Travel Hacking for Beginners: How Belgian Travellers Save Thousands of Euros

Last September I was sitting in the business class cabin on a flight BRU → DXB → MLE. Champagne in hand, lie-flat seat, the flight attendant asked whether I wanted to dine before or after take-off. Ten days in the Maldives, overwater villa, daily breakfast included. The total cost of flights and hotel? Zero euros out of pocket. Everything paid with points.

My girlfriend thought I had lost my mind. Or that I was doing something illegal. But no: this is travel hacking, and it is the most underutilised strategy Belgian travellers have to save thousands of euros on their trips. Completely legal, fully transparent.

To be honest, two years ago I had no idea this even existed. I dutifully paid for my flights with a Belgian debit card, booked hotels on Booking.com and considered that "normal." Until a colleague asked me: "Why aren't you actually earning points?" That changed everything.

What exactly is travel hacking, and why do so few Belgians do it?

Travel hacking sounds complicated. It isn't. The core is simple: you use credit cards and loyalty programmes to earn points on spending you're already doing anyway. Groceries, petrol, restaurant visits, that new washing machine. Instead of paying for those with your Bancontact card (which earns you zero points), you pay with a card that earns points. You then redeem those points for flight tickets, hotel stays or upgrades.

In the US, travel hacking is mainstream. Millions of Americans do it. In Belgium? Hardly anyone. That's down to two things: we are a debit card country (Bancontact rules), and most Belgians simply don't know that credit card rewards programmes exist that are genuinely worthwhile.

And that's a shame. Because as a Belgian traveller you have a huge advantage: you're based at Brussels Airport, a hub for Brussels Airlines and Star Alliance, with direct connections to hundreds of destinations. And the points you earn? They're transferable to almost every major airline in the world.

Let me show you exactly how it works.

How to earn points that are actually worth something as a Belgian traveller

Not all points are created equal. The loyalty stamps from your supermarket — you can compare those to loose pennies. Membership Rewards points from American Express? Those are more like banknotes. The difference lies in flexibility: you can transfer them to more than 15 airline partners, including Brussels Airlines, Lufthansa, Air France-KLM, British Airways, Emirates, Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines and Turkish Airlines.

I personally use the American Express Platinum card as my everyday payment card. By default you earn 1 point per €1 spent. With the Booster option (€10 per month extra) that rises to 4 points per euro. On an annual basis, if you spend around €2,000 per month on normal daily expenses, the Booster alone earns you 96,000 points per year.

96,000 points. That's enough for two return economy tickets to New York, or one business class ticket to Dubai. Without spending a single extra cent beyond what you're already spending anyway.

And I haven't even mentioned the welcome bonus yet. Via the TravelLux.be referral link you receive up to 150,000 Membership Rewards points as a welcome bonus. That's the maximum. More than when you apply directly with Amex. Those 150,000 points alone are enough for a return business class flight from Brussels to the Maldives or Thailand.

The calculation nobody makes: do you earn back the annual fee?

Okay, let's be honest. €780 per year for a credit card is not nothing. When I first saw it, I thought: this is for wealthy people who like having a fancy card in their wallet. But when I started doing the maths, my perspective changed completely.

Let me share the numbers with you, because this is exactly what convinced me.

Add it up: €500 + €169 + €300 + €150 + €75 = €1,194. And that's without even using Fine Hotels + Resorts. One FHR booking on top and you're above €1,800 in value. Against an annual fee of €780.

Honestly: if you only fly to Spain once a year and never visit lounges, this card is probably not for you. But if you fly twice or more per year from Brussels Airport, regularly pay abroad, and enjoy travelling in comfort? Then you earn back the costs many times over.

At TravelLux.be I regularly receive emails from readers who said they found the card "too expensive," until they realised how much they were actually losing by not earning points. Those €2,000 in monthly expenses you're currently paying with Bancontact? That's 24,000 to 96,000 missed points per year.

My favourite travel hacking routes from Brussels (with worked examples)

Theory is nice, but you want to know what this looks like in practice. Here are three routes I've flown myself or have on my list for this year, all departing from Brussels Airport.

See the pattern? You earn points on spending you're doing anyway, transfer them to the airline of your choice, and book flights that normally cost thousands of euros. It's not magic. It's maths.

And the beauty is: those points never expire as long as your card is active. So there's no need to rush. Save up at your own pace, wait for good availability, and book when it suits you.

Beginner steps: how to start travel hacking in Belgium today

I know this can feel overwhelming when you're reading about it for the first time. Believe me, two years ago I was in exactly the same position. So let me break it down into concrete steps you can take this week.

Step 1: shift your daily spending to a card that earns points. This is the cornerstone of everything. In Belgium, an increasing number of shops, restaurants and online stores accept American Express. Not everywhere, that's true. But the vast majority of your larger purchases (supermarkets like Delhaize, Carrefour, petrol stations, online shops, subscriptions, travel bookings) work perfectly fine. For the few places where it doesn't work, you still have your Bancontact as a backup.

Step 2: activate the Booster option. For €10 per month extra you go from 1 point per euro to 4 points per euro. That's a fourfold increase in your earning power. On €2,000 monthly spending that's the difference between 24,000 and 96,000 points per year. The €120 per year for the Booster pays for itself with a single flight booking.

Step 3: sign up for airline programmes. Create free accounts with Miles & More (Brussels Airlines/Lufthansa), Flying Blue (Air France-KLM), Avios (British Airways), Emirates Skywards, and Qatar Airways Privilege Club. Costs you nothing. That way you have all options open when you want to transfer points.

Step 4: use the benefits you already have. That Priority Pass? Use it on every flight. The Dining for 2? Book your three annual dinners. The Fast Lane at Brussels Airport? Walk past instead of standing in the queue. Fine Hotels + Resorts? Check availability for your next city break or beach holiday. Many cardholders leave hundreds of euros in benefits on the table simply because they don't know they exist.

Step 5: be patient and think in terms of value. Sometimes it's tempting to redeem points for a gift card or a statement credit. Don't do that, unless you really have no other option. The value of a point skyrockets when you use it for business class flights: one point can then be worth 2 to 4 cents, whereas a gift card often gives you less than 0.5 cents per point.

What most beginners get wrong (and how you can do better)

After two years of travel hacking and dozens of conversations with fellow Belgian travellers, I keep seeing the same mistakes come up.

The first: leaving points on the table by hesitating too long. Every month you pay your daily expenses with Bancontact is a month in which you earn zero points. If you're planning to apply for the card eventually anyway, every month of delay literally costs you thousands of points.

The second: wasting points on low-value redemptions. I'll say it again: use your points for flights, not for coffee machines. A business class flight to New York for 120,000 points is worth €3,500. That's almost 3 cents per point. Converting those same 120,000 points into a gift card might get you €400. Big difference.

The third: not taking advantage of the welcome bonus. The 150,000 points you receive via a referral link are the biggest leap you can make. It's the difference between waiting a year and being able to book straight away. Start there. The rest follows naturally.

And the fourth: forgetting that you can also save enormously beyond flights. The travel insurance that's automatically active when you pay with your Amex Platinum (cancellation, luggage, medical expenses, flight delay), the Hertz Gold Plus Rewards Five Star status for rental car upgrades, the 24/7 concierge service for last-minute restaurant reservations or hard-to-get tickets. Those things add up.

Frequently asked questions about travel hacking in Belgium