Ditch the spreadsheet: Travel Freely organizes your points and miles
Reading Time: 3 minFor many award travelers, staying organized is the hardest part of the hobby. And if you’re new to points and miles or aren’t a big fan of nerding out over the tracking process itself, it’s even easier to lose out on many credit card benefits that expire without warning.
Managing your stash of points and miles has evolved over the past decade. Hobbyists historically used spreadsheets and even handwritten notebooks to monitor their credit cards and award balances. These days, there’s a wealth of websites and apps that can help you track and maximize your hard-earned rewards. But while many of these programs work well, most require paid subscriptions to unlock their full potential — and many of them are targeted toward people who are already points and miles experts.
Enter Travel Freely, a completely free app (iPhone, Android) designed by founder Zac Hood. He created the tool from a place of gratitude for his own award-travel adventures, hoping to pay it forward by sharing the magic of points and miles with as little stress and spreadsheet savvy as possible.
This program manages all of your credit card annual fees, welcome-bonus deadlines, and loyalty accounts so you can get rid of your spreadsheets, calendar reminders, and random Post-it notes.
Here’s how the Travel Freely app can revolutionize your points strategy so you can get back to the fun part: traveling for (close to) free.
Our ultimate travel gear cheat sheet
When our friends ask what to buy before a trip, we don't type out a list — we send one link. The Points Path Amazon Storefront is our team's running cheat sheet of gear worth owning: carry-on essentials, mobile power, long-haul flight comfort, travel tech, smart safety gear, gifts for the person always headed somewhere, and much more. We add as we find things, and pull items when something better shows up. It's never a snapshot of what was good two years ago. So consider this us sending you the link. Bookmark it before your next trip sneaks up.
Shop our editors' picksLearn the basics
Travel Freely's guides start at the very beginning: how welcome bonuses work, which cards make sense for a first-timer, and what to do with your points once you've earned them. You won’t find any jargon, and there are no assumptions about what you already know.
The app’s built-in educational guides have helped many users elevate their earning strategy to the next level, resulting in success story after success story, such as five-figure savings from bucket-list international trips and hotel nights worth several hundred dollars in cash booked for less than 10,000 points.
Find the right card for you
Travel Freely’s CardGenie® feature helps you pick the next best credit card you qualify for, based on the ones you already hold. These recommendations are personalized for you: CardGenie® evaluates any restrictions, such as Chase’s unofficial 5/24 rule, that you may encounter with your current card lineup. CardGenie® also presents the best welcome bonus offers available at the time you apply.
Once you’re approved, Travel Freely will send you reminders and display alerts as you approach your welcome-bonus spending deadline.
Stay on top of benefits
If your biggest pain point in this hobby is tracking all the constantly evolving credits and annual fee due dates, Travel Freely is your new best friend. Accessible via the website or app, the Travel Freely interface is sleek, simple, and intuitive to use. Updates made on the app automatically pass through to the website, and vice versa.
Users can easily add all of their credit cards into the app and categorize them by card type (personal or business) and by authorized user, if any. You can include as much information about each card as you want, such as renewal due dates and welcome-bonus reward tracking.
Using that data, Travel Freely will automatically send you reminders when annual fees are due. The app will also guide you through downgrade or cancellation options if your annual fees are higher than you like. After completing initial setup, most members spend just 10 minutes a month using Travel Freely to maximize their earning potential.
The app doesn’t charge any fees, nor does it have a paid subscription tier. Most importantly, all of your financial information remains secure since the tool doesn’t access any confidential data such as bank logins or credit card numbers.
Travel Freely won’t make award-travel decisions for you, but it can guide you toward the best choices available to you. Whether you upgrade or downgrade, keep or cancel, this app makes your points work for you, not the other way around.
Get started with Travel Freely
AirTags are a “must have” for your next trip
Before you jet off on your next getaway, grab a 4-pack of AirTags and place them in all your checked luggage — and even your carry-ons. You’ll feel much more secure when traveling, and if your luggage does get lost, you’ll have a much easier time tracking it down.
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