A personal session focused on your accounts, your goals, and your next trip.
Personalized guidance to help you understand your loyalty accounts, clarify your travel goals, and find the opportunities hiding in the points you already have.
Services
Personal help with your points strategy
Education-first help from someone who has flown the routes, run the numbers, and takes nothing from credit card companies. Start with a free 15-minute call — I'll tell you honestly whether I can help, and what it would cost.
Why I charge
Why I Charge — and Why That's Good for You
Most points-and-miles websites are paid by banks. When they recommend a card and you're approved, they earn a commission — often several hundred dollars per application. It's legal, it's disclosed in the fine print, and it's how nearly every large site in this space stays in business. Go read the disclosure on any of them.
Travel Technician has no affiliate relationships. Not with a single card issuer, airline, hotel chain, or booking site. No one pays me to point you toward a card.
So when I tell you to cancel a card, skip a bonus, or that the card you're excited about is wrong for you — that advice costs me nothing to give. It's the only advice I have to sell.
That's why this work is paid rather than free.
All services
Make sense of the cards you have — and the ones you're considering.
Educational guidance about selecting and organizing credit cards based on your travel goals, spending habits, annual fees, benefits, and loyalty programs.
Understand your realistic award options before you transfer a single point.
Help understanding possible award routes, airline programs, transfer partners, redemption options, taxes, fees, and the trade-offs between them.
Get more out of the programs you already belong to.
A guided review of airline, hotel, and transferable-points programs so you understand how to use each one more effectively.
A complete, technician-style review of everything you've earned.
A structured evaluation of your points, miles, credit cards, annual fees, benefits, expiration risks, and travel objectives — with clear next steps.
CardMaster — free for everyone
Every strategy works better with clean data. CardMaster tracks your loyalty balances, credit card benefits, statement credits, annual fees, and expiration dates — free, for your whole household. It's the same tool Jim uses to manage his own points.
What these services are — and aren't
Everything Travel Technician offers is education and guidance: understanding your accounts, your options, and the trade-offs. It is not financial, legal, or tax advice; no travel is booked on your behalf; and no outcome — approvals, availability, or point values — can be guaranteed. What an engagement costs is discussed during your free consultation, before any work begins.
Also available
More ways to work together
Start with the free fit call if you're not sure which of these fits — it exists so you don't book the wrong thing.
Free 15-Minute Fit Call
No cost15 minutes, video or phone
A short call to find out whether I can actually help you. You tell me what you're trying to do; I tell you which service fits, or that you don't need one. No pitch beyond that.
This is a scoping call, not a consultation — I won't be able to answer strategy questions in fifteen minutes, and I'd rather be upfront than leave you disappointed.
Book a Fit CallTrip Blueprint
One destination, up to 4 travelers, start to finish.
Award flights, the hotel or resort, and the itinerary — planned as one thing instead of three. For the trip you've been saving points toward and don't want to get wrong.
Includes everything in an Award Flight Search plus hotel award strategy, elite-benefit planning, and a day-by-day outline. Booking instructions for all of it; you do the booking.
Request a BlueprintAnnual Card Renewal Review
Delivered in 3 business days.
A $695 annual fee posts in three weeks and you're not sure it's still worth it. Send me the card and how you've used it. You get a keep, downgrade, product-change, or cancel recommendation with the math, plus the retention-offer language worth trying first.
The quickest way to find out whether you're about to waste real money.
Order a Renewal ReviewSmall Business Card Strategy
75 minutes, live, plus a written plan.
For the self-employed, side-business owners, and anyone with 1099 income. Business cards sit outside most personal application rules, and most people leave that entirely on the table.
- Which business cards you qualify for and in what order
- Keeping business and personal earning separate and working together
- Category strategy against how you actually spend
- What counts as a business (more than you'd think) and what doesn't
Gift Certificates
Good for a year.
Any service on this page. Good for a year.
Buy a Gift CertificateAward Flight Search
You get the seats. You do the booking.
I find the award space, tell you exactly which program to book through, exactly what to transfer and when, and hand you step-by-step instructions. You log into your own accounts and click the last button.
How it works
- 1A research fee upfront, agreed before I start. That buys the search itself, and I keep it whether or not the seats exist.
- 2I search, and I watch — space opens and closes constantly.
- 3When I find it, you get written instructions and a heads-up on the clock.
- 4You book. The booking fee is due then.
What the booking fee comes to depends on where you're going:
- Domestic, Mexico and the Caribbean
- International — economy or premium economy
- International — business or first
Departing within 10 days? There's a rush fee. Multi-city, stopovers and round-the-world are quoted individually. Every figure is agreed with you before any work starts.
No per-traveler fees.
Everyone on the same reservation — booked from one points account — is included. Finding two seats on one record is the same work as finding one, so you pay once. Most services in this space charge per person.
Being straight with you: award space for more than two travelers is genuinely hard to find. Two is the sweet spot. I'll always try for more, and I won't charge extra if I get them — but if the space has to be split across separate reservations, each one is its own booking fee, and I'll tell you before I start.
FAQ
Questions people ask before booking
Services FAQ
Is Travel Technician a travel agency?
No. Travel Technician is an independent education and consulting service focused on points, miles, and loyalty programs. It does not book flights, hotels, or any other travel, and it is not affiliated with any airline, hotel company, bank, credit card issuer, loyalty program, or travel agency.
Do I need a lot of points to get value from a consultation?
No. Many clients are just starting out, and some of the most useful sessions happen before you've earned a single point — when the right early decisions matter most. If you already have points, a consultation helps you use them well instead of letting them sit or expire.
Is this financial advice?
No. Everything Travel Technician provides is educational. Credit card discussions cover how rewards, benefits, and fees work so you can make your own informed decisions. Nothing on this site or in a session is financial, legal, tax, or investment advice, and card approvals are decided solely by issuers.
How much do services cost?
The initial consultation is free, and paid engagements are scoped to what you actually need — from a single strategy session to a full points portfolio audit. Contact Jim for details and current rates.
Can you guarantee a specific redemption, like QSuites?
No — and you should be skeptical of anyone who says otherwise. Award availability changes constantly. What a good strategy does is put you in position: the right points, in the right programs, with realistic expectations and backup plans.
What is CardMaster and does it cost anything?
CardMaster is Travel Technician's free web application for tracking points balances, credit card benefits, statement credits, annual fees, and expiration dates — for you and your household. It's free to use; new accounts require a quick approval step.
Do you need my account logins?
No — and I don't want them. I will never ask for a password, and you should never give one to anyone offering this kind of service. I work from balances and card names you tell me. Everything I hand you, you execute yourself.
Do you book the ticket for me?
No. I find the space and write out exactly how to get it — which program, which transfer, which dates, what to click. You do the booking in your own account. It stays your reservation, your points, your control.
Is there a fee before you start searching?
Yes, for award searches. Award searching is the work, and it takes hours whether or not seats turn up. A research fee covers the search itself and is agreed with you before I start. If I find nothing that matches what we agreed on, you owe nothing further and we're square.
What if you find the seats but I change my mind?
The booking fee is due once I deliver instructions for space matching what we agreed on. That's the finding, not the flying.
Do you charge extra for additional travelers?
No. As long as everyone is on the same reservation, booked from one points account, it's one fee — finding two seats on one record is the same work as finding one. Most services in this space charge per person; I don't. Being straight with you: award space for more than two travelers is genuinely hard to find. Two is the sweet spot. I'll always try for more, and I won't charge extra if I get them — but if the space has to be split across separate reservations, each one is its own booking fee, and I'll tell you before I start.
Are you paid by credit card companies?
No. No affiliate links, no referral commissions, no bank, airline, or hotel relationships of any kind. My income from this comes from the people I work for — you.
How fast do you work?
Portfolio Audits and Award Searches: 5 business days. Renewal Reviews: 3. Live sessions usually book within a week. Traveling inside 10 days? There's a rush fee and I'll move you up.
I'm just starting out and have almost no points. Worth it?
Maybe nothing yet, honestly. That's what the free call is for — I'll tell you if you're better off reading the free guides for six months first.
Refunds?
The research fee is non-refundable — it pays for work that's already happened. Live sessions can be rescheduled with 24 hours' notice and refunded in full if you cancel before we meet.
Do you sell my information?
No. Not to anyone, ever. No lists, no lead-gen, no partners.
Travel Technician provides educational and advisory services only. I am not a financial advisor, and nothing here is financial, tax, or legal advice — credit card decisions affect your credit and your finances, and they're yours to make. I am not a licensed travel agent and I do not book, sell, or hold travel on your behalf; all bookings are made by you, in your own accounts. I receive no compensation from any credit card issuer, bank, airline, hotel, or booking platform. Award availability is controlled by airlines and cannot be guaranteed by anyone. Point transfers between programs are generally one-way and irreversible.
Free consultation
Ready to see what your points can really do?
Start with a free consultation. Bring your questions, your balances (or none at all), and the trip you're dreaming about — leave with a clear picture of your options and next steps.
An educational conversation — never a sales pitch, never financial advice.