Are you new to travel hacking with credit cards? Keep reading to learn more about my experience raising my credit score to start travel hacking as a beginner! Read my full guest post on Flynanced!
For a budget travel blogger, I was surprisingly slow to the travel hacking party. Why? Well, it all boils down to one major barrier: incredibly poor credit.
My blog isn’t called Broke Girl Abroad for nothing. Like a lot of early twenty-somethings, I was making it by with a modest salary, multi-person living arrangements and a lotta debt. Business Insider reported in February (pre-pandemic) that “American millennials have an average net worth of less than $8,000, meaning they’re financially worse off than any other generation before them.”
What did that mean for me? It meant that I took one look at my car loan and my monthly orthodontist payments (adult braces are expensive) and thought that there was no way someone like me could travel hack.
In short, I was wrong. It takes a few more steps, but it can be done.
If you’re in a better position than me, you may just want to cut right to the chase. Money.com actually compiled a list of the best travel credit cards of 2020, with their reasoning attached. But if you’re also along for the credit-improvement ride, read on.

Pin a beginner’s guide to travel hacking!
Safe travels!
-Maggie