JT is AwardWallet’s Editor-In-Chief. JT originally joined the AwardWallet team in early 2020 as a freelance editor and writer, but he has been part of the points and miles ecosystem since 2014. Looking for a way to reduce the cost of a trip to China, he found he could sign up for just one credit card to get enough miles to fly round-trip for almost nothing out-of-pocket.
That experience prompted him to dive headfirst into the world of airline, hotel, and credit card points and miles. After working for a decade as a tax accountant, JT focused his analytical skills on writing about points, miles, and credit cards. He started contributing at The Points Guy in 2015 and published over 2,000 articles on the site before moving to AwardWallet in early 2020.
In June 2017, JT and his wife Katie sold or donated nearly all of their possessions to become digital nomads, proving firsthand how points, miles, and credit card rewards can drastically reduce the cost of travel. JT has logged over 1.8 million miles on 102 airlines, visited 72 countries, and maintains elite status with 4 airlines (including British Airways Gold, Asiana Diamond, and United Silver) and 6 hotel loyalty programs (including IHG Diamond Elite, Hilton Diamond, and Marriott Titanium Elite)
Tyler first joined the AwardWallet team in July 2023 as a freelance writer before joining the team full-time as of December 2023. He was first truly captivated by points and miles in 2019 while a student at NC State University, as they allowed him to chase his travel ambition while on a college budget.
When he’s not working or spending time with family, you can find Tyler surfing, planning another trip, or scheming his future ascent up Aconcagua in Mendoza, Argentina.
Erik joined the AwardWallet team in 2018. He attended the University of Michigan where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Economics. During school, he discovered points and miles as a way to fund frequent international trips and a semester abroad in Santiago Chile.
Following school, he began traveling full time and co-founded Abroaders.com, a startup that helps travelers earn and redeem rewards points for maximum value.
Erik first connected with AwardWallet while looking for a tool to manage complex award bookings for clients. With the help of the AwardWallet booking platform, he and his team have redeemed over 49 million points for 2.2 million in airfare savings.
Erik lives in Sao Paulo, Brazil. When not obsessing about points and miles, his hobbies include cooking, photography, learning languages, exploring national parks, watching Michigan athletics (Go Blue!) and of course, travel.
Jess joined the AwardWallet team in early 2016 as a member of the writing team. Hailing from New Zealand, Jess discovered points and miles while traveling full-time with his wife and son, utilizing rewards to reduce travel costs and relying on credit card perks to make travel more comfortable.
His extensive knowledge of frequent flyer programs was acquired through hands-on experience, research, and many hours behind the keyboard helping design and implement AwardWallet’s backend tools and compliance systems.
When not immersed in his work at AwardWallet, you can find Jess running trails, cooking up a storm, wakeboarding, and traveling with his family. Jess is currently based in the idyllic Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia.
Skye joined the AwardWallet team in 2019. After leaving his full-time job in 2014 to travel the world, he created his own website SkyeTravels.com to make traveling a reality for everyone, no matter their financial means. He’s a big fan of reward programs for maximizing points and traveling for less. He can most often be found working diligently in a cafe somewhere in the world. So far he’s been to over 60 countries and counting.
Most of Mark’s professional career has revolved around credit cards and points and miles. He’s been to over 95 countries, but still hasn’t visited all the “real” countries of Epcot’s World Showcase. He enjoys leaving his hometown of Scottsdale, Arizona anytime the temperature rises above 105 degrees Fahrenheit.
Sam Helmy joined the AwardWallet team in late 2016. He discovered points and miles while planning trips in pursuit of his other passion scuba diving when he started using points and miles to get to some of the world’s best diving destinations. Eventually, he became a bit of an expert on how to use points and miles to get to diving destinations across the globe.
Over the years, Sam has lived in 6 countries and enjoys discovering new places and meeting new people, discovering new cultures, and learning new languages.
Sam currently lives in the UK, and when not working on points and miles he enjoys scuba diving, traveling, cooking, DIY, hiking, and walking with his wife and two dogs.
Andrew joined the AwardWallet team in February 2023. Having a British father and a Greek mother, experiencing different cultures was in his blood since before birth.
Andrew attended the University of Michigan and received a Bachelor of Arts while focusing his studies on Pre-law with the goal of crushing law school. But in the summer of 2010, Andrew took a 3-month backpacking trip around Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, and his life was changed forever.
From that moment forward, Andrew knew that he wanted to live a life of travel. He traveled to 51 countries and lived in 12 of them.
In addition to traveling the world and creating new experiences, Andrew enjoyed playing a game of football or tennis with friends, winning tons of money playing poker, bumbling his way through new languages, supporting Detroit & Michigan sports teams, and helping out with stray dogs in and around Athens.
Unfortunately, Andrew George Bradshaw passed away in March 2025, just days before he was set to move back to Greece to be closer to his family.
Brie Bash is a freelance writer and part-time elementary school teacher. She began “hacking” travel as a poor college student through grants, scholarships, and even coordinating group travel to earn free trips. Since 2013, she has been earning and burning points and miles alongside her husband and two energetic young boys. Their shared love of travel has taken them across the globe on amazing family adventures, and Brie’s knowledge of points and miles have allowed them to do it for next to nothing!
When not traveling or planning travel, Brie enjoys reading, writing, Latin dance, and professional baseball.
Cameron is a freelance writer who grew up with a passion for traveling and seeing the world. It was a curiosity in points and miles that led him deep into the hobby. Since 2018, he has traveled the world for less using points, along with his wife and three teenage children. He is a moderator with the Award Travel 101 Facebook community.
Cameron enjoys pickleball, hiking, golfing, and skiing, as well as rooting for Purdue and Cleveland sports teams. His favorite country is Switzerland.
Scott Sikes joined the Award Wallet team in 2024. After saving several thousand dollars using points for a family trip to Hawaii in 2018, Scott was hooked! Scott enjoys finding amazing card offers, great travel deals, and maximizing points to the fullest. He and his wife, Hillarie, enjoy flying to all-inclusive in the Caribbean and traveling to minor league baseball stadiums throughout the Southeast United States.
Scott lives in Birmingham, Alabama, with his wife and two kids. When Scott is not traveling, he enjoys baseball, video games, gardening, and planning his next trip!
Ian Snyder has had a passion for award travel ever since entering the miles and points world over a decade ago. He enjoys using them to see places both near and far, whether he’s traveling solo, with friends, or with his kids. Especially well versed in frequent flyer programs, Ian understands their intricacies and often is able to maximize his points using the best award deals.
Ian is closing in on 30 countries visited, which may seem like too few for someone who loves to travel as much as he does. But he also loves life in rural Northern California, and returning home from a trip is its own reward. More than anything, Ian wants to demonstrate that extraordinary travel is possible for the ordinary family. He loves helping his friends and family with their own award travel.
Ben Nickel-D’Andrea is a seasoned freelance writer specializing in travel, credit cards, and award travel. Through the years, he has contributed to many other prominent publications offering insights into points and miles, credit cards, award travel, airlines, and hotels.
With a passion for luxury travel, Ben has explored numerous destinations worldwide, often flying in first or business class using his own hard-earned miles and points. He shares his experiences and expertise in social media and on his many articles, where he provides in-depth analyses and guides for fellow travelers, aiming to make luxury travel and travel in general more accessible and helping readers navigate the complexities of points, miles, and credit card rewards to enhance their travel experiences.
Ben holds three citizenships, speaks English, Spanish and Italian and has a diverse academic background, including studies in biology, agribusiness, linguistics, and languages – and tries to marry all of those passions with travel, the exploration of other cultures and cuisines.
Andrew Kunesh has been active in the points and miles space since 2014, using rewards to travel far and wide around the world.
Lauren is a freelance writer, part-time pharmacist, and freelance photographer/videographer. At 17 years old, she took her first trip out of the country, and two weeks exploring Italy changed her life. Every decision she’s made since then has been based on how to travel more or how to save enough money for more travel.
Despite knowing nothing about credit cards or points, she heard that people used points and miles for free travel, so she opened her first card at 18 years old to get started as early as possible. She’s spent the past decade learning everything about the points and miles world in order to fund her travels. She’s traveled to 36 countries over 6 continents and plans to hit 10 more new countries in 2025 – all using points and miles to get there! She even started a flight consultant business to help people find cheap flight deals using both cash or points.
When not traveling, planning travel, or writing about travel, Lauren is based in Atlanta, Georgia where she spends time with friends, hiking, camping, kickboxing, freediving, trying new recipes, or watching Survivor.
Jenna Hansen began working for AwardWallet in 2022. She and her husband homeschool their four kids and spend a lot of their time traveling and learning through experiences. Jenna discovered points and miles in 2020 when she was looking for a way to be able to afford more expensive trips for her family. Once she came across other moms who were points and miles pros, she took the leap and has been hooked ever since.
Jenna and her family live in California and like to spend time visiting the nearby Sierra Nevada mountains and the Central California coast. You can also catch them at Disneyland as often as possible!
Senitra Horbrook is a travel rewards writer and editor who has visited more than 40 countries. As a frequent solo traveler who opened her first airline credit card more than a decade ago, she now has three dozen credit cards to her name and has used millions of points and miles to travel inexpensively around the world.
In addition to AwardWallet, Senitra has written for The Points Guy, Insider, and Forbes Advisor. Her travel rewards advice has also been quoted in publications such as MarketWatch, Consumer Reports, and Kiplinger. She shares strategies on her Instagram account @pointstravelher to help others earn points and miles through credit card rewards.
Ajay is a freelance writer and software engineer who grew up minutes from Chicago O’Hare International Airport and was interested in aviation from a very young age. After a family trip during his freshman year of college with flights in premium cabins, Ajay decided to learn how to use points and miles to fund his own trips. In 2022, he used miles to go to Turkey as well as for a six week trip across Europe, and in 2023, he has redeemed miles on a trip to Japan, Hong Kong, Helsinki, and Paris.
When Ajay is not traveling or writing about points and miles, he can be found exploring his new home of Washington, DC, cooking new vegetarian and vegan recipes, watching Succession, and taking up a recent hobby of oil painting.
Miguel joined the AwardWallet team in 2022 as an editor/content updater. Miguel got into award travel after his first trip to an airport lounge. He began researching the best card to get for airport lounge access and never stopped learning.
He’s earned and redeemed millions of points and miles and enjoys using award travel for bucket-list travel experiences such as running with the bulls in Pamplona, visiting Chernobyl, gorilla trekking in Uganda, and attending the World Cup.
When Miguel is not traveling, he enjoys spending time with his wife and kids, watching movies, & dining out.
Jon Nickel-D’Andrea is a seasoned travel writer and luxury travel advisor based in Seattle, Washington. Over the past decade, he has dedicated himself to curating and sharing premium travel experiences, specializing in luxury accommodations and first-class air travel. Jon‘s expertise has been recognized by leading publications, with his work featured both nationally and internationally.
His extensive travels, covering more than 100,000 miles annually with his husband, have equipped him with firsthand knowledge of global destinations. This experience enables him to craft personalized travel itineraries that cater to the unique preferences of his clients. Jon‘s commitment to excellence is further exemplified through his role as a travel advisor, where he leverages his insights to provide exceptional service and unforgettable journeys.
Expect to find Jon at home hanging out with his husband Ben and overly rambunctious beagle or checking out the latest boutique coffee house around the corner.
Max Prosperi is a lifelong aviation geek and avid frequent flyer. He became interested in traveling in premium cabins using points and miles while in the eighth grade. In high school, Max began contributing to various travel blogs. It was during this time that he also learned how to use points and miles to travel cheaply, even in premium cabins.
His travels took off as he continued to contribute to various travel blogs throughout his time in high school and college. In 2020, he joined the AwardWallet team while studying at Saint Louis University. Max graduated in January 2022 with a Bachelors in Entrepreneurial Studies and a minor in Marketing.
Today, Max splits his time between Miami, FL, and his hometown of St. Louis. MO. He continues to find new and exciting ways to redeem his points and miles for travel across the globe.
Carissa joined the AwardWallet team in 2023 as an editor and writer, though she’s been around the block a time or two when it comes to award travel.
Since first learning that there was such as thing as ‘free travel,’ she’s made her way to 60 countries and all 7 continents, though the last was a little bit frigid for her taste. She’s redeemed millions of miles and made more stupid mileage runs than one should ever hope, but all her friends and family love her anyway.
With a double handful of hotel and airline elite statuses (including United 1K and Hyatt Globalist), you can frequently find Carissa waxing lyrical about complimentary upgrades and free food.
When she’s not writing about points and miles, you can find her reading about points and miles or traveling using points and miles.
Sidharth is a junior in high school who grew up in a family that loved to travel. Because of this, Sidharth always saw his parents looking for the best deals and cheapest ways to experience luxury in different nations.
One day, Sid was given the task of booking a vacation for his family, and that’s when he discovered the world of points and miles. Since then, Sid has helped set up his family’s credit card structure and helped them book several nearly free vacations.
When Sid isn’t traveling with his family, you’ll likely catch him playing tennis, going on a hike with his friends, or complaining about his favorite American football team, the New York Giants.