Travel More & Spend Less: Travel Hacking with Megan Lanford ✈️💳🌴

Think luxury travel is out of reach? Think again. In this episode, I’m joined by Megan Lanford, travel rewards coach and host of the Points to Paradise podcast, who breaks down exactly how she went from barely affording one vacation a year to taking six luxury trips annually—saving over $20,000 a year—using credit card points.

We talk through the step-by-step process of travel hacking, including the smartest cards to use, how to avoid debt, and how to earn major sign-up bonuses that can cover full vacations. Megan shares how she shifted from a scarcity mindset to an abundant life full of travel, family memories, and five-star experiences—without breaking the bank.

If you’ve got travel on your vision board but your budget hasn’t caught up yet, this episode is full of doable strategies to get you flying first class faster than you think.

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What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

✅ How Megan went from saving for one trip a year to traveling six times annually for free
✅ Why you should stop using your debit card and use strategic travel credit cards instead
✅ The #1 travel rewards mistake most people make
✅ How to maximize sign-up bonuses and earn free vacations fast
✅ Tools and apps that make managing multiple cards simple
✅ How to travel with toddlers without losing your mind (or your bags!)
✅ Why abundance in travel can shift your entire money mindset

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Resources & Links:

🎓 Join Megan’s Travel Points Academy → https://pointstoparadise.com
🎙 Listen to Megan’s Podcast: Points to Paradise 
📲 Follow Megan on Instagram → @PointsToParadise

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Connect With Me:

💸 Join the Manifestation Playground → LINK HERE
🎙 Follow the Podcast on Instagram → @ManifestationandMoneyPodcast
📩 Let’s Connect! → [e-mail]

If this episode inspired you to take that dream trip, please take a moment to ⭐ rate & review ⭐ on Apple Podcasts or Spotify! Your support helps more listeners design a life of freedom and abundance. ✨

Episode Transcript

Jenni (00:00):
Welcome to the manifestation and money podcast, Megan. Hi, thanks for having me. I am pumped to have you on today because, like we just said in our preliminary chat, people love to travel, and it's on people's vision boards, but usually coming with travel, there is a huge price tag with that. But you're going to give us some workarounds today, so I would love for you to share with the listeners just who you are and what your story is.

(00:01):
We would save up all year for that one trip. Book the holiday in and a cheap Southwest flight. And, you know, just felt really restricted on that vacation. And I wanted more abundance in my life. I was pregnant with my daughter and we just wanted a better life for her. We wanted to be able to take her on vacations.

Megan (00:02):
Yeah, it's actually really simple. It is just. Pretty much putting your debit card away in your wallet and not using it. I have not used my debit card in over three years or buying gas and groceries and all of the things every single day. And if you're using a debit card, you're quite literally losing out on thousands of dollars.
Yes. Okay. 'cause that would be a mind set shift, I think for some people who are very well kind of debt adverse because you are putting your money on a credit card and getting that one bill at the end of the month, that can feel overwhelming. Do you have any just mindset tips for anybody who struggles with the.
Can you share what your favorite strategy is that you like to use.
So you're getting a lot of points for not spending a lot of money. Most Americans can spend 4, 000 in the first three months of getting a credit card. Just by like we said buying your gas and groceries and you're going to get a large chunk of points that those amount of points could get you an entire vacation right there just from one card.
So I'm not spending across the board on 13 credit cards. , there's also an app that I recommend everyone get when they do this. It's the travel freely app. It's completely free. It doesn't hook up to your bank account, which I really like, and you just can put in the credit cards that you have. And so it keeps everything really organized for you and lets you know, which ones get you more on gas and which one gets you more on groceries, the signup bonuses, and it just keeps track of everything really good.
Yeah, so there's four major banks, Chase, Capital One, American Express, and Citi, that really offer these TravelPoint credit cards. I don't recommend like the Cashback cards or the Amazon or Costco cards, like they're not going to give you as much value as these TravelPoint credit cards. , if you go to my website, I have all of the TravelPoint credit cards out there that you could Imagine picking from.
Yeah, so , most of them have travel fee, , annual fees. There are a few that have zero dollar annual fees.
2, 000 and you're paying 95. So would you pay 95 for 2, 000 worth of travel? Most people would. So most of the time they will outweigh them.

Jenni (00:10):
So attainable. Yeah, that does feel attainable. And it makes it kind of exciting for that element of travel.

Megan (00:11):
Yeah, I always was the person that had a trip on their vision board every single year. I even joined network marketing, hoping to earn a trip so that I could take it because I just, it felt so unattainable for travel.
And don't set any limits like you can go to Bora Bora and stay in overwater bungalows or go on like a jungle safari in Africa and an all inclusive resort like Whatever you want just start writing them all down on a dream list , and it really just opens up and activates that abundance in you because you see What's possible and you really start dreaming so don't just say oh I want to go to california and stay in the holiday and like really get expansive and start dreaming of where you want to go because it is possible Fun.

Jenni (00:13):
Yeah. And let's just go there for a second traveling with kids because it's not easy. For me, I had this dream of going back and forth to Mexico.
And I don't let her see them until. We are on the plane. So everything's really new to her. , so that's always great. But kids really just are so resilient when they travel, they will accommodate to anything. , the other thing, if you do have a toddler, I bring a blow up bed that I got on Amazon. So she has her own bed when we travel and that really helps as well.
And now if we have a big expense, I have to go to the doctor tomorrow and it's going to be 1, 500 before I would have been , Oh my gosh, like that's so expensive. And now it's . That's worth probably 2, 000 worth of travel I'm going to get so much more out of that purchase and get to go on an amazing vacation that I'm not going to forget so it's okay and so it really makes those bigger purchases not seem so bad and you have so much more abundance coming out of those purchases.
I'm here. I'm doing the thing. I belong here. I would love for you to share how you work with people and help them achieve their travel goals.
Where have you guys gone before? Where did you like? And so, yeah, it's really more of a masterminding of vacation planning with learning points.