2025: The Year in Travel Hacking/Bank Bonuses

Last year I wrote about my baby steps into the world of travel hacking and bank bonuses, and a few months later I reported on my first big travel hacking coup.  Now that I've been at this game a little bit longer, let's see how the credit card/bank bonus world is going.

There is a ton of information out there on credit card hacking, but too much of it is "I get thousands of dollars in free travel every year thanks to my 40 credit cards.  Here are my affiliate links so that you can be just like me!"

I couldn't figure out how to be "just like me" from the content that was out there, so a few years ago I decided to dip my toes in to see what would happen.  The name of the game is that banks like Chase, Capital One, American Express, and Citi have credit card reward programs that can be quite lucrative for travel.  Not being sure where to start, I dipped my toes in by getting the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, and eventually a few other Chase cards.  For reasons that we'll get into in a bit, I've stayed in the Chase world and do not plan to venture out into the other banks at this time.

Here are a few disclaimers before we get into the numbers:

• Anytime that I've listed a credit card perk, this comes from my understanding as a consumer at this moment in time on January 20, 2026.  I am human and capable of getting things wrong, and also things change.
• The best travel hacking quote that I came across was from Kathleen at the Reframe podcast.  I'm paraphrasing but what I heard was, "It's not free travel.  It's discounted travel".  Getting a free plane ticket or a free hotel night is getting one component of a trip for free, it is not "traveling for free".  I pulled off some incredible deals this year, but I also spend a ton of money on travel because that's my current passion.
• Credit card hacking is not for people with credit card debt.  If this is you and you are employed, your employer very likely offers something called an Employee Assistance Program (EAP), and some of these programs include free financial counseling.  If you will focus your time and efforts on getting out of debt, the benefit to you will exceed every travel hacking tip out there!
• Credit card hacking is also not for people who find this stuff boring!  Seriously, if this is you it just means that you have another talent to offer the world, and you should focus your efforts on things that brings you joy.

The Numbers

Here are the numbers that I reported going in to 2025: 

Here is where things stood at the end of the year:

Here is the bottom line for my 2025 travel hacking/bank bonus haul:

Let's talk about where the numbers come from!

Cash/Bank Bonuses

These are bonuses that certain banks pay for opening new checking accounts.  Because banks are always switching up their incentive programs, I have chosen not to list the specific banks, but I will tell you how I find out about the bonuses.  I use Nerd Wallet or google "new checking account bonus" and see what comes up.  

All new bank bonus programs are not equal.  Some are very simple and some are very complicated, and my rule is to only open accounts that have simple and easy to understand account terms.  For example, Capital One usually has a new account bonus, and the one that comes up right now when I google it says that if I open a new account and make two transfers via direct deposit of $500 or more within 75 days, then I will get the bonus.  The account has no fees or minimum balance.  That's something that works for me!  I've seen offers that require multiple steps and the accounts have fees...no one needs to work that hard for free money, so I stay away from things like that.  It's also worth mentioning that my job was payroll so I was very comfortable with changing my direct deposit and knew exactly when the changes would take effect.

In 2025 I opened four new checking accounts that paid bonuses between $300 and $400 each.  Going forward, I am expecting my bank bonus haul to be $0, since as you may have heard I am retired so I don't have direct deposit anymore!  

During my bank bonus spree I opened a total of eight new checking accounts over the course of three years.  I ended up closing all but one of them, because that bank had a few unique features that I like.  From everybody else, I took their money and ran!

Travel Redemptions

To evaluate my travel redemptions, we need a benchmark.  In 2025 I charged approximately $38,000 to all of my credit cards.  If I was not traveling, I would use a 2% cash back card, which would give me $760 in cash back.

Since I am traveling, I would much rather have the $4,229.51 that I received in travel redemptions than $760.

The primary source of the $4k was from transferring Chase points to United.  Let's zoom in:

The Chase Sapphire card has a $50 annual hotel credit, and my cycle renews in June.  I redeemed my 2024-2025 credit in February when I went to Florida and my 2025-2026 credit in June when I went to Michigan.

The more interesting part is that I booked three expensive flights in 2025: California in May, British Columbia in August, and Nova Scotia in September.  United just happened to be the best way to fly to all of these places, and they are a transfer partner of Chase, meaning that I can convert my Chase points to United miles and then book these tickets through United.

Hyatt was not too shabby either.  I have a Hyatt credit card, which comes with one free night per year.  I also had a nice stash of Hyatt points from my sign up bonus with the card.

For the final night of my San Francisco trip, I had a specific need to stay at a hotel with shuttle service to the airport, because I didn't have a car and I was flying very early in the morning.  Hotels that fit that profile are not cheap.  Normally I don't stay in $350 hotel rooms, but this was a time that I needed to, and I was tickled that my free night certificate took care of this.

When I went to Ottawa in early November, I didn't like the Airbnb options, so the next place that I looked was Hyatt.  They had a hotel that was in the perfect location, but it was pricy.  However, the points redemption was a very reasonable 12,000 points per night, so it made sense to dip into my points stash.

Finally, since I've been flying so often on United, I finally got their credit card, which came with a large sign up bonus.  In late 2024 I booked a ticket to New Orleans, which cost $432.60, or a very reasonable 28,900 points, so I used points and kept my cash.

Unredeemed Travel

Here is how I came up with the numbers for the unredeemed travel column in the second table.  This is all very theoretical until I redeem the points, so I use worst case scenarios.

Chase

65,393 points valued at 1.25 cents per point.  1.25 cents comes from the redemption value that Chase used to give for these points when redeemed in the Chase portal.  They changed their rules in 2025 a bit, but since all of my redemptions have been for more than 1.25 cents, I'm sticking with it as my baseline number.

Hyatt

29,147 points, and I assume that I will redeem them for a 10,000 point per night stay valued at $120 per night.  All of my Hyatt redemptions have been for much more than this.

Amtrak

40,000 points, and I have not done any travel on Amtrak yet, so I am not sure how to value the points.  I use The Point Guy's valuation of 2.67 cents per point.  At least that's what it was when I looked it up last year.

United

46,799 miles valued at 1.33 cents per mile.  That is the lowest mile redemption that I've had on United so far, and the others have been higher so I should be able to do better than this when I redeem the points.

Yes But I Bet You Pay a Buttload in Credit Card Fees

That's a fair comment, especially since a lot of the credit card providers raised their annual fees in 2025.  Here is what I pay:

Comments:

The Sapphire Preferred is the "budget" card with a $99 fee, not to be confused with the Sapphire Reserve which has an annual fee of "are you kidding me".  I'm more than happy to pay it for the $2.6k in free travel that it brought me.  Same for Hyatt.  The jury is out on Amtrak since I haven't taken a trip with them yet.

United charges no fee for the first year, and it is $150 per year after that, so that is why I have the fee listed at $0.  It was worth it for me to get this card for the sign up bonus, since I knew it would cover at least one expensive flight.  Going forward if I don't get $150 in value from this card, I can downgrade it to the free version.

Yeah But What's Your Credit Score?

I'm so glad that you asked!

Can You Give Me a Rundown on Which Cards You Have?

Sure!  Most of these are no fee cards, and I put the ones with fees in bold.

• Amazon.  I've had this for a billion years, and it's a no brainer to use it at Amazon for a 5% or more discount.  I try not to buy a lot of stuff on Amazon.
• Target.  I've also had this for a billion years, though I rarely shop at Target nowadays.  I'm not intentionally boycotting them, but the stores turned to crap a long time ago.  I only keep the card because I've had it for such a long time.  If I go six months without using it, they send me a letter, at which point I make a small charge on it so that they don't close the card.
• Costco.  The benefits on this card are quite decent - 2% back at Costco, 3% back on restaurants and travel, 4% back on gas at non-Costco stations and 5% back on gas at Costco stations.  The only downside is that the cash back is paid once a year and you have to go to the store to get it.  Because travel is a higher value to me than cash back, I rarely use this card.
• CapitalOne Savor One.  I got this card back when I starting to experiment with credit card rewards, and I don't use it very much right now because I get more value from Chase.  I keep it because it gives me access to CapitalOne's travel portal, and once in a while there are good deals there.  CapitalOne denied me when I applied for the Venture X (their big travel credit card), because they don't like people who open up a bunch of credit cards in a short time.  Since they don't like me, I've chosen to focus on Chase where I'm getting great value.
• Chase Sapphire Preferred.  Annual fee $95.  As previously discussed, this card has been very good to me.  I charge all of my travel and restaurant expenses to it, but I use other Chase cards for the rest of my everyday purchases to earn more points.
• Hyatt.  Annual fee $99.  As previously discussed, this card has been very good to me.  I got it because it is a transfer partner of Chase, so it gives me another place to redeem those sweet, sweet Chase points.  I only use it at Hyatt.  The Hyatt loyalty program is very good, but the only downside is that there are not a ton of Hyatt locations.
• Amtrak.  Annual fee $99.  I got this card at a time when the sign up bonus was 40,000 points instead of the normal 20,000 points.  The only problem is that I haven't taken an Amtrak trip yet, so the value that the annual fee brings to me is not clear.  I really need to get off the stick and get on a train already.  Whether I keep this card or not depends on whether I end up liking train travel...TBD.  I used it for the tiny fares to take Amtrak from SF to Sacramento last spring.  I'm in the same situation with my Target card that I only make a small purchase on it when they send me a letter to tell me that I haven't used the card in a while.  
• Chase Freedom Unlimited.  This card is marketed as being cash back, but you can take the rewards as Chase points.  While most everyday purchases on the Sapphire are worth one point per dollar, on this card they are worth 1.5 points per dollar, so I use this card to boost my Chase Points earning ability.  It also came with a sign up bonus.
• Chase Freedom Flex.  Same as the Unlimited, it is marketed as being cash back but it's really Chase points.  It has a confusing system of quarterly bonuses for rotating spending categories up to a certain dollar amount.  It also came with a sign up bonus.  My reason for having it is to scoop up extra Chase points here and there.
• United.  Annual fee is $0 for the first year and $150 per year thereafter.  The sign up bonus for this card is normally 60,000 points, but I found a special offer on Reddit for 70,000 points so I jumped on it.  Whether I keep the card or not depends on whether I continue to get $150 in value from United each year - right now all signs point to yes.  I only use this card for United purchases (the tiny taxes and fees that are not covered by points.

Are You Going to Get More Credit Cards?

Maybe!  I have my eye on the IHG credit card with a $95 fee.  I bet you can guess that this is a Chase credit card, so it's another place to use my Chase points.  This would be handy because there aren't very many Hyatt hotels but there are a ton of IHG hotels out there.  For example, when I went to British Columbia, on my last night I needed a hotel with airport shuttle service, and Hyatt didn't have that.  I ended up staying at a Best Western, which was the cheapest room I could get, but if I'd had the IHG card I coulda worked another free stay.

When will I get this card?  When the sign up bonus goes up!  All of these credit cards occasionally run special deals where they increase their sign up bonuses.

Apart from that, I'm kind of tapped out in the Chase universe, so I'd be looking at either going into AmEx, CapitalOne, or Citi.  The problem is that all of those folks turned me down when I was in my credit card opening spree, so I took the hint and stuck with Chase.  All of these cards have large sign up bonuses, and if I had the points I would figure out how to spend them.  The thing is that without having those points I'm not sure which of their transfer partners I would use.  AmEx is good for Delta (haven't flown them in a long time) and Hilton (takes hella lotta points to get free Hilton stays so I don't think it's worth it), I'm not clear on which CapitalOne partner I would use, and Citi is good for American Airlines, but again I haven't flown on them in a while.  Honestly, Chase is working for me, so I'll probably just stick with them and not mess with these other folks until I find a better reason.

Thanks for hanging out!