Jeffrey Seavey

How this started.

It didn't start with a credit card. It started in 1992, on my honeymoon. My father was an airline pilot, so I'd grown up on standby travel — and by combining those pass privileges with points and miles, I spent that honeymoon at Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic, a resort so grand it had been featured on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

Then reality hit. The moment I graduated college, those standby privileges were cut off — gone overnight. But I'd already tasted a life of travel and luxury, and I wasn't willing to give it up. If the free flights were gone, I'd have to manufacture them some other way.

That's what pulled me into the world of points, miles, and credit card rewards — a parallel economy the airlines and hotels had been running for decades, priced completely differently than the cash market and largely ignored by anyone not paying close attention. I set out to travel for free. It worked.

Where it led.

Business class to Paris on a partner redemption that would have cost $6,000 in cash — years before the trip most people ask me about. The Park Hyatt Vendôme, a hotel where breakfast for two runs $100, for five days, with the buffet complimentary every morning thanks to elite status. Trips I'd never have taken at cash prices.

Then came the one people still bring up. British Airways offered 100,000 miles for spending $3,000 in three months. Several of us in the family each applied, and in under a week we'd accumulated more than 300,000 points — enough to fly seven people to Maui. Nobody bought a ticket.

And the flights were only the beginning. On points, the seven of us stayed in the Napua Tower at the Grand Wailea — a private club wing that poured complimentary food and drinks all day long. We went zip-lining, snorkeling, and took surf lessons for all seven of us, every activity booked with credit card points.

Two convertibles were waiting for us — a Mustang and a Jeep — and with all the kids old enough to drive by then, they spent the week racing each other from one end of the island to the other. We even capped it off with a night at the Marriott in Wailea and its famous infinity pool, in the coveted ocean-facing room closest to the water. Flights, suites, cars, activities — almost none of it touched our wallets.

In a single year, I manufactured nearly one million points and miles with minimal actual spending. The fees were nominal. The travel value was not.

"None of this required a higher income. It required understanding a system that most people don't know exists."

Why I wrote the books.

People kept asking me how I did it. Friends, family, colleagues. I'd explain it over coffee and watch their eyes light up — then watch them get overwhelmed when they tried to start on their own. The information is out there, but it's scattered, contradictory, and often written by affiliate marketers who care more about commissions than about the reader's actual outcome.

I wrote these guides to be the resource I wished I'd had. Direct. Sequenced. Built around real decisions and real trips, not theoretical scenarios. If you follow the system in the order it's presented, the outcomes are predictable. That's what these books are for.

The other kind of free travel.

Points and miles aren't the only way to travel for free — and I've had a front-row seat to the other way. I live in Los Angeles, surrounded by working creators, and my own family is full of them, including a musician whose career pulled all of us into the orbit of the influencer economy. I hear the newest brand-and-hotel collaboration tactics almost daily, from the people actually landing them.

I've done it myself, too — pitching properties and earning comped luxury stays as a creator. That's what led to Free Nights, Five Stars: the same free-travel obsession, aimed at a completely different lever. Whether you earn your travel with points or with content, the goal is the same — never pay full price again.

Where to begin.

If you're completely new, start with the free guide — 5 Mistakes Beginners Make — to get the lay of the land. If you're ready to commit to the system, How to Travel for Free is the complete playbook. The other books — business class, hotel points, the card stack — are deep dives into specific parts of the strategy.

Any of them is a good place to start. The only wrong move is not starting.