A recent commentary on Motley Fool by Tim Beyers gives good advice in the form of 5 Tips for a Foolish Trip.

Here’s Tip 1: “Treat miles and points as income, just as dividends allow you to get paid to invest, credit cards and special vendor deals allow you to get paid to spend. There’s just one hitch: you need to pay them off monthly. But, if you do, certain cards can give you just about everything you need to vacation in style.

That’s how it was for our 12-day trip to Europe and Africa a couple of years ago. As we planned, we learned that we’d be spending roughly five days of our trip on trans-Atlantic flights. At first, I thought that spending that much time in coach would be fine. But my wife — and my back — argued for first class. (Guess who won?)

We’re not rich, which meant we had to figure out how to use miles to cover the cost of the trip. Fortunately, we had Membership Rewards points, which we pile up monthly through our American Express card. We participate in Membership Rewards because it features a huge number of airline and hotel options. That would become crucial as we booked the trip for what I estimate to be at least one-fifth of the full fare.

To read the other great tips, click on over to http://www.fool.com and look for commentary by Tim Beyers.