I traveled around Southeast Asia for $1000 a month. Including flights
medium.com> Including Flights
A lie since he used credit card points. (Miles vs Cash are similar.) Actual cost, more like $1800.
Totally agree with you that the credit card points was disingenuous. If nothing else than because not everyone has access to credit cards, rewards points, or rewards incentives (bad credit, no credit), so even making the assumption that others could do that is a little... well, I hate to use the word, but "privileged."
However, flights to Thailand are about $600 round trip from NYC, if you're not too picky about the day of the week, time, and having a layover in China. So, over three months, that's an extra $200/month, for a total of $1200/month. Still not bad!
My husband and I went to Kenya for $800 each, round trip, with 10 hour layovers in Amsterdam and Paris. If you fly to a dirt-cheap country, you can have some pretty amazing vacations and save more than the few hundred extra dollars you have to spend on airfare to fly somewhere more distant.
Airfare is super cheap right now. So that helps. But most people in the US in tech will have access to credit cards. So it doesn't make sense to complain about someone showing you how to travel the world cheaper.
"most people in the US in tech will have access to credit cards"
YC is a tech site, but the original article was not geared towards a tech audience, necessarily.
But you can get the miles for free with a credit card sign up bonus, so it is actually $1,000 per month. The entire point is to learn how to use travel hacking to pick up hundreds of thousands of miles.
You can also get cash for "free". Examples: CapitalOne has "Hassle Free" rewards and Chase has the ability to switch. Some cards w/ the ability to be fluid will give you bonus cash for signing up.
Cash redemptions are usually one of the worst ways to redeem points. You can put a dollar value on your points by dividing the price of the flight when you book it by the number of points it cost you. 1 cent per point if you choose cash vs 2 cents per point for miles usually...