I Don't Have Credit Card Points. Here's How I Still Travel for Less Without Sacrificing the Vibes.
I love beautiful hotels. I love good food. I love ordering wine at lunch for absolutely no reason. I love booking the experience that makes me say, “Well, obviously I have to do that.”
In other words, I am not particularly interested in traveling as cheaply as humanly possible.
I am, however, extremely interested in paying less for an incredible trip.
There is a difference. Because, I think, luxury and affordable can actually go together.
For years, I've figured out ways to make my trips cheaper without turning them into the kind of budget travel where you're sleeping on an airport floor and eating protein bars you brought from home.
No judgment if that's your thing, I spent years backpacking, hitchhiking, stealing drinks off tables all to make a couple bucks last long.
Now, I simply know myself, and I require certain vibes. And at 34, I will not be sleeping on a park bench (yes I have done that).
And before anyone tells me to “just use points,” please know that I could only mooch off my grandpa's points for so long.
I also made some questionable financial decisions at approximately 22 years old and have since determined that perhaps Brittany and credit cards do not need to be reunited. 😂
And yet! I still travel.
A lot.
So these are the things I actually do to make it happen.
1. I let the flight deal choose the trip.
One of the easiest ways to make travel unnecessarily expensive is deciding exactly where you want to go, on exactly which dates, and then demanding the airline gods accommodate your plans.
Sometimes they will.
Sometimes they will request $1,487 for the privilege.
Instead, when I have flexibility, I work backward.
I look for the deal first.
If flights to Paris are $900 but flights to Amsterdam are $400, suddenly I am extremely interested in tulips.
If Tuesday is significantly cheaper than Friday, perhaps Tuesday is when my vacation begins.
Obviously, this doesn't work when you have specific dates or somewhere you absolutely need to be. And in that situation, I set flight alerts and hope for the best.
But when you're just craving a trip? Let the cheap flight tell you where you're going.
You may end up somewhere you never would have picked otherwise—which is half the fun.
2. I don't assume the most expensive hotel is the best hotel.
This is probably surprising coming from someone who can spend an alarming amount of time looking at hotel bathrooms on the internet.
I care about my hotel.
A lot.
I want it to be beautiful. I want a good location. I want to walk into the room and immediately take a picture. I want to be able to wander out the front door and actually be somewhere I want to wander.
But I've learned that expensive doesn't automatically mean better.
Instead of immediately searching “best hotels in Paris,” I'll use AI to help me figure out where I should actually stay first.
I'll tell it what I care about: walkability, cafés, nightlife or no nightlife, architecture, public transportation, safety, proximity to certain sights, whatever matters for that particular trip.
Then I'll ask for neighborhoods that match and hotel suggestions at several different price points.
And then—and this part is important—I research them myself.
AI is my research assistant, not my travel agent with access to the sacred hotel truth.
I'll check reviews, photos, location, the hotel's actual website and current rates before booking anything.
Sometimes the winner is the fancy hotel.
Sometimes it's the gorgeous little boutique property three streets away for half the price.
I want the best hotel for my trip, not necessarily the most expensive hotel I can afford.
3. I use AI to find the good cheap stuff.
This might be one of my favorite ways to use AI while traveling.
Most people use it to make an itinerary and stop there. I interrogate it. And trust me, Nova is used to it by now.
Where do locals eat lunch in this neighborhood for under €15?
What bakeries are worth walking to?
Where can I get a glass of wine with a great view without paying rooftop-hotel prices?
What markets are open while I'm there?
What beautiful places can I visit for free?
What streets should I wander?
What's touristy and overrated?
What neighborhood would I probably love that isn't on every first-timer itinerary?
This is actually part of the reason I started making my AI City Keys in the first place. I realized I was constantly using prompts like these to get beneath the obvious Google results and then doing my own research from there.
And now I'm making a little FREE City Planning Key with 10–15 of my favorite starter prompts so you can do exactly the same thing.
No points required. No credit-card strategy required. No spreadsheets required.
Just curiosity and a slightly concerning willingness to ask ChatGPT 37 follow-up questions.
4. I will never skip a free walking tour.
I LOVE A FREE WALKING TOUR.
I have done them all over the world, and they are consistently some of the best things I do when I arrive somewhere new.
They're usually one of the first things I book because suddenly I understand the city, and the guides are locals or expats who genuinely give great recommendations.
Fun Fact: all my guides were initially started by lists I got from my guides on the free walking tour in that city.
I know what I'm looking at. I learn some history. I get my bearings. I hear stories I never would've found on my own. And most importantly, I can ask the guide:
“Okay, but where do YOU eat?”
That's where the good stuff starts.
And yes, “free walking tour” doesn't mean don't pay the human being who just walked around teaching you things for two hours. Tip your guide.
But compared with the price of a lot of traditional tours, they're an incredible way to experience a city without spending a fortune. I can’t tell you how many times I left a paid tour thinking: “wow that kinda sucked” but never have I left a free walking tour without at least 5 restaurants and bars to look up.
5. I book THE experience. I don't book every experience.
This might be the biggest one.
You do not need a scheduled activity every six minutes for your trip to be good.
Actually, please don't do that to yourself.
I decide which experience I would be genuinely sad to miss, and that's where I'm willing to spend.
Maybe it's a boat trip, a cooking class, or a ridiculous dinner.
Maybe it's going somewhere that requires a guide, or maybe t's sitting in a spa overlooking the Alps while someone brings me prosecco. I don't know your life.
Book that thing.
But the rest of your trip can have space.
Walk through a market. Sit at a café. Take public transportation somewhere because it looks interesting. Wander into a church. Buy bread and cheese and have a picnic. Get mildly lost. Follow something pretty.
Some of my favorite travel memories happened because I had nowhere I needed to be.
And conveniently, wandering around is free.
Cheap Isn't the Goal. Value Is.
I think this is the biggest misconception about budget travel.
I don't want the cheapest possible trip.
I want to stop spending money on things that don't make my trip better so I have more money for the things that do.
I'll take the train so I can afford the beautiful hotel.
I'll eat a €6 sandwich for lunch because I want the €75 dinner. And sometimes, that sandwich is better.
I'll spend absolutely nothing wandering around a neighborhood all afternoon and then happily pay for the experience I've been excited about for months.
Travel doesn't have to be luxury or budget.
You get to decide what matters to you.
And if, like me, you don't have a secret vault of credit-card points waiting to whisk you into business class, there are still so many ways to make the trip work.
You just have to get a little creative.
And perhaps mooch off your grandpa while the opportunity still presents itself.
Sorry, Daddy Jay (he doesn’t mind I promise and I always ask permission 😂)
Want my prompts?
I'm putting together a free City Planning Key with 10–15 of the AI prompts I actually use to find better neighborhoods, hotels, restaurants, hidden gems and experiences without automatically choosing the most expensive option.
Think of it as the starter version of my City Keys—and a way to start planning deeper without spending three hours opening 46 browser tabs.