Credit Card LifeHack: How to travel anywhere for FREE with just a few minutes of work

What's up you guys, it's Graham here. So, one of the things I've been doing for fun on the side is racking up credit card points. Over the last few years, I basically have been able to fly to Canada to visit family entirely for free, just by opening up a credit card. I also have enough points at this point to basically fly anywhere in the world round trip for completely free and stay in world-class resorts for entirely free, again just by opening up credit cards and taking advantage of credit card rewards signup bonuses.

And the best part about all of this is that it took just a few minutes to do, and here's how you can do it as well. So, one of the things that most people don't know is you can actually profit quite a bit off credit card signup bonuses. And let's face it, credit cards really make their money from people who get a card, charge a lot of money on it, don't pay it off, make the minimum payments, and they end up paying like twenty, thirty percent interest on a credit card.

First up, chances are they don't really need the interest rates that credit card companies charge; it's just astronomical. It's through the roof, and people lose a ton of money each and every year by holding a balance on their credit card, not paying it off, and being charged an insane amount of interest on it.

So, let me share this little tip with you guys. But to lure customers in, credit cards will offer what's called a sign-up bonus, which means that if you spend a certain amount on your card within a certain time frame, they will give you points, or they will give you free travel, free airfare, sometimes cashback. They do these things expecting that they give you a little amount and instead you charge up your card; you pay an insane amount of interest on it, and they end up profiting off that.

So, they might give you like a few perks, but in exchange for that, you end up paying thousands in interest over the lifetime of the card, and that's how they make their money. But you're smarter than that, and you're not going to do that. And here's how: all you're gonna do is just hit the minimum spend, pay it off in full, rack up the points, and then that's it. It's pretty simple if you understand this concept and you don't fall victim to it. It's actually possible to profit quite a bit and get a ton of free stuff with just really a few minutes of your time.

And, by the way, this is something not for beginners, and it's not for people who have just recently got their first credit card and are trying to build their credit. This is something that's a more advanced technique where if you've already had a few credit cards going and you already have some history, then you might be able to apply this. But this is definitely not for someone just starting out or a beginner when it comes to credit cards.

So, instead, if you're just starting out and you just started to build your credit, learn from this video; take with it whatever you want and learn what you can do in the future when you've already established some credit history.

So now I'm going to be showing some examples with you guys of what I've done, and I feel like this is one of those credit card commercials where they're like, "So, what's in your wallet?" But I'm gonna be showing you guys what's in my wallet and what I've done.

What's in your wallet? So let's start out here with the American Express Gold Rewards Card. This is actually the first card I got for the points. There's an offer floating around online right now that you have to search for, and when you search for these offers, by the way, go incognito mode because that's how you get a lot of these things.

There's an offer right now for 50,000 points for the American Express Gold Card, and to get that, you spend $2,000 on this card in the first three months. Now, it's very important to note that you just don't go out there and spend like an extra two thousand dollars on stuff you don't need. Do not do that! Only do this if you're gonna be spending $2,000 anyway, and all it means is you put it on this card instead of paying with like a debit card or another credit card.

If you go out and you spend $2,000 on stuff you don't need, it's not worth the fifty thousand points, so just please keep that in mind: only do this if you're gonna be spending the money anyway and just put it on this card instead.

So now, let's flash forward and say you've got the card; you spent your two thousand dollars in the first three months. AMEX is going to deposit fifty thousand points into your account. Now, for me, I can transfer that to an airline, which for me I use Air Canada a lot because I have family in Canada, and I go back and forth to visit them. To me, fifty thousand points is worth two round-trip airfare tickets to Toronto and back for entirely free. Each way going there is twelve thousand five hundred points with Air Canada.

So to me, each round-trip ticket costs anywhere between four and five hundred dollars. That means that 50,000 points is worth between 900 and $1,000 in airfare, which I got for entirely free just by signing up for this credit card.

Then, on top of that, you also get with this card a hundred dollar airline credit, which you can use towards incidentals such as like Wi-Fi, food, baggage, all that sort of stuff. So that's worth another $100. So basically, this card for me the first year is worth 1000 to 1100 dollars just by signing up for this credit card, which takes a few minutes just by spending the two thousand dollars in the first three months, which I would have done anyway.

And there you go, you make a thousand to $1,100 right there. That also doesn't include the purchase protection that you get with this; it also includes like theft protection where if you buy something on this card and it gets stolen in the first 90 days, they cover it for you up to ten thousand dollars.

So there are a ton of benefits by doing this as long as you're responsible and as long as you can control your spending and not just be like, "Hey, I got a credit card; let me start like charging stuff I don't need." As long as you could avoid doing that, this is phenomenal.

So now let's go back into the wallet of Graham Stephan and see what else I can pull out. Oh, what's this? We have an American Express Platinum Card. So this is another card where I figured, "Listen, I'm going to be spending at least $5,000 on random stuff on my renovation."

So what I get with this is 60,000 points when you spend five thousand dollars in the first three months. And again, I was gonna be doing this anyway. And by the way, this card is metal, which is like pretty cool. It's pretty, it's a pretty cool looking credit card.

So anyway, I was gonna be spending the five thousand in the first three months anyway, so I figured I may as well sign up for this card, get sixty thousand points. And with that, they also include a two hundred dollar airline credit and $15 a month off Uber, but the downsides of this card, it costs five hundred and fifty dollars a year charged up front. They do not waive it for the first year, so already off the bat, down 550 bucks.

But once they deposit 60,000 points into my account, like I said with the American Express Gold, that to me with Air Canada airline, which is also sometimes United, that's worth nine hundred to a thousand dollars right there for free.

Plus, not only that, I get an extra ten thousand points left over that I can use towards anything else where I could save it up for another airline ticket. So even when you take into account the five hundred and fifty dollars that I had to spend for this, with these sixty thousand points, the two hundred dollar airline credit, and $15 a month in Uber, I can still profit about a thousand dollars just by opening up this credit card.

So it's basically like you just pay five hundred and fifty dollars, and they give you back about nine hundred dollars in profit. And then, by the way, if after a year I'm not happy with this credit card, I don't want it anymore, that's fine. I could just downgrade it to another free American Express card, keep the account open, or I could just cancel it altogether and then use my points.

And also, since the American Express Platinum is such a ridiculously luxury card, they send it to you in one of these, and I was actually shocked to find this is like a solid piece of wood that says American Express right there, and they put the card right there. Like, how crazy is that?

So, let's keep doing this because this is fun. What else is in my wallet? But a Chase Sapphire Reserve. Now, this is a card I've really liked and really enjoyed. I've had this card a little bit over a year now, and it was just under $500. I think it was four hundred and fifty dollars the first year, but with this, they give you a hundred thousand points, which for me was equal to four round-trip plane tickets to Canada again; that's worth between $1600 and $2000 to me in airfare.

So, again, a hundred thousand points. They also issue you a $300 travel credit, so right there, that's almost twenty-three hundred dollars in value from opening up this credit card and paying 450 dollars for it. And then with that card, you also get Priority Pass and lounge access. It's just pretty cool if you get to the airport a little bit early. It's pretty neat to go to the lounge, enjoy some free drinks, some free food; it's pretty nice, and this perk is free when you sign up for the credit card.

So this was a great one, but no, it's not over yet. Let's keep going; you could tell I'm pretty obsessed over this. In addition to that, I got the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. Opened this up; the card was free for the first year, and with that, I got 50,000 points again.

So, this one cost me nothing for basically two round-trip plane tickets to pretty much anywhere in North America. So, again, this is a free card that I got about eight hundred dollars of value for absolutely free just by opening up this card. At the same time of doing that, I also opened up this one, the American Express Starwood card.

They give you 25,000 points towards any Starwood Resort for spending, I believe it was three thousand dollars in the first few months. So again, that equates to about two to three free nights at a pretty nice Starwood Resort for basically, you know, this and the first year of the membership of this one is entirely free.

So I saw it; I just sign up for the credit card, put money on it that I would have ordinarily spent, and right there, I get two to three nights at a pretty nice hotel. I like staying at the Westin, but you guys, there are plenty of hotels with Starwood that you can stay at; it's pretty cool. And there are plenty of cards out there where you can do this, get free stuff, and profit for very little work.

And by the way, if you couldn't already tell, I'm a huge nerd when it comes to credit cards and signup bonuses, and one of the websites I use pretty frequently is on Reddit, and it's the Reddit Churning subreddit. So you go to like just Google Reddit Churning; you'll find it. People post these amazing deals or what they find, and then other users reply back with data points if they're able to get approved with the same offers.

I found a lot of my bonuses just by going on the Reddit Churning subreddit, reading up on what other people are doing, and copying that. There's also another very good website; it's called FlyerTalk.com, pretty much the same thing. And then another good one is called The Points Guy, and he pretty much just explains the best ways to use these points and the best cards to get, and I really enjoy reading some of that, some of these tips and travel hacks that you can do.

He mentions them in his blog, which I would highly recommend you guys look into. So now, here are two things I want to mention that are very important when it comes to this. The first thing is that a lot of people are worried it's going to affect your score if you open up new credit cards and close them out. This is somewhat true; this is why I don't recommend doing this if you're just starting out or if you're just a beginner.

If you already have established credit history, it's really not going to make a huge impact on your credit score. I would not do this if you're going to be within about six months of buying a house or a car or getting a large loan. Do not do this! This is something that I would do if you don't have a big loan coming up in the next, like, six to eight months, just to err on the side of caution.

Now, for me personally, I've noticed my score has actually only increased by doing this. Now, typically when you open up a credit card, you get an inquiry, which is when the credit card company looks into your account, and they see what sort of credit limits are given to you and how your payment history is.

When you get a hard inquiry like this, it dings your score by about three to five points, usually. Now this drop in credit is only temporary; it lasts about six months, and then your score resumes to normal. Now, it's not a good idea to do this too frequently, because that's going to increase the number of inquiries on your credit reports, and if you go and apply for a loan in the next two years, they see the inquiries, and then they get worried that you're actively out there trying to get as much credit as possible, and you're seen as a higher risk.

So don't go crazy with this and like apply for like twenty credit cards in a few months. Do not do that; that's bad. But if you apply for a few here and there, overall for your score, it's not going to make a huge difference. And if anything like me, it's actually helped my score to open up new lines of credit and get some more history going.

The second thing I want to mention that's extremely important is that you need to be responsible with this. If you know you're the type to go to the mall and see the brand new TV and then look at your wallet and be like, "Wait a second, I have $30,000 available on this card; let me charge it" and then not pay it off, that is terrible. Do not do that!

This needs to be handled responsibly. The proper way to do this is just spend the minimum on the card, reach whatever threshold you need to get the bonus, and then don't use the card anymore. That's really what I do; that's the way you can win. You do not want to start paying interest to credit cards because that totally negates all the benefit you get from signing up and reaping all the signup bonuses.

The only way that you can win at doing this is not to pay interest to the credit cards. Instead, you've got to be responsible, and you've got to pay off your account in full when you're done using it. And also, don't go spending on other things that you don't need to buy just because you have available credit.

Then, credit card companies also hope that even if you take advantage of the offer and then you charge up the card and you get the points, that you're just gonna be happy with the card and keep it anyway. Now, some cards I've been super happy with, like the American Express Gold, has been a card I'm definitely not gonna get rid of, even though it costs me a hundred and ninety-five dollars a year.

The Chase Sapphire Reserve is another card I'm super happy with, even if it costs me four hundred and fifty dollars a year. I get three hundred dollars back in travel credit plus all the perks of the card. I can't see myself getting rid of that card. Other cards, I just haven't seen the value in, like the AMEX Starwood card. I've never really used it, and I didn't want to spend ninety-five dollars a year to keep it, so I got rid of it. No big deal on that.

So, honestly, it's up to you. If you like the card and you don't mind paying the annual fee and you see benefit in it, great, keep the card. If it's something you don't use, there's no point in spending money to credit cards to keep them open. That's the case; you can either downgrade the card to a free card or cancel it altogether.

Using this strategy and browsing the internet and browsing Reddit, I've literally been able to profit thousands of dollars by opening up credit cards for absolutely free. It hasn't cost me a dime to do this, and I didn't spend any additional money that I wasn't already gonna be spending.

And like I said, free airfare, free travel, free hotel, free Uber. Free using this strategy, being careful with it, not being an idiot and going and spending a ton of money that you don't ordinarily spend, you can make a lot of money by getting credit cards. And actually, if anything like me, improve your credit score in the process by opening up new accounts and paying them off in full.

So as always, you guys, thank you so much for watching. I really hope you enjoy this. If you haven't already, make sure to click Subscribe, and also because I see everyone asking for this now, make sure to click that little like notification bell so you know when I upload a video. That would be really cool if we could get like a cool notification squad going. So, if you did that for me, I'd be pretty grateful.

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Oh, make sure to smash that like button if you enjoyed this and leave a comment down below. As always, you guys, thank you so much for watching. And until next time, and by the way, just for the lols, if you want to see how many credit cards I've been through so far, we got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, got ten of them, and I'm sure there might be a few others that I've forgotten about. But it's fun!