By: Andrew D. Tucker JD, CPA, CFP^®, CIMA^®

While your goal should be to make all travel tax-deductible, the reality is that overseas travel provides only limited opportunities for deductibility. For those personal trips, there’s another way of creating tax-free travel: using accumulated credit card and hotel points and airline miles to cover your personal travel costs.

Credit card points and rewards points can be an incredibly powerful way to travel, but you need to plan to make the most of them. Below, are some of the top ways to accumulate and utilize points to get the most “bang for your buck.”

1. Establish loyalty with one hotel chain and one airline – While this is...