credit card points travel/miles/airline and hotel rewards

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I haven’t paid for vacation flights in over 3 years. I travel for leisure with 2 kids, mostly in economy because of numbers, and have no loyalty to any one program. At present I’m working Amex, Chase, American and Alaska programs. Points are earned largely through initial bonuses and ongoing spending.

In the last 3-4 years we went to France, Turkey, UK, Morocco, Netherlands. Just came back from 2 weeks in Scandinavia, and have Austria booked for tgiving and Italy for spring break.

If you and your DH consistently open new cards 3-4 times a year, you can travel in business class 1-2 times a year easily, more if in economy. It’s a fun hobby but there is definitely a learning curve and ongoing research.

I get that this is the strategy, but I feel really uncomfortable with the idea of opening new cards "3-4 times a year." I wouldn't get in trouble with that -- I pay them off each month. But for some reason it still makes me nervous.

PP, you don’t keep using them. You spend what you need to get your bonus, and into the sock drawer it goes. Move on to the next. Rinse and repeat. Effectively you’re only using one card at a time. This is my record so far this year:

Barclays Aviator: 60k with American Airlines. Annual fee plus one charge.

Advantage City Business: 65k miles with 4,000 spend. Done.

Hawaiian with Barclays: 70k miles with 2,000 spend. Done.

I’m biding my time till end of July to get a chase sapphire .

Next year I will probably get a couple of amexes, a chase ink and possibly a hotel card.

I keep them all for a couple of years except my amexes and a sapphire.

I get the concept of throwing them into a drawer and not using them. But this is still going to effect your ability to get other credit if you need to (mortgage, car loan, etc).

Hasn’t been the case with me but I’m pretty diligent about closing them after 2 years. But I get that it’s important to stay with your personal comfort level.

2 years? Most people in the game close after a year to avoid another annual fee.

Yes but I see the banks are getting stricter with what they perceive as churning so I err on the side of caution.

Seems overly cautious, but if it works for you, great

Age of credit matters too so it’s good to keep a few cards open long term.

You only need your oldest card to “anchor” your credit. As long as it’s not your oldest card and you don’t need its benefits any longer, it’s fine to close. The only risk is later wanting the card back and not being able to get it.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I haven’t paid for vacation flights in over 3 years. I travel for leisure with 2 kids, mostly in economy because of numbers, and have no loyalty to any one program. At present I’m working Amex, Chase, American and Alaska programs. Points are earned largely through initial bonuses and ongoing spending.

In the last 3-4 years we went to France, Turkey, UK, Morocco, Netherlands. Just came back from 2 weeks in Scandinavia, and have Austria booked for tgiving and Italy for spring break.

If you and your DH consistently open new cards 3-4 times a year, you can travel in business class 1-2 times a year easily, more if in economy. It’s a fun hobby but there is definitely a learning curve and ongoing research.

I get that this is the strategy, but I feel really uncomfortable with the idea of opening new cards "3-4 times a year." I wouldn't get in trouble with that -- I pay them off each month. But for some reason it still makes me nervous.

PP, you don’t keep using them. You spend what you need to get your bonus, and into the sock drawer it goes. Move on to the next. Rinse and repeat. Effectively you’re only using one card at a time. This is my record so far this year:

Barclays Aviator: 60k with American Airlines. Annual fee plus one charge.

Advantage City Business: 65k miles with 4,000 spend. Done.

Hawaiian with Barclays: 70k miles with 2,000 spend. Done.

I’m biding my time till end of July to get a chase sapphire .

Next year I will probably get a couple of amexes, a chase ink and possibly a hotel card.

I keep them all for a couple of years except my amexes and a sapphire.

I get the concept of throwing them into a drawer and not using them. But this is still going to effect your ability to get other credit if you need to (mortgage, car loan, etc).

Hasn’t been the case with me but I’m pretty diligent about closing them after 2 years. But I get that it’s important to stay with your personal comfort level.

2 years? Most people in the game close after a year to avoid another annual fee.

Yes but I see the banks are getting stricter with what they perceive as churning so I err on the side of caution.

Seems overly cautious, but if it works for you, great

Age of credit matters too so it’s good to keep a few cards open long term.

Yes- keep two 20+ year old no fee cards open for this reason Use them once a year to keep them "alive" from the issuer standpoint. 840 credit score.

[Anonymous]

We have an United Credit Card. We live by an United hub as does my DD. We always fly United and run all of our purchases through the United credit card. It adds up and works for us!

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Beginner level here. I have liked the simplicity of the Chase Sapphire credit card. We put virtually all our expenses on it, and often use their travel portal, which allows you to earn more points just got booking through them. We haven’t scored free trips yet… my husband skeptical of the opening new credit cards thing, but as others have said, I think that’s really the way to do it so you get the sign on bonus.

We have traveled a ton on this card. It’s really easy. We haven’t transferred any points because we seem to reschedule travel fairly often so I don’t want to risk losing the points.

The one thing I don’t like is that they use Expedia to book the travel, which the hotels seem to mention when you check in. We have had bad experiences previously and avoid Expedia but are now using them again now. We haven’t had any issues but I imagine if we had an issue, we would need to deal with someone who works at Expedia and not Chase Sapphire.

I loathe Expedia.

Pp here. Agree, so do I. So far, we use the reservations for places like NYC where it’s not a big deal if the room isn’t ideal. I would be hesitant to book a resort trip where the hotel room and resort quality matters a lot. I wonder if the higher level of Chase card also uses Expedia. I would be very disappointed if so.

[Anonymous]

Two years ago, I used the AMEX Platinum portal to book a hotel in Europe and they definitely executed by Expedia - was surprised when I couldn’t check in online and there was some back and forth because the hotel didn’t have it as prepaid and tried to charge me, but they called Expedia and sorted it.

I believe I have noticed that Chase Sapphire Reserve also uses Expedia when I book with points.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Llfetime status is nearly impossible with Hyatt, but much easier for a frequent traveller who has a suitable Marriott Bonvoy card. Spouse has frequent travel for work (and his travel expenses go on his Marriott card) so she bounces between Platinum and Titanium status. Main family benefits are better hotel rooms at checkin and free breakfast and hotel lounge access.

She also is approaching Million Mile status on United, which gets lifetime Gold status. Gold has free United Club or StarAlliance lounge access for family on international trips, free checked bags, and somewhat earlier boarding

We find that it does still pay to try to concentrate spend on one airline and one hotel chain. The key to success on this is for one parent to have frequent work travel.

One parent?

One spouse, if you wish. In our case, we have kids, so one parent means the same as one spouse.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'll give my take as a frequent traveler with little spare time. I don't "churn" cards because I dont' have time for that. I have 2 cards:
AmEx Platinum
Chase Sapphire Reserve

AmEx gets all my airfare because you get 5x points. This also gives me gold status on both Hilton and Marriott hotels. Lots of free breakfasts and routine upgrades (usually outside the US).
Chase gets everything else.

Then, each partners with various airilnes so you can convert AmEx/Chase points to that airline's points, and it's diferent airlines for each. When I want a flight, I convert the points at that time.

Big caveat: the annual fee on these cards is $600-700/year. However, you get credited for various spending so actual cost is a lot lower.

But for all this, you need to spend a lot to make it worth it. Work lets me use my personal card for travel, so between the 2 cards I'm spending $200-300k/year.

As for the "just get a cash back card", you don't get much value from that _if_ you want to use it for business class travel. A simple example: a round-trip business calss flight from here to Europe may be $7k if you buy it, or 140k points. To earn $7k on your cash back card, you need to spend let's say $350k. To earn 140k points, that would be $30k on airfare (AmEx 5x points) or maybe $100k on typical regular spending (Chase gives 3x points on restaurants).

In summary, it's a balance of how complicated you want to make your life.. the marginal benefit compared to your time to manage the "tricks".

I feel like am doing something wrong. Every time I check, the flight cost in miles is not cheaper for me than just paying cash. For example, I was recently pricing out a business class flight on united to London, cost was ~4K, but also costs 400k miles! Is there a particular airline or hotel chain where this is more feasible? Would love to make this work, but have never had much success

I have definitely found that it NEVER makes sense to use United or BA points to fly economy to the UK possibly mainly as the cash fees are so high. Don’t know about business class though.

BA adds "fuel charges" to most flights using Avios points - unlike United which does not add "fuel charges".

Governmental taxes are unavoidable for any airline and the UK Departure tax is pretty high.

So of those two, the BA cash payment fees always will be much higher because of their unusual "fuel charges".

[Anonymous]

OP, the points/miles travel hacking stopped being worthwhile a decade ago once most airlines and hotel chains largely moved from award charts to dynamic pricing.

It's still possible to accumulate lots of points and miles but redeeming them efficiently is way harder now. Better to get cash back and pay for the seats/upgrades that you want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, the points/miles travel hacking stopped being worthwhile a decade ago once most airlines and hotel chains largely moved from award charts to dynamic pricing.

It's still possible to accumulate lots of points and miles but redeeming them efficiently is way harder now. Better to get cash back and pay for the seats/upgrades that you want.

That's true for miles earned from flying. And yes good redemptions have gotten harder, but they are still possible.

Bonuses still the best path and still lucrative.

[Anonymous]

Still possible but not usually worth the time and effort to seek given that awareness and number of people with miles to burn has skyrocketed.

So many pros out there who run award booking/consulting businesses and will usually beat regular folks like us (even using Seats.aero or ExpertFlyer) to the punch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, the points/miles travel hacking stopped being worthwhile a decade ago once most airlines and hotel chains largely moved from award charts to dynamic pricing.

It's still possible to accumulate lots of points and miles but redeeming them efficiently is way harder now. Better to get cash back and pay for the seats/upgrades that you want.

That's true for miles earned from flying. And yes good redemptions have gotten harder, but they are still possible.

Bonuses still the best path and still lucrative.

I dunno, it’s working for us with hotels. I don’t use them for flights because I don’t want to deal with drama if there is a change etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, the points/miles travel hacking stopped being worthwhile a decade ago once most airlines and hotel chains largely moved from award charts to dynamic pricing.

It's still possible to accumulate lots of points and miles but redeeming them efficiently is way harder now. Better to get cash back and pay for the seats/upgrades that you want.

It is demonstrably better to pay for seats with points than with cashback.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, the points/miles travel hacking stopped being worthwhile a decade ago once most airlines and hotel chains largely moved from award charts to dynamic pricing.

It's still possible to accumulate lots of points and miles but redeeming them efficiently is way harder now. Better to get cash back and pay for the seats/upgrades that you want.

That's true for miles earned from flying. And yes good redemptions have gotten harder, but they are still possible.

Bonuses still the best path and still lucrative.

I dunno, it’s working for us with hotels. I don’t use them for flights because I don’t want to deal with drama if there is a change etc.

There's no drama if flights change since they change for everyone - it's not like people with cash tickets on your flight are exempt from it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, the points/miles travel hacking stopped being worthwhile a decade ago once most airlines and hotel chains largely moved from award charts to dynamic pricing.

It's still possible to accumulate lots of points and miles but redeeming them efficiently is way harder now. Better to get cash back and pay for the seats/upgrades that you want.

That's true for miles earned from flying. And yes good redemptions have gotten harder, but they are still possible.

Bonuses still the best path and still lucrative.

I was getting value of $0.02-.03 per point for economy award flights on United up until about 2 years ago. That wasn’t including the value of free checked bags or the free connecting flights. The award flights cost a lot more points now so I may stop playing the sign up bonus game soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I use chase sapphire but I don’t have the energy to make a full time job of it. Honestly I should have just got cash back. I normally end up using the travel portal so the value isn’t great.

Same here. The Edit thing is killing me though. I used it once, and it was nice, but the extra fee is normally not worth it.