How I Earn 1 Million Frequent Flier Miles Each Year

Updated: 12/28/2018 | December 28th, 2018

The best way to travel when you don’t have any money is to take money out of the equation. OK, not completely. While you can travel really, really cheaply, some money is required (unless you want to go hobo-style like this guy, in which case, this article isn’t for you).

But, assuming you don’t want to do that, you are going to need some money for travel. But you don’t need as much as you think you do, especially if you work to make your two biggest expenses — accommodation and flights — virtually free.

How?

By travel hacking.

I’ve written about it before, but I’ve never really broken down how I earn all those points and miles and redeem them for the business-class flights you always see me enjoying on Instagram. In this post, I’ll go into detail and provide the step-by-step breakdown of exactly what I do to earn around one million points a year — all without traveling! (When you add in the miles and points I get from traveling, it’s well over a million per year!)

This is going to be a long post, so get your coffee ready.

First, a refresher: travel hacking is the art of collecting frequent flier, hotel, and credit card points and airline miles and redeeming them for free travel. But it’s not about spending lots of money — the idea is to “hack the system” and use rewards programs against themselves to get lots of points and miles without spending a lot of money or traveling a lot. You leverage these systems to your benefit.

And it’s not just for Americans — Canadians, UK residents, Australians, Kiwis, and Spaniards can work these systems in their favor. (In reality, anyone can, but it’s just easier if you’re in these countries. So, while I will use the American market as an example, as that is the one I have access to, the principles and strategies I use can apply to you. Just substitute your local cards and programs for mine!)

One quick note before we begin (especially to the travel hackers reading this): in the travel hacking world, my mileage earning is pretty small. I know people who earn multiple millions of miles a year doing what I do (and a few other things), but I value my time, so why spend time earning miles I don’t need? My mileage needs are taken care of. I don’t waste time getting miles I don’t need.

Miles also lose value over time as airlines change their earning and burning rules, so I would rather have what I need and not waste time getting something with a decreasing value. Miles aren’t money.

Some people do this for the love of the game; I do this because I’m cheap and want to pay for as few flights and hotels as possible.

Here’s how I get those points and miles:

Step 1 – Sign up for credit cards

Credit cards are the tool through which you run your money in order to accumulate your points and miles. Think of them as the points-and-miles printing press. You can earn points and miles without them, but the process takes a lot longer and is a lot harder. To make this work, you will need a credit card.

When used properly, credit cards are smart financial instruments. You can earn hundreds of thousands of miles per year that enable you to travel for free (and they offer better purchasing protection than your debit card). Simply having them won’t send you into debt or cost you high-interest rates. Just make sure not to spend more than you have and to pay off your bill each month.

So the first thing I do is apply for a bunch of these credit cards. But I don’t do it willy-nilly. I have a goal in mind.

As a crazy travel hacker, I have more cards than the average person needs, but I always apply for new cards to reach a specific goal. Be sure to do this: think about the trip you want to take, where you want to stay, and how you want to get there, and then get the cards that help you get there.

If I’m low on American Express points, I’ll look for a new American Express card. If I want to go to Iceland, I’ll sign up for an Alaska Airlines card because I can use those miles to book a rewards ticket to Iceland thanks to their partnership with Icelandair. Moreover, I always look for what card offers the highest bonuses, even if I don’t need those points right away.

What have I signed up for this year? In the last six months, I applied for the following cards:

• IHG – I don’t stay in hotels often, but I use hotel points for any last-minute stays I need or for conferences when I don’t want to stay in hostels. Since I’d never held this card before, I got the 65,000-point bonus.
• American Airlines Platinum Business Card – Though I fly AA often and earn their miles easily, it had been a while since I had this card, so I applied again for a 50,000-mile sign-up bonus.
• American Airlines personal card – Same as above.
• Alaska Airlines personal card – Since Bank of America lets you cancel and sign up for this card again and still be eligible for the bonus, I sign up for this card every 2–3 months. This got me 25,000 miles.
• American Express Everyday card – They ran a 25,000-point promotion so I finally got this card, as the normal bonus is 15,000 points.
• Chase Ink Bold – When they offered a recent 60,000-point sign-up bonus, I applied for this business card as my charity FLYTE’s card.

Total points earned: 275,000

One thing to note about credit cards is that you can’t just sign up, cancel, and sign up again. Many card companies make you wait 18–24 months before you become eligible for a sign-up bonus again. (American Express only lets you earn the bonus once per card per lifetime!) I cycle through cards on a multiyear basis.

Therefore, I try to space out my sign-ups. I do two or three big credit card sign-up frenzies per year. This allows me to meet any minimum spending requirements (see below), allows the temporary dip the application causes in my credit score to go away, and gets me around any red flags the credit card companies have. For example, if issuers see you have applied for a ton of credit cards lately, they are less likely to approve you. Chase has something called the 5/24 rule, which states people who’ve applied for more than five cards within a 24-month period can’t get a new card from them. I’ve heard mixed reports on this, though — sometimes it catches people, sometimes it doesn’t.

Moreover, despite popular belief, having a lot of credit cards won’t hurt you. In fact, it can help you. Outside of your payment history, your utilization is the next most important factor in your credit score. Don’t worry about anything else. If you have $100,000 in available credit but only are using $5,000, that’s better than only having $5,000 in credit and using it all every month. Having more cards can actually help your credit score because of the better utilization ratio they create.

Here’s a list of credit cards you can sign up for!

Step 2 – Meet the minimum spending requirements

Each of these cards comes with a minimum spending requirement before you can earn that bonus. You just don’t get it for nothing. That meant I had to spend $11,000 in three months in order to meet the requirements and earn my bonuses! (The Alaska Airlines card comes with a fee of only $75 and no spending requirement so I essentially just bought 25,000 miles for 75 bucks.)

Here’s how the cards broke down:

• IHG: $1,000 minimum spend
• AA business card: $3,000 minimum spend
• AA personal card: $3,000 minimum spend
• Alaska Airline: none
• American Express: $1,000 minimum spend
• Chase Ink business card: $3,000 minimum spend

But my everyday spending isn’t anywhere close to that.

Since the purpose of travel hacking is to not spend extra money (you should absolutely not go into debt for this), I had to figure out ways to meet those spending requirements without incurring extra debt. Here’s how I did it:

• In the US, you can pay your federal tax bill on a credit card for a fee of 1.87%. I don’t pay all my taxes during the year so that at the end of the year, I have to pay them in one large chunk. I then time that tax payment with a credit card sign-up so I can get the bonus. Yes, there is a fee, but if you work out the math, it’s worth it. That took care of a big chunk.
• I time my purchases and sign-ups. If I have to move, buy furniture, need a computer, or join a gym, I sign up for a card and then charge my big purchases to the card.
• I go out to dinner with my friends, pay, and ask them to reimburse me. I used this technique in Las Vegas, and that took care of the entire minimum spending for the Amex Everyday card.  This is especially easy with apps like Venmo nowadays, where they can reimburse you easily at the exact moment of payment.
• I ask friends and family if I they have a big purchase they wouldn’t mind letting me put on my card. This doesn’t always work, and it isn’t always needed, but often friends and family will let me put it on my card as a favor, and then they’ll pay me instead of the store.
• I manufacture spending for the remainder. This is when you move money around so that you artificially create spending through gift cards and money orders. You can buy pre-paid debit cards, turn them into money orders, put those money orders in your bank account, and then pay off your credit card. You have to pay a fee for the cards and money orders, but when doing this for sign-up bonuses, it’s worth the cost. I purchase pre-paid debit cards in $500 increments.

Note: As I incur a lot of business expenses, it’s easy for me to meet the minimum spending requirements for business cards (for the Chase Ink business card, we met the spending requirements by paying expenses for the charity). The steps outlined above were used for the personal cards.

Total points earned: 25,000 (21,000 in spending, plus category bonuses [see below] on food and office supplies; my tax bill represented half my spending)

Step 3 – Be smart with spending

Get category bonuses
In the movie Up in the Air, George Clooney’s character never wastes an opportunity to earn points. I’m the same way. I never, ever, ever just earn one point per dollar spent if I can get 2, 3, or 6 points per dollar spent.

Certain cards have what are known as category bonuses, where you receive 2–5 points per dollar spent. It varies by card, but generally, you get 2 points on restaurants, 2–3 on airfare, and 5 on office supplies. Here’s a list of the cards I use regularly and their spending bonuses:

• American Express EveryDay Preferred: 3 points per dollar spent on groceries (up to $6,000 annually)
• American Express Premier Rewards Gold: 3 miles per dollar spent on flights
• Citi ThankYou Premier: 3 points per dollar spent on groceries; 2 points per dollar spent on hotels
• Chase Sapphire Preferred: 2 points per dollar spent on food
• Chase Ink Bold: 5 points per dollar spent at office supply stores or business expenses (up to $50,000 annually); 2 points per dollar spent on hotels

For example, if I am buying an airline ticket, I’ll use my American Express Premier Gold and get 3 miles for every dollar I spend. I buy gift cards at Staples on my Chase Ink card to get 5 points per dollar spent. I pay my cellphone on that card too!

Why get one point at a time when you can get five?

But there are also a few other ways to get bonuses, too:

Use airline shopping portals
All airlines, hotels, and travel brands have preferred merchants. These companies — ranging from clothing retailers to sporting good stores to office supply businesses and everything in between — partner with airlines’ (hotels’, etc.) special shopping malls. By ordering online through these malls, you can earn additional points.

You can use Evreward or Cash Back Monitor to discover the current best deals across various programs. Simply type in the merchant or product you want, and it will compile a list of bonuses the various point programs are offering at that moment so can you maximize the programs to purchase from.

Say, for example, you want new clothes from the Gap. Going into the Gap store gets you one point per dollar spent. By using Evreward, you can see that by going the United shopping portal, signing in, clicking the link to Gap, and purchasing online you can earn three points per dollar spent. Suddenly, you get 300 points instead of 100 for your $100 shopping spree!

Shopping portals 2.0
While purchasing online is great and can lead to earning multiple points per dollar spent, you can stack offers to get double and triple the amount of points! For example, if you go to Sears through American Airlines’ portal and buy a $100 gift card, you get three AA points per dollar spent. Go back through the portal to use the gift card for $100 in merchandise and get another three points for total of 6 points for $100 spent. This way you earn 600 AA points instead of the 300 you would have gotten if you had just made your purchase directly through the online portal in the first place. Remember, if you just walk into a Sears store, you’ll only get 100 points for that $100 USD purchase!

So if I used my AA credit card, I would get 700 points total (600 in bonus points plus the 100 from spending) or I could get 600 AA points and 100 Chase points if I used a Chase card.

Dining rewards programs
Just like shopping portals, airlines also have dining rewards programs. You sign up with your frequent flier number, register your credit card, and get extra points when you dine at participating restaurants in the airline’s network (which rotate throughout the year). It’s important to note that while you can sign up for every program, you cannot register a credit card with more than one. That means that if your Chase Sapphire Preferred card is tied to your American Airlines account, you can’t earn miles on your United Airlines account with that same card.

Join one of the programs in the Rewards Network (they run all the dining programs) so you can get five miles per dollar spent once you became a “VIP member,” which happens after 12 dines. So if you get those 12 under your belt (so to speak) early in the year, for the rest of the year you’ll be racking up five points per dollar spent!

A note on keeping track of all this: As I was writing this post, I went to dinner with a few friends. My buddy Noah was like “This is too much to keep track of.” That’s a common feeling among people looking to start travel hacking. However, it appears more complicated than it really is. Once you know what cards give you what bonuses, the next step is to simply use the cards that get those bonuses and meet your goals.

For example, as I mentioned above, all my airfare goes to my American Express Gold card. I get three miles per dollar spent, and this is what provides a bulk of my yearly AMEX points. For restaurants, I use Chase Sapphire since I get 2 points per dollar. For online shopping, I tend to go to AAdvantage shopping portal as a way to “juice” my AA account.

You never want to spread yourself too thin, though: having points all over the place will lead you to having low point balances in multiple accounts. I tend to stick to just a few accounts with my everyday spending: Chase Ultimate Rewards, American Express Membership Rewards, and Citi ThankYou points because they are all transferable to other airlines and hotels. (Note: Since I mostly fly American, I don’t worry about building miles in that account as I get them through flying. Most of my business expenses go to Starwood SPG so I don’t worry about building a balance there through personal spending.)

Total points earned per year: roughly 150,000 (spending and bonus category dependent)
 

Want to Learn How I Travel the World for Free?

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• How To Pick a Credit Card
• How To Earn Miles for Free Flights & Hotels
• Is Travel Hacking Really a Scam?

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Step 4 – Rinse and repeat on the manufactured spending

There are some people in the travel hacking world who manufacture spending like it’s their job. I have a friend who processes $10-20,000 a month in gift cards. That’s too much work for me. I’m busy and don’t feel like putting that much effort into it. However, I do a small amount of this in order to “juice” my point accounts, especially those with category bonus at Staples via my Chase Ink card that help offset the $4.95 fee per card. Here’s a diagram of how this works:

I don’t do this every month (you can’t do it while traveling) but this helps me offset minimum spending requirements on cards and earn a few extra miles each year.

Total points earned per year: 150,000

(Note: I use my Chase Ink business card a lot at Staples. I buy Amazon, iTunes, and restaurant gift cards to be sure I maximize the 5 points per dollar spent bonus. The number above reflects not only the manufactured spending I do but the gift cards I buy too.)

Step 5 – Sign up for every contest, survey, and deal in the world

Airlines and hotels often offer points and bonuses for signing up for a deal, taking a survey, filling out a form on Facebook, etc. The points here are small (100-1,000 at a time) but over the course a year they can add up. United recently gave 1,000 miles to people who signed up for their dining program. American Airlines gave you 350 miles just for entering a contest to win more miles!

Moreover, I also use the E-Rewards survey program. Every day they send me surveys via email and if I have time, I fill them out. They take 5-20 minutes each. Each completed survey is worth a certain number of “e-dollars” that can be redeemed for points on a number of programs:

Point redemptions vary but $100 in e-rewards money equals 2,000 AAdvantage miles.

Total points earned per year: 25,000

Step 6 – Buy points/miles… sometimes

Airlines and hotels sometimes offer really good deals for points/miles and, if I know I am going to use them soon, I’ll buy them at a discount. This basically lets you buy flights for cheaper than booking them. For example, Lifemiles (Avianca’s membership program) often does a promotion where you can get a 135% bonus on bought miles. If you max the promotion out, you usually get 352,000 miles for around $4,900, but at that rate, you’re buying miles for 1.4 cents per mile, which is an amazing deal. (The closer you get to 1 cent per mile, the better the deal! Follow websites like View from the Wing or One Mile at a Time and they alert you to all these point offers, break it down, and basically tell you if this is a good deal or not.)

It may sound crazy to spend that much money on miles (and you certainly don’t need to do it at all), but let’s put it in perspective. For 90,000 miles, you can book a one-way first-class flight from the US to Asia. Since you spent 1.4 cents per mile, that ticket works out to be $1,260. Not too bad for a first-class ticket, huh?

Buying points and miles is a way to pad your balance and buy tickets at a steep discount. I do this sometimes if I’m traveling soon and know I’m going to paying for the ticket anyways (I don’t always use miles when I travel). It’s not free, but I would rather buy a first-class ticket for $1,260 than an economy ticket for the same price.

Sometimes travel hacking is about finding value and doing a bit of arbitrage to get more for less!

Points earned: 100,000 points

Step 7 – Cancel cards I don’t use

Airline cards have fees, so when the yearly fee comes due, I’ll cancel the cards I don’t use or that don’t have a benefit to me. For example, the British Airways card: I used it for the sign-up miles and was done with it. It was canceled. The Hyatt card? It has a $75 yearly fee but it comes with two nights free each year. That’s two nights in a hotel for $75. I keep that one. The American Airlines personal card? One of the benefits is 10% miles back on redemptions, so if I redeem for 100,000 miles each year, I get 10,000 miles put back into my account — well worth the $95 annual fee.

Canceling cards doesn’t hurt your credit score. Old credit lines help, which is why I keep my Discover, Capital One, and a few other cards around. They have no fees and high limits so they anchor my credit. As I said before, what is important is your overall debt-to-credit ratio. So canceling a few cards lowers that ratio, but if I have no debt it doesn’t matter.

Moreover, I also transfer the credit lines to other cards with that card company so that I don’t lose the credit (and that doesn’t even make a mark on my credit score, let alone a dent!).

Step 8 — Get a second round of credit cards

Twice a year, I go on a big credit card splurge and start the cycle again. I’ll look at what I canceled and what I need. Since many operators require a waiting period between bonuses, I’ll aim for cards I haven’t had in a long time as well as which have another sign-up bonus.

Then after I get the new cards, I’ll repeat step 2 to meet any minimum spending requirements.

Total points earned: 200,000-300,000

Total points earned: roughly 975,000 per year ± 50,000

(The above tricks don’t count all the miles I earn via business expenses, which add up to an additional couple hundred thousand miles a year, putting me well over one million miles earned.)

A lot of this stuff depends on time and effort. If I got more credit cards, I could earn more. If I spent more money, I could earn more. I just don’t care enough. I have more miles than I need. I fly my team around on miles. I fly myself anywhere miles. I give miles to my mom.

By using the eight steps outlined in this article, the sky is the limit on how many miles you can earn. It just depends on how much you want to ramp up each step. As I said before, my million miles per year is a small number compared to some of the other travel hackers out there.

It is possible to earn more miles than you will need to travel and fly for free. Even if you travel only once a year, just want to visit your parents, or aspire to take your family on one trip, you can do it.

Travel hacking doesn’t have to be complicated. It’s simple and accessible to everyone.

The Ultimate Guide to Travel Hacking
For more information on how to earn points and miles that you can use toward free travel, check out The Ultimate Guide to Travel Hacking. This book shows you exactly how to take money out of the travel equation and use frequent flier programs to get free flights and hotel rooms.  The strategies in this book will get you out of your house faster, cheaper, and in comfort.

Click here to learn more and start reading it today!

Book Your Trip: Logistical Tips and Tricks

Book Your Flight
Find a cheap flight by using Skyscanner or Momondo. They are my two favorite search engines because they search websites and airlines around the globe so you always know no stone is left unturned.

Book Your Accommodation
You can book your hostel with Hostelworld as they have the largest inventory. If you want to stay somewhere other than a hostel, use Booking.com as they consistently return the cheapest rates for guesthouses and cheap hotels. I use them all the time.

Don’t Forget Travel Insurance
Travel insurance will protect you against illness, injury, theft, and cancellations. It’s comprehensive protection in case anything goes wrong. I never go on a trip without it as I’ve had to use it many times in the past. I’ve been using World Nomads for ten years. My favorite companies that offer the best service and value are:

• World Nomads (for everyone below 70)
• Insure My Trip (for those over 70)

Looking for the best companies to save money with?
Check out my resource page for the best companies to use when you travel! I list all the ones I use to save money when I travel – and that will save you time and money too!

Photo credit: 1

Why You Shouldn't Be Loyal to Frequent Flier Programs

Updated: 6/29/18 | June 29th, 2018

A few years ago, I wrote a post about joining frequent flier programs. At the time, I was in the process of picking one to join, but now I feel the post is a bit dated, and my thoughts on the subject have changed as I’ve started to get more into mileage programs and accumulating frequent flier miles. Which means it’s a good time to write a new post on the topic.

Back in 2008, I was going to join the JAL awards program because it partnered not only with Oneworld but also a few other airlines I enjoy, like Emirates. In the end, I joined American Airlines, which is also a Oneworld partner.

I joined American over JAL because I realized that when you don’t fly that much (and back then, I didn’t), it’s much harder to earn airline miles when you aren’t racking up points by using a travel credit card. So I picked American since it partnered with JAL, and I could use its credit card to get bonus miles and miles from my day-to-day spending.

Now, close to ten years after that first post, I believe that unless you are a super flier, you shouldn’t stick to one airline or airline alliance. Using credit cards and special offers will get you all the extra points and miles you need to get free flights on any alliance. There’s no need to be loyal. The only thing gained by being loyal to one airline is elite status and the amazing perks that come with it.

(But if you spread out your flights among too many different carriers, you’ll dilute your mileage balance. It will take you ages to earn enough miles to redeem them for a free flight, and you definitely won’t fly enough on one airline to gain elite status — it takes 25,000 miles on most airlines to get the lowest elite status, and nowadays, they require a certain level of spend with the airline or on their credit card too. Most people don’t fly or spend that much per year.)

That said, elite status is all I care about. I want the extra perks — the free baggage, airport lounges, priority boarding, and free upgrades. I will pay more for a ticket and be loyal, because, in the end, the perks make the higher price worth it — for me.

For the casual flier, I don’t believe loyalty is worth it.

I used to say that if you can fly 50,000 miles or more, it’s worth focusing on one airline and alliance because the perks are worth the extra price (especially the international lounges). But now, the major airlines in the United States do not value your loyalty anymore. They are only rewarding their high-spending clients with deep pockets — not their frequent clients. Travel 100,000 miles a year, but on just a few cheap tickets? Great — that will earn you a pat on the back. Spend $20,000 on a few high-priced tickets? The red carpet is rolled out for you! So with the heightened spending requirements, reduced benefits, and overall “F U” attitude airlines have, it doesn’t make sense to be loyal to an airline if you aren’t a high-spending traveler.

Right now, I have no airline status. Most of my flights for the rest of the year are long-haul international flights — the kind I always use points on, so I can fly for free in business class. Most of my paid, status-earning flights will be cheap domestic flights. I’m simply not going to be able to meet the new spending requirements for status — for any airline.

I’m flying Alaska/Virgin, JetBlue, and Southwest a lot more lately. These airlines don’t have baggage fees; they do have friendlier staff and better in-flight products (hello, free gate-to-gate wi-fi on JetBlue!), and the experience is leagues better than the big three!

So, it makes sense to be loyal when you’re a high-spending road warrior. If you’re always staying in hotels or flying tens of thousands of miles per year, staying loyal will get you a lot of added benefits.

But why pay more if you’re only going to fly a few thousand miles per year? Don’t be loyal. Just go on price. If you know you aren’t going to meet the elite status threshold, why pay extra? Unless you have a real affinity for one airline, the benefits you get for your “loyalty” aren’t worth the added price you’re going to pay for your fare.

There are so many ways to get free miles these days that if you’re just a casual, few-times-per-year flier, you’re better off using those methods to get free business or first-class tickets, which give you all the elite perks for that one flight anyway.

I do think everyone should sign up for frequent flier programs. That way, when you use a company, you’re accumulating rewards. Never miss a chance to get rewards! I’m a member of every airline and hotel loyalty program for this reason.

But if you’re only taking a couple of trips per year, there’s no reason to be loyal to one program. Save yourself money and go with the cheapest ticket.

The Ultimate Guide to Travel Hacking

This book shows you how to take money out of the travel equation and and master the points and miles game. It will show you how to easily collect and redeem travel points for free airfare and accommodation so you can get you out of your house faster, cheaper, and in comfort. Click here to learn more about the book and how it can help you, and you can start reading it today!

Is Travel Hacking Really a Scam?

Last month, I wrote an article on how to travel anywhere for $1,000. I wanted to show people how, by changing how you save and using a few budget techniques, you could make any trip happen for $1,000 (or less) from start to finish. While that is a lot of money to most people, it’s not an insurmountable amount of money to save with a few clever ninja techniques (it works out to only $2.74 per day).

In the article, I picked expensive destinations as examples because I didn’t want to be accused of copping out by picking cheap places. If I had, I imagined the Internet would rise up and say “Oh, sure, Matt! Anyone can travel to Thailand on a budget. That’s easy. What about (insert expensive destination)? This article is fake news!”

In picking expensive destinations, I used points and miles to help mitigate the costs of getting to each destination. Using points and miles for cheap and free flights and accommodation was a must. After all, it’s one thing to pay $700 for a flight if the destination only costs a few dollars a day. It’s another thing to pay that much when you’re going to Australia! You won’t get far with only $300 to spend in Australia!

But a different — and unexpected — backlash erupted. On the blog and social media, people kept commenting that points/miles are money, have a cost, aren’t easy to get, only work in the States, and that, basically, the whole article was BS. For example:

“Matt, like some people have mentioned before me in the comment section: not everyone has miles or bonus points. You know I’m a travel writer…and yet I have never joined a frequent flyer program. I don’t have miles or points to redeem, and likewise, there are also people who might not have saved up enough points to fly entirely free.

“Between cheaper destinations and relying on bonus points, you chose the latter for your article’s premise, and it feels a bit like saying: I could be telling you to go camping, but hey, that would be too easy, so let’s talk cruising — now, redeem 100,000 Airmiles for this two-week cruise and you’ve got $1,000 to play with on board!

“It doesn’t seem entirely fair.”

First, let me say you are all correct. From the outset, I should have factored in taxes and fees into the cost of the trips, and have since changed the expense chart to reflect that. It was silly of me to not include that from the outset. I apologize for the oversight.

But, second, I don’t think using points or miles is in anyway cheating or unfair. (I’d also like to say that while they were a big part of the article, many of the other tips helped lower costs just as much!)

To me, points and miles are free money. They have no cost to me. I don’t give up anything to get them. I think of them as the perk for being smart about my spending. Sure, I have to spend the points/miles in addition to money, and I know some of you view points and miles as having some value with an opportunity cost to them, etc.

But I don’t think of them that way.

They are just a thing I get when I spend money that I would have spent anyway.

Let me explain in more detail. A lot of people think points and miles are hard to get, that you have to do crazy stuff to get them, or you have to spend lots of money to get there:

“To collect miles requires spending money. To say one can travel anywhere for $1,000 and then condition that on free airfare is disingenuous. The advice is aimed at people who might find $1,000 a lot of money. Let’s assume you need 80,000 miles for an award and can find a sign-up offer for 40,000. That means you probably have to spend $40,000 to collect the other 40,000 miles. Then the advice to use hotel points for free rooms. Assume you want a seven-day vacation and rooms are just 15,000 a night. That’s another 105,000 hotel points, and another $105,000 spend. Even if your hotel card gets two-for-one points, that’s still $52,500 in spend. So for me to go on a vacation for $1,000 I need to charge $92,500. I’m surprised you missed telling us to just go for one day and avoid six more days of hotel, meal, and local transportation expenses.”

I hear you and I see the logic but I disagree. You can earn a lot of points and miles per year with much less spending than described because there are pretty easy ways to earn multiple points/miles per dollar spent.

I’m a terrible travel hacker compared to my friends. I don’t do some of the crazy things they do to earn points and miles because I don’t have a lot of time, so I like to make it easy on myself. I don’t buy extra things, overspend, resell furniture or gift cards, or give up my Saturdays to go buy stuff in bulk and then sell it online for a profit.

I simply go about my life and spend wisely. I have chart for which cards I use for which expenses, so I always get the most miles per dollar spent. Here it is:

How I Optimize My Spending with My Travel Credit Cards

(Note: I also have all the co-branded airline cards but I rarely ever use those.)

Through all this, I earn a million or more miles per year. If it was really only 1 point/mile per dollar spent, then I would have to spend one million a year but that’s not the case. When I need to buy something, I do it online for bonus points through airline shopping portals (I recently got 6x American Airlines miles for my Macy’s shopping on top of my credit card points). Need something on Amazon? I buy a gift card from Office Depot for 5x points and then go through JetBlue for 3x more points. Buying a new computer? I’m off to get a new card to hit the minimum spending for the bonus. Got a few minutes? I answer some surveys for points.

I’m always earning multiple points per dollar spent. It’s rarely one to one. (Note: You can click here to see a more detailed breakdown of where I earn my million points/miles.)

I don’t view collecting points/miles as a cost because I don’t spend extra money to earn them. To me, something has a cost when I give up money to get it.

Sure, there are taxes and fees are included in the ticket that vary wildly among airlines (I’m looking at you, BA and Virgin), but it’s still cheaper than the price of a full ticket. And hotels don’t charge these fees, so the cost of them using points is literally zero. Also, some credit cards allow you to wipe charges off of them, making those expenses literally zero too.

If you want to travel more, points and miles have to be something you do (providing you live in a place where they are an option). Even if it takes you are year to accumulate them, they help you unlock your dreams by drastically reducing the cost of everything.

When I ask most people why they don’t travel hack, they just shrug their shoulders and go, “I don’t know. Seems hard, I guess.” I think people believe because travel hacking seems complicated, therefore it must be so. Actually, it is not.

In addition, travel hacking seems to run counter to everything we have learned about finance. We’re taught to think of money and credit in one way:

“Credit cards a bad. The companies are bad. Never pay a fee. Your score is sacred and doing things like this hurt it, and you’ll never get a loan.”

But that is just bullshit. It’s a myth perpetuated by….well, I don’t know who exactly, but people keep believing it.

You earn points and miles for everyday purchases you would have bought anyways and the perks outweigh the credit card fees. For example, with my $450 per year Chase card, I get:

• $300 in airline credit
• 3x points on travel and restaurants (so I can earn points faster)
• Global Entry ($100 every five years)
• Purchase protection so I can get refunded if things I buy are lost, damaged, or stolen
• A priority pass for lounge access (about $100 a year)
• Trip insurance

My $49-a-year IHG card gives me a free night at a category 1-5 property (around $200 a night) and my American Airlines card comes with free checked bags, saving me hundreds of dollars a year!

Additionally, my credit score has only gone up because of this as now I have more credit and less debt as well as a good payment history. (And, as my friend Gary says, “What good is a credit score if you don’t use it?”)

If you pay your bills off each month and are reasonable with your money, not collecting points and miles is saying no to free money. It’s saying, “I don’t want to be rewarded for my good spending habits.”

Free is the best word in travel.

When you don’t travel hack, the only person you are hurting is yourself. You aren’t hurting the banks or the airlines. They are in on the game.

In my view, travel hacking is something to be embraced. It reduces the cost of travel. You can do this in a lot of countries around the world! Even if takes you a year to earn a free flight, why not take the flight? One free flight is better than no free flights.

Anything that saves money and reduces the cost of travel is something every traveler should do.

Saying no to travel hacking is saying yes to spending more money on travel — and why would you ever want to do that?

P.S. – If you want to learn more and figure out how to collect points and miles, click here to download the book I wrote on travel hacking. It will tell you how program work, what cards to get, give you step-by-step instructions, tips, tricks, and secret ways to collect miles.

Breaking Down Credit Card Rewards with Brian Kelly

Long-time readers know I love travel credit cards because of the huge amount of points and perks they bring. (New readers now know this.) In fact, this month alone I signed up for an Amex Platinum (50,000 points) and United Airlines card (60,000 points), with more sign-ups planned next month. Points bring lots of benefits like free flights, elite status, free checked bags, and priority boarding. And, while I know a lot about this subject, there are people who spend their whole day figuring out how to maximize points. People like Brian Kelly.

Brian Kelly runs The Points Guy, a website dedicated to maximizing reward programs and credit card offers to get as much free travel and elite status as one possibly can. He knows the reward booking systems, points programs, and credit cards inside and out. Today, Brian shares his secrets.

Nomadic Matt: How did you become “The Points Guy”?
Brian Kelly: I started young. I’ve been passionate about points since I was 13 years old, when I planned a family trip to the Cayman Islands using my dad’s airline miles. By the time I was a sophomore in college, I was a US Airways elite flyer.

While working for a Wall Street bank after college, I was on the road constantly, earning tons of miles and points as well as elite status with airlines and hotels, and that allowed me to fund a great travel lifestyle in my spare time. I would take trips to Europe for the weekend using miles and points (I sat behind Madonna in British Airways first class once — that was memorable!), went on a blowout luxury trip to the Seychelles with my partner for just a few hundred dollars using points, and hopped all around the country.

I started blogging about news in the points world, as well as my own areas of expertise, and people started reading it. Then a lot of people started reading it, and I decided to start blogging full time. That was just under a year ago, and it’s been phenomenal! Challenging and exciting and motivating all at the same time.

Over the years, how many miles have you accumulated? How many credit cards did you have to open for that to happen?
From credit cards, I’ve pulled in millions of points and miles. Literally. Last year alone, just through credit card sign-up and spending bonuses, I raked in over 600,000 points. That took me about seven cards to do.

A lot of people are concerned that credit card “churning and burning” will hurt their credit score. What do you say to this?
I would never advise anyone with less-than-healthy credit to apply for multiple cards at once, as “churners” often do. For one thing, you probably won’t get accepted. For another, you should first concentrate on fixing your credit so that you can then take full advantage of the lucrative credit card deals that are out there.

That said, only 10% of your credit score is based on new credit — when banks perform a credit inquiry when you apply for a new card. Otherwise, the most important factors are your payment history and the amount of money you owe, which combined amount to 65% of your credit score. So before you even think about applying for new cards, you need to make sure your credit is in order and that you have a decent score.

If your credit is good, then applying for new cards should not hurt it. Your score typically only drops a couple points for opening a new card (out of a total of 850), so the impact is minimal.

Do you cancel a lot of your cards or just keep them going forever?
I cancel some of my cards, mostly to avoid hefty annual fees for cards I am not actively using or deriving some sort of benefit from. However, instead of closing the account completely, I usually try to ask the bank to either waive the annual fee or downgrade to a no-fee card so that the line of credit remains open and keeps my credit score healthy.

What makes for a good credit card offer?
The whole point of points is to find value, so if you find a credit card that will offer something of value to you, that makes it a good offer. The $450 annual fee on the Amex Platinum card seems onerous to some, but others love the $200 airline rebate you get from it, lounge access, and a host of other perks, including earning Membership Rewards points, whereas those looking for a lower annual fee might prefer the Amex Premier Rewards Gold card, with just a $175 annual fee, where you get three points per dollar spent on airfare and two points per dollar spent on gas and groceries, but not those higher-level perks. Still others might prefer the flexibility to use their points at a fixed value, like with Capital One, to buy the airfare they want, when they want, and don’t care about flying in a premium cabin, while those who do want to fly business internationally or stay in a fancy hotel suite might want to rack up points in their airline and/or hotel program of choice by getting a co-branded card. It really depends on what you want to do with those points, and once you have a strategy in mind, go after the cards that will get you there fastest.

With so many offers out there from so many different companies, what would be your top three tips for maximizing those offers for free hotels or flights?
1. Strategize — Don’t just sign up for every card with an OK offer. If you have a particular trip or goal in mind, concentrate your efforts on the cards that will get you the most miles for the airline that’s going to get you where you need to go, and the hotel where you want to stay.

2. Don’t just concentrate on the sign-up bonuses — The best cards out there are the ones that allow for sustainable points earning through your spending habits. And, for that matter, make sure you are putting every expense possible on a points earning card so that you are maximizing your earning potential.

3. Do your homework — See what bonuses the credit cards you’re interested in have historically offered and make sure you get the best one possible.

Do you earn points any other way besides these sign-up bonuses?
Of course. I travel a lot so I earn miles the good old-fashioned way of sitting in an airplane and going somewhere. In terms of credit cards, the best ones aren’t necessarily just the ones with the biggest bonuses. In my opinion, the best points-earning cards are the ones that allow you to sustain your lucrative points earning through category spending bonuses. For instance, while the current Chase Sapphire Preferred bonus offer is down to 40,000 Ultimate Rewards points from its high of 50,000, I still think it’s a great card because you get double points on travel and dining spending (basically all I do), and those categories are fairly broad, so you can earn a ton of points. You could then combine those points with the Ultimate Rewards points you earn with the Chase Freedom card’s quarterly spending bonus categories, where you earn five points per dollar spent on things like groceries, office supplies, gas stations, or specific merchants like Amazon. Suddenly you’re looking at a ton of extra points. Those are the kinds of cards worth holding on to even after you’ve redeemed your sign-up bonus.

How many miles a year do you fly? Is it all on points?
Last year, I flew about 150,000 miles, and though some of those trips were using miles (like one from the US to Mauritius in the Indian Ocean via Paris), and I recently traveled to Asia for three weeks using United and British Airways miles, I do pay for many of my tickets. After all, you’ve got to earn some of those miles and elite status flying.

Explain for a minute why you think these credit card offers are so good? Is it just the points you get, or do you get additional benefits like elite status?
It all depends on what you’re looking for. If you want the flexibility of transferable points that you can use on a variety of airlines or hotels, then American Express Membership Rewards and Chase Ultimate Rewards would be programs for you to look into, whereas if you want to be able to buy any ticket any time and don’t care about flying coach, maybe a fixed-value point system like Capital One Venture Rewards is the way to go. If you are going to be flying a particular airline a lot, maybe the co-branded card is what you should look at, such as Delta’s SkyMiles Amex, which gets you elite-status perks like free checked bags for up to nine people on your reservation (a huge value), discounted SkyClub passes, and 20% off in-flight food and entertainment, as well as other positives such as two miles per dollar spent on Delta; or the newly introduced United Club Card, which confers not only membership into the United Club at airports but also perks like two free checked bags for the cardholder and a companion, priority access, and elite status with both Hyatt and Avis. That’s a lot of value.

What is your favorite travel credit card?
I mentioned it earlier, but I love the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. It’s probably my favorite card at the moment. The Ultimate Rewards points I earn using it can be transferred to a variety of partners, including United, British Airways, Korean Air, and Southwest, hotels including Hyatt, Priority Club (Intercontinental), Marriott, and Ritz-Carlton, as well as Amtrak, so I can use them for pretty much anything. Plus, I get two points per dollar I spend on dining and travel, which includes a lot of categories, like taxis and even parking. I recently transferred the points I got for signing up to United and used them to fly business class from Newark to Singapore on Singapore Airlines for 60,000 miles and $2.50 USD in taxes/fees. That was a great redemption. Also, it’s made of metal, so it feels good and it looks cool in my wallet.

For more great tips on how to use airline credit cards and (legally) milk the points system for free travel, make sure you read Brian’s blog. You can also follow him on Twitter.

Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by American Express. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of American Express, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by American Express. This site may be compensated through American Express Affiliate Program via the links on this page.

You Can Fly Singapore Airlines’ New First Class Suites for (Almost) Free on This One Route (Video)

You don’t have to be rich to fly Singapore Airlines’ opulent first-class suites. You just need some airline miles and this simple strategy.

Singapore Airlines currently flies Airbus A380s with the new suites aboard certain flights from its hub at Singapore Changi to Hong Kong, London Heathrow, Shanghai Pudong, Sydney, and Zurich. Unfortunately, saver-level award tickets (those that cost the fewest amount of miles) are non-existent on almost all of these flights. Almost.

You’ll be hard-pressed to find award tickets on the longer-haul routes, like those to London and Sydney. Flights with the new suites do not even show up on most award searches. However, there is one route where you can find saver-level space nearly every day of the week.

That route is from Shanghai to Singapore. Singapore Airlines operates four flights in each direction on this route daily, so before you book, you need to make a note of the following flight numbers and times, which are the only ones with the new suites on them.

Singapore Airlines flight SQ830 departs Singapore Changi at 9:45am and arrives at Shanghai Pudong at 3:05pm. (Note: This flight’s scheduled time will shift slightly starting on October 28, but the flight number remains the same.)

Singapore Airlines flight SQ833 departs Shanghai Pudong at 4:50pm and arrives in Singapore at 10:20pm.

You will need 50,000 Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles to book a one-way award. Don’t let that number scare you, though, since there are plenty of ways to rack up those miles quickly.

How to Search and Book a Singapore Airlines Award Ticket

In order to book an award in a suite, you will need to use Singapore Airlines’ award search engine and its own KrisFlyer frequent-flier program miles. If you do not have a KrisFlyer account, sign up for one here. It only takes a minute.

You should sign up for KrisFlyer anyway because the program is a transfer partner of American Express Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, and Citi ThankYou Rewards. If you have any number of credit cards that earn these three types of points, you will be able to transfer them into your KrisFlyer account when you want to book an award on Singapore Airlines or its other airline partners.

When you are ready to search for awards, go to Singapore Airlines’ website and log into your account. Under the “Book a trip” tab, click “Redeem flights,” then enter your search airports and dates.

Some dates might not have any saver-level award availability on the specific flights with suites, and some might have only “Waitlist” space. Don’t get discouraged. I found plenty of awards in October-January, then in March and beyond. I suspect that February has less award availability on this specific route because of the Chinese New Year when many people tend to be traveling.

Interestingly enough, there is a lot more award availability in the direction from Shanghai to Singapore than from Singapore to Shanghai. So if you have plans that take you to China, or you want to take advantage of the country’s visa-free transit policy in Shanghai where you can stop over for up to 144 hours before continuing on to a third country, this might be just the opportunity you need to book a Singapore Airlines award.

KrisFlyer will charge you 50,000 miles in each direction plus 90 RMB ($13) from Shanghai, or $47 SGD ($34) from Singapore. That might seem like a lot of miles, but for this level of luxury on a flight that lasts over five hours, it’s an amazing value. Especially considering that paid airfares for the new suites currently range anywhere from $2,500-$7,500 one-way depending on the date and the route that you book.

If you do find an award that works for your travel schedule, you should transfer points from one of your linked accounts with Amex, Chase or Citi immediately since transfers can take 12-48 hours to go through.

Why You'll Want to Fly in Singapore's First Class Suites

Still having doubts? Here’s a reminder of what’s in store if you do end up booking a suite.

Singapore Airlines unveiled the new suites last November as part of a redesign of all the cabins aboard its Airbus A380s. Each jumbo jet has just six of these private sanctuaries total located in the front cabin of its upper deck. Suites are 50 square feet – palatial by in-flight standards – and have closing door for the utmost privacy. However, the first two suites in each row can be combined into doubles in case you are traveling with a companion.

Courtesy of Singapore Airlines

The suites were designed by Pierrejean Design Studio, Paris, and contain not only sleek Poltrona Frau leather armchairs, but also separate twin-size beds (27 inches by 76 inches, to be exact) that stow into compartments when passengers are not using them.

Side consoles hide an oversize dining table that doubles as a work desk, a lit vanity mirror for primping pre-landing and a touchscreen tablet that passengers can use to adjust the suite’s lighting call for service. Those not working can enjoy a range of entertainment options on their own 32-inch, high-definition screen and linger over a leisurely meal created by the airline’s International Culinary Panel of celebrity chefs.

Courtesy of Singapore Airlines

The amenities are provided by storied French luxury brand Lalique, including plush linens and duvets, pajamas, skincare products, and the cut-crystal glasses used for meal service, though the fine china is by Wedgwood.

Suites passengers have two large, spa-inspired lavatories to themselves, one of which has a sit-down vanity counter stocked with more Lalique products such as citrus-scented facial mist and body lotion.