Points and miles have been a game changer for our family when it comes to travel.

Specifically, they've helped us in two big ways:

• We travel more often, which means we get to experience more places together.

• We travel better by staying at nicer hotels and occasionally flying in premium cabins.

When we first started learning about points and miles, we realized pretty quickly there was A LOT to learn. It could easily become a full-time hobby.

While this Enneagram 5 loves going down a rabbit hole, I also know that not everyone wants to spend hours every week learning all the strategies for earning and traveling with points and miles. 

So instead, we've created a simple system that works well for our family. My hope is that sharing it will make points and miles feel much more approachable for your family too.

Learning to use points and miles has completely changed the way our family travels. It has made travel more accessible for our family of four and allowed us to take trips that honestly wouldn't have been possible otherwise.

And let me tell you…we didn't learn this overnight. We made plenty of mistakes along the way, AND we're still learning. We just want to share what's worked for our family in hopes that it helps yours travel a little more, too. 

We always valued family vacations, but we wanted to see more of the world together. After experiencing some serious sticker shock while planning a trip overseas to visit family, we realized that if we wanted to keep traveling, we needed to find a smarter way to pay for it.

We weren't looking for luxury travel (well...not at first anyway!). We weren't trying to fly first class around the world or stay in five-star hotels (although we definitely wouldn't have turned it down!). We simply wanted to be able to say "yes" to more family adventures without blowing our budget.

And that's where points and miles came in.