Points and Miles Tips

  • Do not get a travel card if you cannot pay the balance in full every month. The interest accrued far outweighs any points/rewards earned. 
  • Do not apply for a credit card without using a referral link. You will earn a signup bonus either way, but a family member/friend/creator can also earn this way. 
  • Do not cash out points for less than 1 cent per point. 
  • The best use of transferable points is to transfer them to transfer partners. Example: transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards to Hyatt to then book hotels or transfer Amex Membership Rewards to Air France to book flights.
    • But once you transfer, you cannot transfer back.
  • Do not redeem transferable points (American Express Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Capital One Venture Miles, Citi Thankyou Points, Bilt Rewards Points) for less than $0.01 per point.
    • In general, bad options include cashing out for gift cards, using points to pay for purchases like Amazon
  • Applying for multiple credit cards does not hurt your credit in the long term. (Mine has only gone up). But after an approval it may dip by a few points and then recover or surpass your previous score for a few months.
  • Always sign up for rewards programs with any hotel you stay at or airline you fly.
    • You will earn some points, even if a small amount
    • Some programs give you benefits just for being a member
  • Know about airline alliances as they will help you be able to know which partner airlines you can use to help book flights
    • Star Alliance (United, Air Canada, Lufthansa, Swiss, ANA, etc.)
    • One World (American, Alaskan, British Airways, JAL, etc.)
    • Sky Team (Delta, KLM, Air France, Virgin, etc.)
    • Some large airlines are not part of an alliance, but still have other types of partnerships. These include: Emirates, Etihad
  • Not all points are valued the same. Example: 10,000 Hyatt points ≠ 10,000 Hilton points
  • Unlike cash tickets, most award flights are sold as individual one way tickets. 
  • Hotel and Airline cards are great for the perks, but not generally good for daily spending.
  • The best way to accumulate points is through sign-up bonuses. That will out earn the best categories on every day spend over any normal card earnings. Sign-up bonuses routinely will earn you 10-20x per dollar spent.
    • Business cards can be even more beneficial, and may be easier to be approved for than you think. Even if you don’t think you have a business, you might have something that qualifies. 
  • Paying a credit card transaction fee can be worth it if your earnings are greater. Many fees are 1.5-3%. If you’re earning 10% return on a signup bonus, this is definitely worth it. Also earning 2x on a card like the Capital One Venture X and paying federal taxes with a 1.82% fee is worth it to be as the earning is higher than the fee. It’s like buying points for 0.91 cents each and then can be easily redeemed for a minimum of 1 cent each cash value. 
  • Know if your points/miles balances expire and how to keep them active if they do.
    • Many programs the points/miles never expire as long as your account is open, such as: Amex, Chase, United, Delta, Hilton. 
    • Some do expire without activity or after a specified amount of time, such as: American (expire after 24 months of no account activity). The expiration can be extended with any activity, such as, taking a flight, earning miles, transferring in miles, buying miles. Also booking an award flight even if you end up canceling and not flying will work for American.
  • Buying points, especially while on sale, can be worth it.
  • Chase 5/24 rule: Chase will automatically deny you for any credit card if you have opened 5 or more credit cards (personal only, business cards do not generally count) in the past 24 months.
  • Any airline that uses Avios can freely transfer points between any other Avios program. So choose any with the highest transfer bonus and then you can move to whichever program you need the miles in.
    • These include Aer Lingus, British Airways, Iberia, Qatar, Finnair 
  • You don’t have to fly with the airline you use miles to book with.
    • I have flown Lufthansa first class twice, both times transferring points from either Amex or Capital One to Air Canada and booking with them. 
  • It’s best to transfer points to the program you want only when you need the points. Leaving them as transferable points gives you diversity and limits against devaluation of points in a particular program.