Want to learn how to travel with kids for free? You’ve come to the right place! Check out all of my best resources.
Keep in mind that even “free” travel isn’t free. You’ll need to invest time to learn and time to redeem your points strategically and you’ll need to get comfortable paying some annual fees. But the value you can achieve is very high and far outweighs those investments if you’re doing it right.
I’ve been traveling with points and miles for almost 20 years, but it wasn’t until I got serious about strategy that everything changed. Now our family of multiple takes trips every year that we never could afford otherwise – Hawaii, Costa Rica, Europe, you name it – and we’re covering most of the cost with points.
The catch? Doing this as a family is much harder than doing it solo. Your kids can’t earn their own sign-up bonuses. You need award seats for four or five people on the same flight. Hotels outside North America often won’t fit more than two or three people in one room. You need roughly double the points of a solo traveler, with fewer people to earn them.
That’s exactly why I built this page. Everything here – the credit card recommendations, the award search tools, the podcast episodes, the shopping portals – is curated specifically for families who want to travel more without spending a fortune. I’m a former trader turned travel blogger, and I treat points and miles the way I used to treat financial instruments: strategically, with a specific goal in mind.
If you’re just getting started, grab the free ebook first. Thirty minutes and you’ll have a real plan.
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The Busy Mom’s Guide to FREE TRAVEL
In just 30 minutes you can jump-start your family’s journey toward FREE travel!
- Learn how to score FREE flights, stays and rental cars
- Easy-to-follow plan
- Works for families of all sizes
- Bonus: how to save BIG on pricey activities
In-depth award travel guides for families
The Southwest Companion Pass Trick: How We Earn It Without Flying
Looking for the Best Credit Cards for Family Travel? Check These Choices
Case Study: Chase Sapphire Reserve’s The Edit Shines in Amsterdam
3 Reasons I Upgraded To The Chase Sapphire Reserve (Even Without A Bonus)
Where to Stay in London with Kids on Points (by Program)
Chase Sapphire Preferred: What’s Changing and What You Should Do About It
Savings Secrets: How to Get Discounts on Car Rentals Every Time You Travel
How United Is Changing the Game (But Still Letting You Win)
Four Reasons I LOVE Award Travel (Other Than Free Stuff)
Best travel credit cards for families
- Chase Sapphire Preferred
Perfect starter card with a reasonable annual fee and valuable transferrable points
Great for: Hyatt, United, Southwest and more - Capital One Venture X
Most flexible card because you can redeem points for any travel expense; comes with great travel perks and pays for itself every year
Great for: Airbnb, rental cars, cruises, Disney vacation packages, budget hotels - Amex Gold
Fastest way to earn points thanks to 4x on restaurants and groceries + 3x on flights
Great for: Hilton, Delta and more
Award travel tools
There’s no substitute for learning how to search different airline websites to find cheap award flights. However, these days there are some really helpful tools that can help you start the process and begin to understand what’s possible.
- PointsYeah – This is the most user-friendly award travel search engine, though it doesn’t catch every single option. It’s missing all of the Avios-based options (British Airways, Aer Lingus, FinnAir etc) and it missed the TAP Air Portugal flight I ended up booking. But it’s excellent for setting alerts and also covers hotels.
- AwardTool – A much more powerful tool, as it lets you search multiple origin/destination airports simultaneously. It is also missing the Avios options but seems to have better coverage for other airline programs. The alerts aren’t as robust in the free version as PointsYeah.
- Point.me – I don’t love this tool but you can access it for free if you log into your Amex account. This version covers any airline to which you can transfer Amex points… including airlines that use Avios!
- Points Path – If you’re used to searching Google Flights for cash bookings, you can install this extension to see points (and value calculations) right alongside cash prices. The free version only covers US airlines, while the Pro version adds many international carriers.
Podcast episodes to save money on travel
Travel with kids for FREE? Yes please! – The complete guide to earning and using points and miles to cover flights and hotels for your whole family.
Credit Card Treasure Hunting – How to audit the credit cards you already have and uncover hundreds of dollars in hidden travel perks – from rental car status upgrades to Global Entry credits to rideshare discounts.
Hacking Hotels (Family Edition) – Strategies for booking family-friendly hotels on points, including how to handle occupancy limits and get the most from Hyatt, Hilton and more.
Southwest Companion Pass 2026 – The step-by-step strategy to earn the Southwest Companion Pass using two credit cards – and why flying your kids for $5.60 a flight is still one of the best family travel hacks going.
Portugal on Points: A Case Study – A real-life walkthrough of how one family booked flights and hotels for four people across three Portuguese cities for under $1,000 out of pocket – including all the creative problem-solving along the way.
Clash of the (Sort of) Ninety-Five Dollar Travel Credit Cards – Chase Sapphire Preferred vs. Capital One Venture X: a deep comparison of two cards that belong in most family travel wallets, including the annual fee math that makes them more similar than they appear.
Extra savings on hotels, activities and more
Use these shopping portals to save extra on all of your regular purchases, especially hotels and activities! Either use the cash back to pay for your incidentals when you travel, or choose to earn points to fund more travel.
- Rakuten – Sign up here to get your bonus, then join Bilt and choose to have your Rakuten cash there to use it for travel
- Rove Miles – Collect extra miles on all your flight and hotel bookings on top of what you already earn from travel companies and credit card and then use those to book more travel
- Top Cashback – Earn cash back or redeem for gift cards with a little bonus
- Capital One Shopping – You don’t need a Capital One card to take advantage of these excellent offers, which are redeemed for gift cards
- CardPointers+ – Automatically add money-saving offers to all of your credit cards, then access the app to find out what card to use for every transaction
Frequently Asked Questions About Free Family Travel
Not exactly. You’ll pay some annual fees on your credit cards, and you’ll invest time learning the system. But here’s the math: the annual fees you pay are almost always far less than the value of the flights and hotels you’re getting for free. And once you get the hang of it, it really does become second nature.
A few reasons. Your kids can’t get their own credit cards, so you can’t multiply your earning power that way. You need award seats for four or five people on the same flight, which is trickier to find than seats for one or two. And outside North America, many hotels have occupancy limits of two or three people per room – meaning you’ll often need to book two rooms instead of one, which roughly doubles your points cost.
Sign-up bonuses, by a mile (pun intended). You’ll earn far more points from credit card welcome offers than from everyday spending. The strategy is to be deliberate about which cards you open and when, so you’re always working toward a specific trip goal.
Start with cards that earn transferable points – points you can move to different airline and hotel partners depending on what makes sense for a specific trip. The Chase Sapphire Preferred is a great first card because it earns Chase Ultimate Rewards points, which transfer to United, Southwest, Hyatt, British Airways, Air Canada, and more. The $95 annual fee is basically a membership fee to get your foot in the door.
Alternatively, if you only fly ultra-low cost carriers and prefer to stay in vacation rentals or budget hotels, the Capital One Venture X might be the best travel rewards credit card to start with.
If you’re a two-adult household, absolutely get cards separately – that’s double the welcome bonuses, which is how we accumulate enough points to cover flights and hotels for four people. The one thing to avoid: don’t just add each other as authorized users, because that can count against you when you apply for new cards later.
Not necessarily, and that’s actually the whole point of starting with transferable points. You search for the best award availability first, then transfer your points to whichever program has it. You might book a United flight through Air Canada’s program, or find a great European hotel deal by transferring Amex points to Hilton. You keep your options open until you’re ready to book.
For the best selection, especially for families needing multiple seats on the same flight, aim to book 11-12 months out. Award availability opens up early and the best seats go fast. That said, you can also sometimes find last-minute availability – I once switched our entire family to Premium Economy on two days notice for fewer points than we originally paid, thanks to an alert I’d set.
The Companion Pass lets one person fly with you for free — you just pay the taxes, which are around $5 for domestic flights. For a two-adult family, you can each earn your own pass, meaning four people can fly on two tickets’ worth of points. We flew our kids to Hawaii twice in nine months and paid $11 per kid, round trip. It’s legitimate, it’s incredible, and I wrote a detailed guide to earning it.
Hyatt is usually my top pick. The properties are high quality, their lower and middle sections of their award chart still offers solid value, and they have family-friendly options worldwide. If you travel enough to reach Globalist status, you get free breakfast for your entire party — which adds up fast when you’re feeding kids. IHG is a great second option, especially for U.S. travel and National Parks trips, where their Holiday Inn Express properties offer free breakfast and pools for very reasonable points.
Your score will dip slightly when you apply – typically 5-10 points, temporarily. But paying your cards in full every month (non-negotiable) means your score typically recovers quickly. The only time to be cautious is if you’re planning to apply for a mortgage in the next six months.
The learning curve is smaller than it looks. Start with one transferable points card, earn the welcome bonus, and pick one trip to work toward. Once you’ve done it once, everything else clicks into place. My free ebook walks you through the whole thing in about 30 minutes – grab it in the link above if you want a step-by-step starting point.
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