I love to travel on miles and points. I’ve been fortunate enough to find great values and visit places I wouldn’t be able to afford were it not for frequent flyer and hotel loyalty programs.

Collecting frequent flyer miles is all about one thing: aspiring to travel. That may mean saving up enough miles to visit your family in the Midwest, heading to Paris for Bastille Day, or going even farther afield to an exotic destination like the South Pacific or one of the islands in the Indian Ocean like the Seychelles or Maldives.

Going away for my anniversary is always tricky. It usually falls on or near the Columbus Day holiday weekend, the last chance for many to soak up good weather before winter sets in.

I recently took a weeklong trip to South America where I visited Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. The first part of the trip was paid for with cash, but earned a good amount of miles toward the next free trip. The return was in first class on American Airlines using miles and surpassed any expectations I had of what that experience would be like.