Guest Post by Ryan martz
meagan’s husband and favorite travel companion
Everyone is always asking us how we take at least one international trip a year, especially since I’m a teacher and Meagan works at a non-profit. Well, we travel for free! Here’s how we do it!
How to Pick the Best Miles Rewards Card
How did I pick the right card for us, you may ask?
There are tons of reward cards on the market, but we recommend 2 strategies here for when you’re starting out.
First Option: If you already have some miles saved up, take a look at all your reward miles balances, and see which one is the closest to netting you a free trip. Meagan and I both had flown on United for various long haul trips in college, so we had already accrued a number of frequent flier miles. Naturally, we wanted to add to our already-existing stock, so we waited until the signup bonus for the United Mileage Plus Visa card was at least 50,000 so that we would already be assured of at least one free flight to anywhere in Europe, North/Central America, or the Caribbean (60K needed). We were almost halfway to two round-trip tickets.
Second Option: Consider your nearest airport. Which airline has a hub there? We live in Atlanta, so flying Delta is always an easy option. We eventually signed up for a Delta American Express card when they were offering 50,000 bonus miles as well. That gave us both a Visa card and an Amex card.
How to Earn Miles As Fast As Possible so you can Travel for Free
First, you’ll have to use it! Usually there is a minimum amount that you have to put on the card within the first few months to earn your bonus miles. We stick to our budget while putting every one of our purchases on the credit card, treating it as a debit card. We pay it off at the end of each month so that we don’t carry a balance and pay interest. We wouldn’t exactly be traveling at a discount if we were actually going into debt trying to grab as many miles as possible!
Most mileage rewards cards will not only offer points for simply making everyday purchases, but there are many ways to earn bonus points, too. Dining out, gas, and online shopping are just some of the ways that miles can be earned.
Pro tip: Once you decide on a card, it’s important to start making ALL of your purchases on that card in order to make your miles balance grow faster. If you really want to earn miles as fast as possible, don’t use department store and gas station cards. ALWAYS use your miles card!
Second, don’t be afraid to switch cards/airline allegiances once you’ve cashed in your miles with one card. No reason to start over at zero when you can sign up for a different card and get another 50,000 bonus miles. We started with a United credit card because we originally had United points, but once we used our miles we opened the Delta American Express we mentioned earlier.
Ryan and Meagan at Versailles – We saved enough miles for 3 tickets to France!
Redeeming Your Miles: Traveling for Free
When redeeming your miles for travel, you are not always limited to the airline with which your card is affiliated. Having a United rewards account, for example, allows you to fly with any of its partner airlines in the Star Alliance. Likewise, Delta is a member of SkyTeam. Using cards affiliated with airlines that are members of a greater network of airlines gives you many more options for itineraries and destinations.
Third, notice that I haven’t really mentioned using miles for anything other than flights. If you travel often and have a wealth of points, by all means, use them for flights, hotels, rental cars, or even online shopping. But for the less fortunate traveler like myself, I just can’t justify using my miles for “smaller” things. Take using miles for a hotel, for example. I can spend 60,000 miles for 3 nights in a hotel or for a round-trip flight for the same number of miles. Three nights in a hotel may cost me $500 out of pocket, but that’s still only about half as much as a $1,000 flight.
Extra fees/charges – Be aware that many cards carry with them an annual fee of ~$100 or more. We have kept both cards active since not every establishment accepts American Express. When that is the case, we can still use our Visa to earn miles with United. Also, there’s no such thing as a “free” flight. By using miles, the fare is free, but there are still airport fees, etc. that you are responsible for. However, when compared to the price of a full flight, it is a tremendous discount. Usually, we can find flights that are normally ~$1,000 for around $200 in fees. Add that to the annual fee for owning the credit card, and you’re still paying way less for an international flight!
Earning and redeeming miles has become much more complicated in recent years, thanks to airlines restructuring their rewards programs and devaluing their miles. Because of this, we’ve re-evaluated our rewards credit cards again and found an option in the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, which earns us points instead of miles that we can then use for flights on a number of different airlines, even those which are not members of the same alliance.
The important thing is that you think about what your priorities are as a traveler and look for a card that helps you reach your travel goal: to travel for free! Whatever your preferred airline, hotel group, or rewards program, every traveler should be taking advantage of mileage/points programs in order to get them to their destination as soon as possible!
Do you use travel rewards cards to travel for free? What are your favorite tips? Or, more importantly, WHERE DID YOU GO?
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