Travel for free. Really.

What do us travel aficionados love more than free travel? That’s right: nothing.

Money is the one thing that often prevents us from going off and seeing the world.  Flights are the main expense, running from hundreds to thousands of dollars, depending on how far-flung you’re trying to get. Free travel—and specifically, free flights—are the holy grail of the travel addict.

Over the years, I’ve heard all kinds of rumors about free flights. There were those courier companies that supposedly paid for your flight if you transported a suitcase or two. And apparently you used to able to show up at airline counters and fly standby at much cheaper prices, the rationale being that the airlines were happy to accept a lower payment for the empty seats. These days, it is the last-minute tickets that are astronomically expensive.

Today’s incarnation of free travel comes in the form of airline miles, and it’s no rumor: in the last few months alone, I’ve flown, for free, roundtrip from Israel to India, roundtrip from Israel to Portugal, and one-way from Tel Aviv to New York. All using miles garnered without setting foot on a single flight.

I earned my miles last year by signing up for three credit cards that offered huge sign-up bonuses: 100,000 British Airways miles for the Chase Visa, and 75,000 American Airlines miles each for two Citi cards.  That’s a quarter of a million miles for three credit cards.

I stay abreast of the latest offers by regularly visiting ThePointsGuy, a site that has netted me more practical travel benefits than any other website, ever. ThePointsGuy writes cleanly and clearly about airline miles, credit cards, hotel bonuses, and the like.  There are many other decent miles-related sites out there—Frugal Travel Guy, MommyPoints, Million Mile Secrets, Dan’s Deals and others—and of course the longstanding FlyerTalk is the mother of them all. But for me, ThePointsGuy—better known to his readers at TPG—is my first stop, and should be for anyone who is serious about free travel.