Your Guide To Travel Hacking plus Free Flights, Hotels and other Goodies

As some of you may or may not know, I’m huge points collector. My wallet has more points related cards than it does anything else, including cash (which is a whole other matter on its own). I only use credit cards for the points that I collect from them. In fact, I usually don’t buy anything unless I know I’m benefiting with points one way or the other – which I why I limit cash use to small purchases. The reason I’m such a point collector is because of my love of travel, and even more so I love to use points and get great deals on travel.

With the points that I accumulate every year I usually collect enough for two free flights return flights anywhere in North America. Not bad, considering all I really pay for are taxes and airport fees. Just last month, I made my largest booking on free points in 2 years and booked a trip to France for next summer.

It all comes down to this – collecting travel rewards and points makes a helleva lot of sense. And I’m not talking about Air Miles or Cash back cards that give you a few bucks off your Visa bill. I’m talking about real points that get you free flights. You’d be surprised how it easy and fast it is to collect them  – and you’d be even more surprised to find out how few people actually bother with them. Just last month, I launched a small blog dedicated to posting deals relating to travel points and rewards called Pointaholics. The goal here really is to have opportunity to indulge in my love for rewards travel while at the same time providing a free resource for others interested.

Which brings me to purpose of todays post. On a much grander scale than Pointaholics, The genius that is Chris Guillebeau has taken the concept of free points travel much further than I and today released his new product Travel Hacking Cartel. As many of you all know I’m a huge fan of Chris’s work. I was an inaugural member of his Empire Building Kit program and have reviewed a number of Unconventional Guides.

With the Travel Hacking Cartel, Chris has come up with an innovative membership site that provides up-to-date information on everything to do with traveling for free. The idea of course to democratize free travel my demystifying the process of travel hacking. Want to go anywhere, anytime? This is your chance. Yep, these are affiliate links. And as someone who’s been amateur hacker and die-hard points collector, I can safely say this something that I wholeheartedly vouch for. Chris routinely picks up a million miles a year (yes – 1 million) and literally wrote the book on travel hacking.

Anyway, on to the details. As a member, you’ll get access to:

- Regular “Deal Alerts” sent via email and Text message (when an opportunity comes up to fatten that points account, you’ll be the first to know)

- Tutorials and a Knowledge base to get you started with travel  hacking and free travel (Research shows most people have NO IDEA how to get into points travel – this is a great opportunity to learn or brush up!)

- 500 Free Frequent Flyer miles for each referral with the Refer-a-Hacker program. It’s like Groupon for travel points! (Unfortunately I don’t believe this is applicable for mile programs outside of the U.S., but that needs to be confirmed)

- $1 almost-FREE TRIAL! Yep, sign up for a buck and try it out for 2 weeks. If you’re not convinced you can easily cancel your membership with his handy one-button cancellation process. The “World’s Greatest Guarantee” says it all – if you follow the directions and spend at least 30 minutes a month travel hacking, you’ll earn enough miles for at least 1 plane ticket every quarter, or 4 plane tickets a year!! That’s a freakin’ plane ticket every 3 months.

My initial concern was that it wouldn’t be applicable to me since I don’t live in the United States. But thankfully after checking out the site, only 50% of the deals they advise on are U.S.-only deals. The rest can be used worldwide! As a bonus – the first 1000 members to sign up during the initial preboarding phase will get access to an exclusive webinar next month – “8 Ways To Travel for Free in 2011″. After the first thousand people sign up, the live webinar opportunity will be gone so check it out.

And last but not least – the price. The great thing is, you  can get access to everything for only a buck. If you like everything you see, memberships starts at $15 a month. For details, click here check out the Travel Hacking Cartel website and sign up!