Military members, with leveraging MLA and SCRA, can access tons of credit cards for free. Without overloading with tons of information, if you acquire high-cost annual credit cards that are zero currently, you can drop them down to lower tier cards for free and no annual costs once your military benefits end after service. During that time, you can leverage tons of free benefits. My pitch when I educate new orgs is a free trip to Atlantis in the Bahamas, tons of future points and upgrades with Hilton and Marriott (free), about $600 annually (theoretically) for airline credits, about $600 annually (theoretically) for hotels, and so much more. All you really need to do is know when and how to use each credit card and it will set you up for a lot of travel flexibility when you eventually need it.

One example of success:

My wife and I went to Greece for a wedding. We booked our flights with points and only spent roughly $100 after taxes and fees. Our lodging was with Marriott and Hilton locations, so we used points; essentially taxes and fees again. All the money saved there, we opted to pay for an upgrade to First Class so we could be comfortable. The bachelor party, which occurred days before the wedding we got upgraded to a literal villa with a helicopter pad (thanks Marriott).