I’m curious how much you had to spend on your cc to get those 646000 miles. Any idea?
It wasn’t spend (that was only a portion and I do that also to work on medallion status because they reward with multipliers on the flying miles). We flew a fair amount and I have been saving (stockpiling) the flying miles in anticipation of this trip and my goal, and with different medallion status levels they give bonus miles (I think they multiply the miles by a certain number - not really sure). So it all adds up.
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Oh yeah…definitely everyone should have a frequent flyer account to stockpile miles every time they fly. But you get those miles regardless of what card you use to pay for the tickets (though I get there are extra incentives for buying tickets with the airline card) or for day to day spending.
Yes, thats where the multiplier comes in. Bonus miles for loyalty.
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I would recommend looking at The Points Guy to see who is giving the best sign-on bonuses.
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Again - it totally depends on your travel (if any). There is no one size fits all. I’m at a United hub and the United card offers great discounts on award miles - we saved 75,000 miles per person on business class tix to Japan (x6) the card more than paid for itself even if we never checked bags or used the lounge. My son checked 8 bags when he moved out (I get 3 bags per person). Again paid for the card for at least a few years.
But it doesn’t work if you’re in an American or Delta hub or if you want to deal with Southwest (never fly). I fly 7-10x a year so it’s not hard to figure out what makes sense for us - infrequent fliers need to figure out if an airline card even makes sense at all or their better off with a card that transfers to a bunch of different airlines.
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I actually have a Barclay’s MasterCard that generates American Airline miles.
I’ve found it better than Lufthansa, as I’ve used AA miles and gotten flights that cost me $0, where that is not true for flying to Europe with Lufthansa points.
There are several other benefits with delta (if you are platinum medallion or higher you can buy a coach seat and immediately upgrade to C+ for free ) and if the fares drop you just either rebook and get ecredit or call and have the agent do it to get the ecredit to apply to a future flight (within 12 mos of when the initial ticket was purchased). But these are more so Delta benefits than cr card benefits, though the cr card spend helps ti get higher loyalty status where more benefits kick in.
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How did you do that? I’ve been watching business class tickets to Japan for many months and the least is 250K miles one way to Tokyo from SFO. I finally gave up and bought the tickets.
We got them 7 days out. I had booked premium economy in case we couldn’t find that many business class seats. I know people say they snagged 2 seats as soon as schedules came out a year in advance, but I couldn’t find anyone releasing that many saver seats far out.
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Got it. I can’t chance it with premium economy. My body was OK with it 10 years ago, but not now.
I just got into the travel points and miles hobby in the past year, so I have thoughts!
Personally, I focus on cards that give a more flexible currency (via transfer partners) instead of a specific airline or hotel brand. I have a Chase Sapphire Preferred and a CapitalOne Venture. I am able to transfer points from those accounts to many airlines and can use the travel portals to book hotels on points. I was able to book a week long trip to Portugal for 2 with flights, hotels and rental car all covered by points, and I’m not a big spender or a frequent traveler…this was just using a strategy of maximizing sign up bonuses and everyday spending.
Look for offers for sign up bonuses (points awarded after meeting an initial spend). For example, the CSP often runs a bonus of 100k award points after spending $5k in the first 3 months.
If you have more than one card, get to know which have the best bonus categories and spend accordingly (e.g., I use my CSP for all dining out due to the x3 points but my Cap1 for most everyday spending, as all things are x2 points).
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You may want to add Citi’s Strata Premier card to CSP & Venture. This card now allows transfers to American Airline, which I don’t believe any other bank card does. It also transfers to Choice Hotels at a 1:2 ratio, so 20K Choice points for 10K Citi points. Choice has some very decent hotels in Europe.
The card carries yet another $95 annual fee, but if those transfer partners are ones you would use, it is one to consider. Pays 3X on groceries, gas, restaurants, and hotel & airfare, but not on other travel expenses. (Citi’s definition of travel is not as broad as Chase’s.)
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Amex Platinum and Amex Gold cards allow you to transfer points to partner airline accounts. Over the years, the number of partner airlines has dwindled as many of those airlines have created their own credit cards (e.g., American Airlines–AA/Citi Advantage). Right now, I can transfer my Amex points to Jet Blue, Delta, and a number of non-domestic airlines.
If you want access to American Airlines, the Citi card I suggested above is worth considering.
Chase Sapphire allows transfer to Hyatt hotels, and Hyatt redemptions are quite reasonable. Easy to redeem at two or three cents per point.
I agree that CC airline transfers are best for international travel. Flying Blue is particularly easy to use.