Speakers

2024 Speakers will be announced soon!

We are super excited for the amazing sessions happening in 2024! We anticipate announcing our first rounds of speakers starting the beginning of March. Wondering what kind of sessions and topics we will cover? Take a look at our 2023 sessions below.

2023 Speakers

Mackenzie Alameda

Mackenzie from Travel Hacks Mack loves to use points, miles, credit card perks, and money-saving strategies to experience more without spending more. Travel is an important part of her life, whether it’s experiencing a new country, visiting friends or family, or humanitarian work. In 2022 she and her husband went on a honeymoon traveling through 6 countries in Europe, that retailed at over $30k, and paid ~$1900 in cash for it. There are a lot of ways to earn extra points from wedding spend on travel, whether you are getting married, are part of a wedding party, planning a bachelorette or shower, and even if you are attending a wedding as a guest. She’s excited to share her strategies for maximizing points earning for weddings at Travel More!

Jess Field

Jess Field has been travel hacking since 2015, and she quit her job as a lawyer last year to pursue entrepreneurship. She’s now 1/3 of the Travel Hacking Mom team, and loves teaching others how to turn their travel dreams into reality for pennies on the dollar using credit card points and miles.

Ryan Horn

Ryan Horn is the founder and content creator of “Profits and Points” where he aims to make travel and experiences more accessible by teaching about credit card points, personal finance, and other money and travel topics. He has been fascinated with the world of points and miles for over a decade now and has been featured in publications such as MarketWatch and The Motley Fool. Ryan holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration and a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting and Information Systems, both from Virginia Tech. You can find him on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube at @ProfitsAndPoints”

Nicole Haynes

Nicole Haynes is a soccer mom, a marathoner, and a public school math teacher. This makes her highly qualified to teach people how to use their everyday spending to earn points and miles to travel more for less.

She mostly travels with her husband and 2 teenage kids. Her travel is dictated by the school schedule and she manages to make it work. Most of her trips are budget-friendly, but she uses points and miles to mix in a bit of bougie. Learning about points has allowed her to expand our travel to more international destinations. She has traveled to 10 countries since she started travel hacking and earned over 2 million points and miles.

As a mother and a teacher, she believes that travel is one of the best educators, and the benefits definitely outweigh the costs.

Lauren Rabsatt

Lauren Rabsatt is an “elder millennial,” analytics consultant, wife, and mom of two small kids. She is committed to making her money work for her family, so that they can see the world without breaking the bank, and to maintaining a dangerously low PTO balance. Lauren has been travel hacking since the early 2010s, with an initial focus on covering hotel stays with points and following cheap cash flight deals. Since then, she has broadened her points and miles acumen, both in terms of leveraging every day spend to accumulate more points and redeeming for trips that would otherwise be out of reach. Lauren hopes to inspire conference attendees with the trips her family has taken using points & miles, and looks forward to sharing her knowledge and strategy, so that others can develop their own approach for earning and redeeming travel rewards.

Miguel Rueda

Miguel got into award travel after his first trip to an airport lounge in March 2020. He began researching the best card to get for airport lounge access and never stopped learning.

In his 3 years in the award travel space, he’s earned and redeemed over 5 million points and miles. He enjoys using award travel for bucket list travel experiences such as running with the bulls in Pamplona, visiting Chernobyl, attending the world cup, and gorilla trekking in Uganda.

When not traveling, he enjoys spending time with his wife and kids, watching movies, & dining out.

Julia Menez

Julia Menez is a points strategy coach, speaker, and host of the Geobreeze Travel Podcast.

After traveling to more than 30 countries before the age of 30 and saving thousands of dollars each year with points and miles, Julia distills the strategies from top award travelers around the world in the Geobreeze Travel podcast and creates Instagram videos about credit card benefits such as trip protections and luxury travel opportunities.

Through her podcast, Julia features a diverse roster of guests with experiences that are traditionally underrepresented in larger points and miles blogs and media. Her episodes often highlight women, first generation travelers, and people of color.

Julia has been a speaker for FinCon, a course instructor for Frequent Traveler University, and quoted in publications such as The New York Times, Money Magazine, Fodor’s Travel, and Business Insider. Her podcast was nominated in the 2021 Plutus Awards for “Best New Personal Finance Podcast”, and she serves as a senior advisor for Bilt Rewards. Julia is available for comments and interviews regarding award travel, personal finance, entrepreneurship, and women in business.

Kelly

Kelly from @pointsandmilesdoc is a surgeon and points enthusiast in Los Angeles. At work, she serves as a division director for her surgical specialty and works on projects implementing sustainability in healthcare. On the side, she aims to promote intentional award travel to prevent burnout amongst medical professionals. She is routinely called for surgical consults and points consults by her colleagues for the unique challenges medical professionals face when scheduling time off.

Dr. Sally Riggs

Dr. Sally Riggs is a British born and trained Clinical Psychologist, who got the travel bug at an early age. She started solo travel at 16yo, has visited over 50 countries and has lived in Israel, Japan, and most recently the US for the last 15 years. In March 2020 she contracted Covid, and as a result developed Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) and ME/CFS as part of a Long Covid diagnosis. What this means is she can’t stand or walk for more than a few minutes without her heart rate getting dangerously high, and any kind of activity can knock her out for days or weeks at a time. Traveling with this new disability has been a different kind of adventure, but she hasn’t been deterred, (hopefully 14 roundtrips by the time of this conference!) and its made so much easier by points and miles hacking!

Janelle Rupkalvis

Experience the world through the lens of Janelle Rupkalvis, a savvy travel hacker and content creator who shares her journeys with a captivated audience on social media. With an impressive passport stamp collection of nearly 30 countries and counting, Janelle’s latest feat was a breathtaking $40k Maldives adventure, all achieved through her expertise in travel hacking. As a fifth year Delta Diamond Medallion member, Janelle offers invaluable insights and insider tips on achieving status and maximizing travel rewards. With a dedicated following of over 160k, Janelle’s unique perspective on exploration has solidified her position as a leading voice in the travel community.

Jessica Adza

Jessica Adza of Worldtravelista has been a frequent corporate traveler since 1999, but was bit hard by the love of travel at an early age. Over the years she has traveled to more than 24 countries and nearly all the US States, however her passion has been to continue exploring “La Dolce Vita” of Italy. She started casually blogging and branded her handle Worldtravelista back in 2008. It was also during that year she endured personal challenges to begin exploring the never-ending journey of travel hacking and point & miles as life currency. She’s a Lifetime Titanium member w Marriott, working on her first Million-Miler Status w Delta, and currently loves the Globalist perks w Hyatt. Jessica lives in Minneapolis, MN w her husband and their adorable cream dachshund Millie.

Traci Siegel

Traci Siegel has been travel hacking since 2011 and has taken her family of four all over the world with points and miles. She loves helping other families learn how to travel more and travel better! You can find her at @pointillismtravelhacking.

Traci is really into geography, good food, trains, history, nature, art, easy-to-moderate hiking,subway systems, practicality, and visiting filming locations from her favorite TV shows. Her all-time favorite places so far are Scotland, Hong Kong, Istanbul, London, and Australia. She's happiest eating breakfast at Dishoom or gelato anywhere, and she will not shut up about how good the coffee is in Melbourne.

Ginny Grady

Ginny Grady has always enjoyed traveling and saving money. When she found she could combine her two passions through travel hacking in 2021, she was hooked! Since then, Ginny and her husband have traveled to Iceland, Ireland, and home to visit family and friends. Ginny runs @thegrady_bunch, where she shares her travels, tips and tricks, and stacks. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her cats, binging Below Deck, and trying new restaurants.

Devan Sullivan

Devan Sullivan, the younger sister of the PointSister duo, has been traveling the world on points and miles since the age of 15 (her parents started her young). So far, she has traveled to over 65 countries on points and miles and has no plans to stop anytime soon! Devan grew up in Mexico City and Puerto Rico, lived in Spain for a short stint- she speaks Spanish!-and has now landed in her favorite place on earth, San Diego, California!
In the travel rewards space, Devan is known for piecing together complex ANA Around the World itineraries and her knowledge on military travel benefits. Devan is a military spouse and loves learning new military travel tricks. Devan runs Point Sisters, with her sister and best friend Kelsi, and they both love helping others strategically open up credit cards so that they can travel “bougie on a budget” too
Outside of travel rewards, Devan works in Higher Education, enjoys Thai food, and is a massage addict. Tempt her with a good happy hour, and the answer will never be no!

Kelsi Sullivan

Kelsi Sullivan is the older sister of the PointSister duo. She grew up in Puerto Rico and Mexico City and has lived in way too many places, but her favorite was when she lived in Sri Lanka for 3 years! Traveling for Kelsi is about connection- to people, food, culture, and history. In the travel rewards space, she is a solo traveler who loves a good last minute business class deal! At the conference, she will be focusing on Southwest and some sweet spots to focus on to get max value from your points.

Outside of Pointsisters, she works in environmental health and safety, dances regularly (all styles!) and plays beach volleyball. She resides in sunny San Diego right around the corner from her sister and has decided to make CA her home. She loves chatting around a good cup of coffee or dancing the night away with friends

Sam Holland

Sam stumbled into points and miles travel because of her passion for Disney and her husband’s global marathon habit. She’s currently traveling hacking her way into joining the six castle club by visiting every disney park in the world. She is the cohost of The Disney Points podcast.

Amena Bakali

Amena Bakali is an award travel educator, travel blogger, and family travel enthusiast. She’s a wife, and mom of 3 kids (ages 13, 10, & 2). She loves to take on new adventures, make memories with her family all thanks to points & miles, and teach others on how to do the same – travel more, for less! She’s passionate about educating on how to travel feasibly with a family, by leveraging everyday spend to earn more travel rewards – all through a variety of travel hacks and cost-cutting strategies. When her husband’s job changed 6 years ago, and he had to travel for work – she was opened up to the world of award travel and loyalty programs. Travel doesn’t have to stop when you have kids – and you can find her at @hassansonholiday showing other families on how to make travel work for all budgets, preferences, and lifestyles!

Sierra Smith

Sierra Smith is an aerospace engineer, points/mile enthusiast, and avid traveler. I got into travel hacking for the same reason that most people do – to travel with champagne taste on a beer budget! Because of their jobs, Sierra and her husband are pretty much always traveling during peak travel times, so she has learned to find award space when demand and prices are often at their highest. Sierra loves sharing knowledge around award travel and lesser known benefits of credit cards to help make travel more accessible to a broader audience. You can find her on Instagram at Highsierrapoints.

Allison Tackette

Allison Tackette loves to use points and miles to travel the world. For the majority of her life, the annual family vacation was to Ohio from Texas (on Southwest Airlines). Now, she’s on a mission to visit every state and country!

Allison likes to showcase all different types of redemptions from long haul economy to luxury hotels and all the tools/strategies to make your award searches successful.

She’s the founder of Award Travel Vacations and lead points advisor at Freedom Travel Systems. She looks forward to meeting new points and miles friends out in the wild.

You can find her on Instagram @luckytictac and online/Facebook at Award Travel Vacations.

Senitra Horbrook

Senitra Horbrook @pointstravelher is a frequent solo traveler who began using points and miles in 2012 when she opened her first cobranded airline card and redeemed the miles for a trip to Europe. From there, she was hooked!

Now, with three dozen credit cards to her name, she has visited more than 40 countries using points and miles. Senitra’s redemptions run the gamut from flying in Qsuites business class for a trip to the Maldives to flying Southwest for a weekend of hiking at some of America’s beautiful national parks.

Senitra has been a featured speaker at Frequent Traveler University, Travel and Adventure Show and Nomadness Fest. Senitra was the former credit cards editor at The Points Guy, and her travel rewards advice has been quoted in publications such as MarketWatch, Consumer Reports and Kiplinger. She enjoys sharing her strategies to earn millions of points and miles through credit card rewards in order to inspire others.

Jen Dilworth

Jen Dilworth has been a world traveler since she was very young and her mom worked for Pan Am. She herself worked in the travel industry for many years, including as an airline customer service agent and travel agent. Free travel runs through her blood. Her husband travels quite a bit for work and has racked up many, many miles and even earned Million Miler status with United and lifetime Platinum Elite with Marriott. Jen loves to help people book “Gucci style trips on a Walmart budget” and uses her skills she’s learned from other travel influencers to teach others how they can do it, too. She is currently working on her “60 before 60” bucket list and enjoys helping others plan their goal trips by using points and miles, too

Kamree Price

Kamree Price is the founder of @ourfamilypassport, co-founder of Travel Reward University, and an Art History Professor. As a mom to a blended family of six, she specializes in finding the BEST ways to earn and maximize points for families and teaches thousands how to do it as well. She has been to over 50 countries on points and miles and most of those with her little ones. Her specialty is finding creative ways to make the most of ALL of the different bank programs not just Chase, and helping others build a points and miles strategy that works for them! Having earned over 1 million Amex points in just one year, she can’t wait to share some of her unique American Express tips at TravelMore Con!

Noemy Mendoza

Noemy is a frugal and bougie expert in travel hacking and financial literacy. Despite having had a minimum-wage job, she refused to let financial limitations hold her back and saved $16,000, allowing her to travel to numerous destinations that once seemed impossible. Noemy and her husband paid off $60,000 in debt in 1.5 years while working hourly wage jobs and using savvy ways to save and earn extra income. Now, with a Master’s degree in Business Administration, Noemy shares her expertise in travel hacking and financial literacy to help others achieve their goals, including getting out of debt while traveling.

Michelle Mojica

Michelle Mojica’s love for travel ignited at the young age of 16 when she scored her first after-school job in the travel industry! Her story is a testament to pursuing your dreams while successfully running businesses and living your absolute best life. Since leaving corporate America in 2008, she has become a well-known figure in the travel and real estate industry, serving as the Founder of Luxury Travel Hacks Club and the Designated Broker/Owner of Mojica & Associates Real Estate. Michelle is not only a world traveler but also a coach, speaker, and philanthropist. Having visited 52 countries, Michelle’s greatest passion lies in exploring the world alongside her family of six as well as teaching others how to travel in luxury without straining their finances. Her belief that anything is possible through the guidance of God fuels her enthusiasm for empowering others to chase their dreams and experience the joy of wanderlust

Ashley McCurdy

After losing her job, Ashley McCurdy got rid of her expensive apartment to travel the world and live in hotels (usually Marriott Bonvoy properties) full-time and vlog about her experiences on her YouTube channel, In Search of Traveler.

Ashley caught the internet’s attention in 2020 by staying 103 nights at Marriott properties for $4356, which includes properties like the Ritz Carlton in Cancun & W in Midtown Atlanta and now she geeks out on finding epic hotels around the world for less than $50/night.

Join Ashley as she takes a walk down memory lane and shares the strategies she uses with the Marriott Bonvoy program which has allowed her to travel, eat, explore, and live in hotels full-time for $500/week for over 3 years.

Lindsay Bradley

Lindsay started in points and miles in 2011 but didn’t get into extensive travel until meeting her P2. In 2018 after marrying her P2 they took off to travel the world doing mini retirements on points and miles. She has visited 66 countries on all 7 continents and redeemed over $300,000 worth of travel with credit card rewards. Last year Lindsay and her husband added a little traveler to the mix and have started taking her around the world. Lindsay loves helping others make the most of their points and miles and navigating travel with a baby. When she’s not on the road, she can be found in the O.R. giving anesthesia as a nurse anesthetist.

Alex Lewin

Alex Lewin found a deep love for travelling in 2015 when she first visited the Galapogos Islands. Since then, she has found creative ways to maximize points, credit card benefits and cash to travel to 6 continents and over 45 countries. Alex offers one on one virtual coaching and a point valuation calculator.

Beth Vermillion

Beth is a mom of three, including two teenagers and a tween with significant special needs. She started travel hacking in 2015 when her family traveled to China to adopt their youngest daughter and she has been finding creative ways to afford trips ever since. Her family of five takes advantage of EVERY school break. Just in 2022, they traveled to Disneyland, Grand Teton National Park, Mexico, Utah, NYC, Italy, and on their most ambitious trip ever to Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand all at a fraction of the cost using points and miles! She loves to help other families create their ultimate bucket lists and start checking those destinations off for less!

Kim Shearer

Kim is a family travel blogger and mom of three boys who lives in the Philadelphia area. She is an extreme couponer turned points and miles enthusiast who loves using credit card points to spoil her family on nearly free vacations. She has been perfecting the fine art of traveling with kids since 2009 and uses her blog and social media accounts to teach other parents how to travel more, for less. She is the co-host of the Disney Points Podcast and a contributor for Forbes Advisor in the Travel Rewards and Credit Card space.

Ben Komenkul

Ben’s Big Deal is a Thai American business traveler based in Los Angeles since 2009. He discovered Points and Miles in 2014 with the intention of upgrading his travel from Southwest Airlines and La Quinta Inn to flying Business class and Luxury properties with his family.

Ben’s epic Thailand and Mexico group tours has been documented on his prolific Instagram Account. He has been featured on Hyatt Ad and Boarding Area blogs. Ben is a sought after speaker for Frequent Traveler University, Chicago Seminars, and TravelZork. In 2023, he went full time to run the Business Travel 360/Ben’s Big Deal Podcast that covers the latest points and miles deal.

When Ben is not running his monthly Hotel Masterclass helping his students learn the ins and outs of Hotel Elite Status, he is traveling with his 10 year old business partner as they work toward earning Lifetime Globalist status.

Chris and Ellen

Chris and Ellen, a dynamic travel couple with 7 years of globetrotting experience, have spent the last 5 years mastering the art of house sitting. With a passion for discovering new places and embracing unique experiences, they have stayed in a variety of incredible homes, including a 15th-century manor house in Normandy, a chateau in France for two months, a vineyard in Tuscany, an Emmy winner’s mansion in the Hollywood hills, and a cozy cabin on a Scottish loch. Inspired by countless inquiries about their extensive travels, Chris and Ellen wrote an eBook to share their knowledge and help others overcome the barrier of accommodation costs. They firmly believe that everyone should have the opportunity to “Travel More” and stay longer in the places they love. As house sitting experts and travel influencers, their mission is to empower more people to explore the world, create lasting memories, and foster meaningful connections, all while making the most of their travel budget. In addition to house sitting, Chris and Ellen also leverage points and miles, combining these strategies for the ultimate travel hacking experience.

Connie Wang

Connie first started diving deep in the points world in 2017 while in college and has since earned over 10 million points. In addition to her full time job, she thoroughly counts her PTO days and partakes in 15-20 vacations a year to various U.S. cities, national parks, Mexico beaches, South America, and Europe. She has camped throughout the U.S. and even emergency camped in Patagonia. Besides camping, Connie also loves staying at high redemption value luxury resorts and all-inclusives on points.

Being at a Southwest hub, Connie is fluent in all things SW and flies SW as much as she can, utilizing a Companion Pass since 2018. She loves finding loopholes, status matching, and planning high redemption value vacations. Connie offers complimentary travel agent services including perks from Virtuoso, Belmond Bellini Club, Four Seasons Preferred, Hyatt Prive, and many other programs.

Angel Trinh

Angel Trinh is the founder of @pennywisetraveler. To date, she has been to 36 countries and all 7 continents. She first started travel hacking in college where she applied to a bunch of scholarships and grants and ended up getting free housing, free tuition, and $7,000 in spending money to study abroad in Rome. Nowadays, she travel hacks mostly with points, miles, stacks, and leveraging programs to travel for less.

She has previously spoken at the Travel & Adventure Show, Frequent Traveler University, Chicago Seminars, and The Nomadic Network about credit cards, money, and travel hacking. Her work in technology, money, and travel has also been featured in BuzzFeed x Bank of America, CNBC, CreditCards.com, Experian, Forbes, Morning Brew, Real Simple and TODAY Show.

You can find Angel travel hacking a variety of different trips. You will see her flying in first, business, economy, and sometimes even Spirit! She was even able to get Spirit Gold Status from doing a status match from Hyatt Globalist. She also enjoys free cruises. Her most recent redemption was a $30K trip to Japan for $109.

You can find Angel checking out different workouts on ClassPass, being bougie on a budget, exploring the great outdoors, and making green juice