example is asking for compensation when flights are canceled or delayed.
This happened plenty of times during the last few years when we were traveling domestically in the US or abroad to Europe. Sometimes airlines will automatically give you food vouchers or a small travel credit for delays or inconveniences, but often you have to ask in order to get proper compensation. When we’ve asked, we’ve received airline credit, bonus points, hotel stays or straight-out cash.
For example, when we booked to fly British Airways from New York to London last July, our flights were canceled and we were rebooked on an American Airlines flight departing more than 24 hours later. Due to the U.K.’s aviation compensation laws, we were able to submit a claim for our food expenses, an additional night’s stay in New York — and as everyone knows, hotel stays in New York aren’t cheap! — and compensation for the cancellation and rebooking. In all, we were compensated almost US$2,000 just because we took the extra time to make the ask and submit some online forms.
(Editor’s note: I’ve gotten extra compensation from airlines, too, after being inconvenienced. Here’s my story.)
MS: What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made or you see people make when it comes to the intersection of travel and their money? What can people do to avoid making the same mistake?
JK: I think there are two big mistakes that people can easily make when it comes to money and travel.
Getting into debt because they want to travel rather than strategically making a plan to save up for their travel.
Getting credit cards when they haven’t mastered the basics of budgeting and cash flow, and then accidentally getting into credit card debt. That debt comes with exorbitantly high interest rates that can outweigh any travel benefits that you might get from the card.
The easiest way to avoid these two mistakes is by getting the basics of money right. That means knowing how much money comes in, what your fixed expenses are and how much money you have left to dedicate towards saving goals (like, for example, a two-week trip to Japan) and investing money for the long term.
And, of course, spending less than you earn!
MS: What’s the biggest misconception people have about travel and money?
JK: That travel is only for the rich, and that you need a lot of money to travel.
Being rich does make traveling easier – it makes almost everything easier, really! – but travel is actually really accessible to many people with some careful organization and planning, intentional savings and knowing how to optimize for points and miles so you can travel for cheap.If someone is really savvy with the points-and-miles game, they can even fly in style or stay in comfort for very little. I recently flew first class on Qantas from Los Angeles to Sydney, and I did not pay US$14,471 for that ticket. Instead, I used points and paid US$180.40 in taxes for that very comfortable bed in the sky and restaurant-quality food.
Google Flights, Points Path and Points Yeah are my top tools I use to search for flights and award travel, but you can read about my exact 4-step process for researching and booking flights here if you’re interested on the full breakdown.
The key to finding flights on points or miles is being flexible with your travel dates, destination or departure airports. You’ll be surprised at what seats are open to you with a bit more flexibility. Ultimately, the more flexible you are, the more likely you’ll score a valuable deal.
I do all my life and travel planning and organization in Notion to make the process easy and stress-free. Also, I keep track of my money closely so I’m always spending less than I earn, and automatically set aside funds for travel with every paycheck so money is available for my next trip, whenever that happens to be.
MS: Are you naturally comfortable negotiating with people and asking for breaks? For example, have you ever called a business and asked them to lower your cable bill, waive a late fee or something along those lines? If you have, I’d love to hear a success story from you. If you haven’t, why not?
JK: No, definitely not [naturally comfortable with negotiating], but, over the years, I had to practice the skill of negotiating and asking for what I want in both work and life. These days, it doesn’t feel as uncomfortable to call up a bank to waive a late fee or ask for a lower credit card annual fee. It’s all about practice.
And the best kind of practice is simply just getting out there and asking the question. The worst they can say is no.
I recently called American Express when my credit card’s annual fee was due.
I asked if they had any retention offers and was immediately transferred to the customer-retention agent to continue the discussion. I explained I didn’t feel like I was getting value out of the card and credits for the annual fee I was paying for the card. (You can see exactly how my conversation went, including the exact script I used if you want to steal it for your next negotiation!)
At the end, I accepted a decent offer where I would get 25,000 AmEx points if I spent $2,500 over three months for a card that had a $325 annual fee with excellent dining and grocery earning rates.
This spend was easily met with my regular expenses, and I easily valued those points at a minimum of $250, which made keeping the card worthwhile.
MS: Is there anything around the power of asking questions, travel and money that I haven’t asked that you’d like to add -- or anything you’d like to emphasize?
JK: Traveling more often or in more comfort doesn’t have to be unreachable. Knowing how much money is coming in and flowing out is where someone should start if they’re feeling overwhelmed with their finances. Then, once you have a good idea of this, there are actually many levers you can pull in your life to help you spend more on travel.
One lever is optimizing for earning points and miles through credit cards, shopping portals and other promotions, and then strategically redeeming for hotels and flights to save money on travel.
Whether a redemption is valuable is in the eye of the beholder, but in general, you’re not going to get good value out of your hard-earned points if you redeem them for gift cards or merchandise, compared to redeeming them for flights.
Another simple lever is putting aside money into a travel fund with each paycheck so you get into a habit of saving for things you care about, In turn, that means cutting down on things that don’t matter as much to you.
At the end of the day, asking yourself what you truly value in your life will help you make better money decisions. This helps you funnel money towards things that matter, whether it be travelling, eating out, working less etc.
And if you’re interested in creating memorable travel experiences, capturing better travel photos and using points and miles to save money and experience more travel, follow me on Substack at @janicekho and subscribe to my newsletter, Travelling Lens Insider.
Share your best travel stories!
Who doesn’t enjoy a good travel story? I’d love to hear yours. Leave them in the comments below.
Until next time!
Matt
Great post. I personally am at 12+million points earned, and approximately 10+million of those used, for $100s of thousands saved. I get it.