16 ms·

Credit-card-rewards guru Brian Kelly says we’re in a “golden age” of travel

58 points by shubhamjain 9y ago

saryant 9y ago
I've been playing this game for about six years now. In that time I've earned and burned just over 2.5 million points. Certainly the game isn't as easy as it used to be but it's still very lucrative if you're dedicated. Can't churn the Citi AA cards as frequently anymore, and anyways AA devalued their award chart. No more Cathay Pacific first class for 67.5k. United's devaluation a few years back was pretty painful as well. I still accrue United and American points, there are enough ways to get a decent amount and wring a redemption out of them once a year or so, but most of my focus is on foreign or smaller programs. Lately I've put all my energy towards Singapore Airlines and Alaska Air. Alaska often sells points cheaply enough that's it's worth it to just buy the points and redeem for partner redemptions. I did that recently and booked SFO-HKG-AKL on Cathay Pacific in first class for 80k points. Buying the 40k I needed was <$600. Well worth it. Singapore Airlines is a transfer partner with all the transferrable currencies (Chase, Citi, Amex and SPG) which makes earning there easy. The award chart is a bit steep but there are some good deals. My return from that Cathay flight is a Singapore award for AKL-SYD-SIN-NRT-SFO-DEN on Air New Zealand, Singapore Airlines and United with the long-hauls all in first class. I think it was around 120k miles. I started this game in college when my only goal was free travel—managed to earn enough points before graduation to buy myself a "free" round-trip ticket to Thailand in order to backpack around Southeast Asia for the summer. Now that I have substantially more money, I generally use points to enable cheap premium cabin travel, like buying points when they're on sale from Alaska or LifeMiles and essentially getting deep-discount first or business class tickets. I've hit most of the cliche churner experiences at this point: being driven in a Porsche to your flight from the Lufthansa first class terminal, Etihad's first class apartment, taste-testing both Dom and Krug in a Singapore Suite. It's an absurd hobby. And it's a hobby that takes monumental amounts of time to keep up with. Want to book Cathay via Alaska? Better know to ask to agent to look at the right screen on her computer. How do you know that? Because you've been following a 5,000-post thread over on Flyertalk about it. Knowing when and how to correctly apply for your next Citi card means you're following a similar thread over in that part of Flyertalk. Keeping up with the details like that is time consuming. I enjoy the detail work but I don't really know why. This hobby lets me go on generally two international vacations in first class each year for very little money. I'll be spending three weeks in New Zealand later this year, with time in Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo along the way. Last year I spent a week in Tokyo with friends before making my way back via Shanghai, Hong Kong and Dubai—two of those were new cities to me. I've somehow become very, very good at one of the world's silliest skills. That said, I have absolutely gotten off a first class fight only to check in to a hostel. Luxury travel actually gets pretty damn boring after about 24 hours IMO. Nothing is less interesting than flying to the other side of the world only to stay in a Hilton marginally nicer than the one in your home town.
AznHisoka 9y ago
Rule #0. Dont have kids. otherwise everything else is moot.
- roadbeats 9y ago
  Not really; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2300179/Herman-Candelaria-Zapp-Couple-traveling-world-13-years-multinational-children-signs-stopping.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2300179/Herman-Cande...
- onion2k 9y ago
  Rule #0b. If you do have kids, don't take them with you. ;)
- empath75 9y ago
  Or have money.
- shubb 9y ago
  If the general point is that kids are super expensive - I dunno about that. I'm happily childless in my 30s, and when I look around at my circle of friends, those who had children early tend to have more stuff and more savings. Why? Because children force you to live a stable, boring life. And overall that reduces your costs more than having children increases them. For instance, when my friend Bob graduated, he stayed in my home town and bought the a fairly cheap house that he could afford, and he's still in it. I moved city to get the best job I could, and did it again, and then again. While I've been off increasing my earnings, Bob has been accumulating actual stuff. He lives in a house he owns outright, while I've only ever rented. He has great furniture and kitchen stuff, while I have cheap things because I know that when I move, it'll cost more to shift them than to buy them again. And moving city and breaking up with partners and changing career, and all these things that childless people do because we can are really expensive. It's hard to accumulate savings when you end up buying a new washing machine every 2 years. And he has kids, which when you think about it is a great addition to your retirement planning. Even if the stock market crashes and wipes out your investments, well raised kids will let you move into their living room and give you a bed bath.
roadbeats 9y ago
How to travel better than a millionaire ? Spend less, do more. It's possible and better to travel with almost no money, discipline and challenge your body and your desires. Last year, I spent 3 months in Morocco, 1 month in Indonesia and 1 month in Jordan. As a married couple, our daily budget in Indonesia and Morocco was about $2-$3 dollar per day because we camped and hitchhiked, sometimes ate only bread for one week, sometimes had to walk for hours, sometimes got sick and spent hole day sleeping under a tree in the middle of nowhere. I can't express the taste of an egg after weeks of strict diet though. The wonderful taste of true freedom is not more money; it's actually not spending money. I had as much as time I wanted, and I could go any route I wanted. No credit cards, no bills, no worries. I believe travel should be about developing good habits and learning value of small things rather than turning the brain off and enjoying luxury and desire... Hope I didn't sound snobby, just wanna give different perspectives a voice. If it sounded interesting, you can take a look at this video to see it in action; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CC5htqMMFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CC5htqMMFc
- prawn 9y ago
  Loved your video. There are some great experiences that money helps with but some of the most incredible things on the planet are free or cheap - walking, national parks, museums, etc. Sadly, the loudest voices (including advertising) are often the ones earning the most from speaking and so encouragement to find the simple and cheap attractions gets ignored.
- sokoloff 9y ago
  > sometimes ate only bread for one week, sometimes had to walk for hours, sometimes got sick A lot of people would disagree that that's "traveling better than a millionaire".
  - roadbeats 9y ago
    "Pain is a treasure, for it contains mercies." - Rumi The point I'm trying to make is, happiness and joy is not in "more", it's in "less". And the "less" requires people to discipline their body to not demand comfort and luxury.
empath75 9y ago
The answer is apparently to get the credit card companies to pay you for ads.
Sleeep 9y ago
[Most] credit card bloggers like The Points Guy are shills, don't listen to them. They make their money from affiliate marketing so they'll pimp the cards that make them the most (like Chase cards) and ignore deals that are good for you but bad for them. The Points Guy's website is owned by Bankrate. Here's him getting called out on Reddit for some practices: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/471yey/im_the_points_guy_aka_brian_kelly_ama/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/471yey/im_the_points_... The Points Guy and other credit card bloggers are like the people who hold "I Will Teach You To Get Rich" seminars at the Holiday Inn. He never answered when asked how much his salary he makes from his blog is but it's reported to be 7 figures. This is not the golden age, it's pretty mainstream. Card issues are cracking down on gamers. AMEX just started putting terms about gaming in their application. Citi merged limits on sign up bonuses across their cards. Chase doesn't even approve you if you've opened too many credit cards in the last 24 months (5) and has long called out gaming as against their T&C. Even if you get a million miles it's a chore to redeem them for something worthwhile. You also have to worry about keeping them from expiring. I still collect points and miles but don't kid yourself that it's not a commitment. Most people who are serious in the miles/points game go out buying gift cards and then using ever closing loopholes to liquidate the gift cards. It's just crazy some of the time, money, and effort people put into it. Might as well get a part time job at that point. Personally, in two years, between credit cards and bank accounts I've gotten $6,000 in realized worth (that is redeemed) and at least as much in unrealized worth. I've got my first rejection a few weeks ago. This is a credit card blog that is independent, the only blog I look at: https://www.doctorofcredit.com https://www.doctorofcredit.com
- bonesinger 9y ago
  I don't know if your assessment of that is accurate. I opened 2 cards last year, the AMEX Platinum and Chase Sapphire Reserve deal. I got 100k points for each card. I had some existing points and then some extra spending and I was able to get 2 business class tickets to Japan ($18k value) and 15 nights in 5 and 6 star Hyatt hotels. That was probably another $8k in value. I spent 170k AMEX points on the flights and 155k Chase points on the hotels. That trip was amazing and it was only possible because of the points. Was it a lot of work? Not really. I just put all my spending on my AMEX for a few months. Then I switched to the Chase Sapphire for a months. Once I got all the points I needed, I just transferred the the Amex points to ANA and the Chase points to Hyatt. I then booked my flights and hotels. Booking flights was slightly harder as my fiance and I weren't married so we had to transfer points to separate accounts, but it definitely wasn't a chore at all. A simple phone call to AMEX took care of that. Booking rooms with Hyatt and using points was a breeze. There are other benefits of having high end cards too. I got Global Entry for my fiance and I ($200 value). We didn't have to go through customs on the way back to USA. I got $300 travel credit from CSR card per year. $200 airline credit from AMEX Plat. I was able to get orchestra tickets to Hamilton in NYC for $399 through AMEX plat. If I had a million points, I could book 3-4 dream vacations. Not sure what went wrong with your redemptions.
youngprogrammer 9y ago
How to travel like a millionaire? Ask the millionaire
everyone 9y ago
So the gentry also dont have to endure the TSA shit? Nice
- mbillie1 9y ago
  TSA Precheck, assuming you can pass the background check, is $80 and is absolutely worth it if you have the extra cash and can fit an appointment into your schedule.
  - HillaryBriss 9y ago
    does TSA recheck require retina scans?
BlackJack 9y ago
I'm well versed with this world, and actually blog sometimes too. Here's some observations: 1. Lots of people use credit card points and frequent flyer miles to buy premier hotel and flight experiences. For example, you can fly from the US to Europe in business class round-trip for ~120,000 points and ~$200 in taxes/fees. Buying a business class roundtrip would cost $2000-7000, depending on which airlines and which times you fly. 2. You can earn points by flying, but the fastest way is by credit card bonuses. Recently the Chase Sapphire Reserve (CSR) had a 100K point bonus if you spent $4,000 in 3 months. You could transfer those Chase points to United and nearly have enough for round-trip business class tickets. To earn 100K United miles by flying would require you to spend $9k+ dollars on united tickets (if you're top tier elite), or fly business class between US-Asia 3 times on their partners or ~6 times in economy. It's waaay faster to use credit card sign-up bonuses to earn points. 3. There are lots of bloggers. boardingarea.com is full of them. Many cards give you referral bonuses for customers, so they just use their affiliate links. They're generally trying to push the links when they can. If you're a bigger blogger, you can get a deal with a bank to get cash per referral as opposed to the "max 5 referrals per year" deal that most people get. 4. The Points Guy (TPG) gets lambasted for using referral links that have the best referral bonuses instead of what's best for the end user. For example, the CSR above (100k/$4k spend), did not give a referral bonus. It's little brother, the Chase Sapphire Preserve (CSP), gave a 50k point bonus for $4k spend, but did give the referrer a bonus as well (10k points, or some cash depending on the deal). TPG regularly linked to the CSP even when every other blog was linking to the CSR. 5. The "golden age of travel" has transformed. In the past, frequent flyer programs were very beneficial, and cards had awesome sign-up bonuses. People would "churn" cards i.e. apply for a card every 90 days to get the sign up bonus and then never use it again. After a few years it wouldn't hurt your credit score, but you can read-up more online. reddit.com/r/churning is generally a good source. 6. Nowadays you still have big card bonuses but they tend to be more for the premium credit cards ($450+ annual fee) instead of no-fee or low-fee cards. In addition, banks are tighter about how often you can apply for those cards. 7. Airlines are much stingier with their award space. Even if a business class flight is supposed to cost 55-60k miles, you need availability from your origin and destination. The airlines can simply limit availability and render your points less useful. American is notorious for this - good luck finding business class awards from the US to anywhere. United is the best because Star Alliance has a ton of partners and usually sufficient availability. Delta has variable awards so sometimes a flight will cost 50k miles and other times it will cost 100k or even 300k miles for the same flight. A real PITA :( 8. You'll notice that I am consistently talking about business class awards. That's because economy fares have become very cheap nowadays that it's better value to just buy them. If you follow Scott's Cheap Flights, you can get notifications of fare deals. You can regularly get $300-400 flights from US-Europe or $500 US-Asia flights. These flights would cost 60-70k miles roundtrip, but with CSR you can "buy them for 1.5 cents per mile," so you can use 25K chase points to buy a $375 flight, and earn miles on that flight. Conversely business class tickets usually go for $2-4K, so using 100K miles is a way better "redemption", if that's what you're interested it. Ultimately it depends on your willingness to pay - some people stretch miles to economy as much as they can. Hope that helps as a quick primer. Happy to answer any questions. Miles & points is an interesting world but it has gotten less rewarding. Nowadays I just see them as a nice to have but not something I'd go out of my way for.
have_faith 9y ago
Like most "in clubs". Once everyone is In, the system doesn't work anymore and the added value dissipates.
- saryant 9y ago
  I think that was true up to the point where the US-based programs all devalued and largely put a stop to churners. The game is hard enough if you're only willing to deal with domestic reward programs that I think the vast majority give up chasing aspirational awards. Anecdotally I've found that things have been getting gradually easier. For example, now that AA has devalued their award program and Citi cards can't be churned so easily, it's a lot easier to find Cathay Pacific awards if you're redeeming through another program like Alaska.
wink 9y ago
I really wonder how feasible this is when you live in a country where you can't pay everything by CC and therefore have a hard time collecting points/miles in the first place. I did look into this a few years ago, but basically nothing expensive I ever buy makes it worth to get full-on credit card hypey. Or maybe I'm indeed just to lazy to properly research it :) For real flying miles.. I guess with like one vacation and one business trip per year, all the time with different airlines.. they usually expire before I can even get a bag of sweets :P

58 points by shubhamjain 9y ago

I've been playing this game for about six years now. In that time I've earned and burned just over 2.5 million points. Certainly the game isn't as easy as it used to be but it's still very lucrative if you're dedicated. Can't churn the Citi AA cards as frequently anymore, and anyways AA devalued their award chart. No more Cathay Pacific first class for 67.5k. United's devaluation a few years back was pretty painful as well. I still accrue United and American points, there are enough ways to get a decent amount and wring a redemption out of them once a year or so, but most of my focus is on foreign or smaller programs. Lately I've put all my energy towards Singapore Airlines and Alaska Air. Alaska often sells points cheaply enough that's it's worth it to just buy the points and redeem for partner redemptions. I did that recently and booked SFO-HKG-AKL on Cathay Pacific in first class for 80k points. Buying the 40k I needed was <$600. Well worth it. Singapore Airlines is a transfer partner with all the transferrable currencies (Chase, Citi, Amex and SPG) which makes earning there easy. The award chart is a bit steep but there are some good deals. My return from that Cathay flight is a Singapore award for AKL-SYD-SIN-NRT-SFO-DEN on Air New Zealand, Singapore Airlines and United with the long-hauls all in first class. I think it was around 120k miles. I started this game in college when my only goal was free travel—managed to earn enough points before graduation to buy myself a "free" round-trip ticket to Thailand in order to backpack around Southeast Asia for the summer. Now that I have substantially more money, I generally use points to enable cheap premium cabin travel, like buying points when they're on sale from Alaska or LifeMiles and essentially getting deep-discount first or business class tickets. I've hit most of the cliche churner experiences at this point: being driven in a Porsche to your flight from the Lufthansa first class terminal, Etihad's first class apartment, taste-testing both Dom and Krug in a Singapore Suite. It's an absurd hobby. And it's a hobby that takes monumental amounts of time to keep up with. Want to book Cathay via Alaska? Better know to ask to agent to look at the right screen on her computer. How do you know that? Because you've been following a 5,000-post thread over on Flyertalk about it. Knowing when and how to correctly apply for your next Citi card means you're following a similar thread over in that part of Flyertalk. Keeping up with the details like that is time consuming. I enjoy the detail work but I don't really know why. This hobby lets me go on generally two international vacations in first class each year for very little money. I'll be spending three weeks in New Zealand later this year, with time in Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo along the way. Last year I spent a week in Tokyo with friends before making my way back via Shanghai, Hong Kong and Dubai—two of those were new cities to me. I've somehow become very, very good at one of the world's silliest skills. That said, I have absolutely gotten off a first class fight only to check in to a hostel. Luxury travel actually gets pretty damn boring after about 24 hours IMO. Nothing is less interesting than flying to the other side of the world only to stay in a Hilton marginally nicer than the one in your home town.

AznHisoka 9y ago

Rule #0. Dont have kids. otherwise everything else is moot.

roadbeats 9y ago
Not really; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2300179/Herman-Candelaria-Zapp-Couple-traveling-world-13-years-multinational-children-signs-stopping.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2300179/Herman-Cande...
onion2k 9y ago
Rule #0b. If you do have kids, don't take them with you. ;)
empath75 9y ago
Or have money.
shubb 9y ago
If the general point is that kids are super expensive - I dunno about that. I'm happily childless in my 30s, and when I look around at my circle of friends, those who had children early tend to have more stuff and more savings. Why? Because children force you to live a stable, boring life. And overall that reduces your costs more than having children increases them. For instance, when my friend Bob graduated, he stayed in my home town and bought the a fairly cheap house that he could afford, and he's still in it. I moved city to get the best job I could, and did it again, and then again. While I've been off increasing my earnings, Bob has been accumulating actual stuff. He lives in a house he owns outright, while I've only ever rented. He has great furniture and kitchen stuff, while I have cheap things because I know that when I move, it'll cost more to shift them than to buy them again. And moving city and breaking up with partners and changing career, and all these things that childless people do because we can are really expensive. It's hard to accumulate savings when you end up buying a new washing machine every 2 years. And he has kids, which when you think about it is a great addition to your retirement planning. Even if the stock market crashes and wipes out your investments, well raised kids will let you move into their living room and give you a bed bath.

roadbeats 9y ago

How to travel better than a millionaire ? Spend less, do more. It's possible and better to travel with almost no money, discipline and challenge your body and your desires. Last year, I spent 3 months in Morocco, 1 month in Indonesia and 1 month in Jordan. As a married couple, our daily budget in Indonesia and Morocco was about $2-$3 dollar per day because we camped and hitchhiked, sometimes ate only bread for one week, sometimes had to walk for hours, sometimes got sick and spent hole day sleeping under a tree in the middle of nowhere. I can't express the taste of an egg after weeks of strict diet though. The wonderful taste of true freedom is not more money; it's actually not spending money. I had as much as time I wanted, and I could go any route I wanted. No credit cards, no bills, no worries. I believe travel should be about developing good habits and learning value of small things rather than turning the brain off and enjoying luxury and desire... Hope I didn't sound snobby, just wanna give different perspectives a voice. If it sounded interesting, you can take a look at this video to see it in action; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CC5htqMMFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CC5htqMMFc

prawn 9y ago
Loved your video. There are some great experiences that money helps with but some of the most incredible things on the planet are free or cheap - walking, national parks, museums, etc. Sadly, the loudest voices (including advertising) are often the ones earning the most from speaking and so encouragement to find the simple and cheap attractions gets ignored.
sokoloff 9y ago
> sometimes ate only bread for one week, sometimes had to walk for hours, sometimes got sick A lot of people would disagree that that's "traveling better than a millionaire".
- roadbeats 9y ago
  "Pain is a treasure, for it contains mercies." - Rumi The point I'm trying to make is, happiness and joy is not in "more", it's in "less". And the "less" requires people to discipline their body to not demand comfort and luxury.

empath75 9y ago

The answer is apparently to get the credit card companies to pay you for ads.

Sleeep 9y ago

[Most] credit card bloggers like The Points Guy are shills, don't listen to them. They make their money from affiliate marketing so they'll pimp the cards that make them the most (like Chase cards) and ignore deals that are good for you but bad for them. The Points Guy's website is owned by Bankrate. Here's him getting called out on Reddit for some practices: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/471yey/im_the_points_guy_aka_brian_kelly_ama/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/471yey/im_the_points_... The Points Guy and other credit card bloggers are like the people who hold "I Will Teach You To Get Rich" seminars at the Holiday Inn. He never answered when asked how much his salary he makes from his blog is but it's reported to be 7 figures. This is not the golden age, it's pretty mainstream. Card issues are cracking down on gamers. AMEX just started putting terms about gaming in their application. Citi merged limits on sign up bonuses across their cards. Chase doesn't even approve you if you've opened too many credit cards in the last 24 months (5) and has long called out gaming as against their T&C. Even if you get a million miles it's a chore to redeem them for something worthwhile. You also have to worry about keeping them from expiring. I still collect points and miles but don't kid yourself that it's not a commitment. Most people who are serious in the miles/points game go out buying gift cards and then using ever closing loopholes to liquidate the gift cards. It's just crazy some of the time, money, and effort people put into it. Might as well get a part time job at that point. Personally, in two years, between credit cards and bank accounts I've gotten $6,000 in realized worth (that is redeemed) and at least as much in unrealized worth. I've got my first rejection a few weeks ago. This is a credit card blog that is independent, the only blog I look at: https://www.doctorofcredit.com https://www.doctorofcredit.com

bonesinger 9y ago
I don't know if your assessment of that is accurate. I opened 2 cards last year, the AMEX Platinum and Chase Sapphire Reserve deal. I got 100k points for each card. I had some existing points and then some extra spending and I was able to get 2 business class tickets to Japan ($18k value) and 15 nights in 5 and 6 star Hyatt hotels. That was probably another $8k in value. I spent 170k AMEX points on the flights and 155k Chase points on the hotels. That trip was amazing and it was only possible because of the points. Was it a lot of work? Not really. I just put all my spending on my AMEX for a few months. Then I switched to the Chase Sapphire for a months. Once I got all the points I needed, I just transferred the the Amex points to ANA and the Chase points to Hyatt. I then booked my flights and hotels. Booking flights was slightly harder as my fiance and I weren't married so we had to transfer points to separate accounts, but it definitely wasn't a chore at all. A simple phone call to AMEX took care of that. Booking rooms with Hyatt and using points was a breeze. There are other benefits of having high end cards too. I got Global Entry for my fiance and I ($200 value). We didn't have to go through customs on the way back to USA. I got $300 travel credit from CSR card per year. $200 airline credit from AMEX Plat. I was able to get orchestra tickets to Hamilton in NYC for $399 through AMEX plat. If I had a million points, I could book 3-4 dream vacations. Not sure what went wrong with your redemptions.

youngprogrammer 9y ago

How to travel like a millionaire? Ask the millionaire

everyone 9y ago

So the gentry also dont have to endure the TSA shit? Nice

mbillie1 9y ago
TSA Precheck, assuming you can pass the background check, is $80 and is absolutely worth it if you have the extra cash and can fit an appointment into your schedule.
- HillaryBriss 9y ago
  does TSA recheck require retina scans?

BlackJack 9y ago

I'm well versed with this world, and actually blog sometimes too. Here's some observations: 1. Lots of people use credit card points and frequent flyer miles to buy premier hotel and flight experiences. For example, you can fly from the US to Europe in business class round-trip for ~120,000 points and ~$200 in taxes/fees. Buying a business class roundtrip would cost $2000-7000, depending on which airlines and which times you fly. 2. You can earn points by flying, but the fastest way is by credit card bonuses. Recently the Chase Sapphire Reserve (CSR) had a 100K point bonus if you spent $4,000 in 3 months. You could transfer those Chase points to United and nearly have enough for round-trip business class tickets. To earn 100K United miles by flying would require you to spend $9k+ dollars on united tickets (if you're top tier elite), or fly business class between US-Asia 3 times on their partners or ~6 times in economy. It's waaay faster to use credit card sign-up bonuses to earn points. 3. There are lots of bloggers. boardingarea.com is full of them. Many cards give you referral bonuses for customers, so they just use their affiliate links. They're generally trying to push the links when they can. If you're a bigger blogger, you can get a deal with a bank to get cash per referral as opposed to the "max 5 referrals per year" deal that most people get. 4. The Points Guy (TPG) gets lambasted for using referral links that have the best referral bonuses instead of what's best for the end user. For example, the CSR above (100k/$4k spend), did not give a referral bonus. It's little brother, the Chase Sapphire Preserve (CSP), gave a 50k point bonus for $4k spend, but did give the referrer a bonus as well (10k points, or some cash depending on the deal). TPG regularly linked to the CSP even when every other blog was linking to the CSR. 5. The "golden age of travel" has transformed. In the past, frequent flyer programs were very beneficial, and cards had awesome sign-up bonuses. People would "churn" cards i.e. apply for a card every 90 days to get the sign up bonus and then never use it again. After a few years it wouldn't hurt your credit score, but you can read-up more online. reddit.com/r/churning is generally a good source. 6. Nowadays you still have big card bonuses but they tend to be more for the premium credit cards ($450+ annual fee) instead of no-fee or low-fee cards. In addition, banks are tighter about how often you can apply for those cards. 7. Airlines are much stingier with their award space. Even if a business class flight is supposed to cost 55-60k miles, you need availability from your origin and destination. The airlines can simply limit availability and render your points less useful. American is notorious for this - good luck finding business class awards from the US to anywhere. United is the best because Star Alliance has a ton of partners and usually sufficient availability. Delta has variable awards so sometimes a flight will cost 50k miles and other times it will cost 100k or even 300k miles for the same flight. A real PITA :( 8. You'll notice that I am consistently talking about business class awards. That's because economy fares have become very cheap nowadays that it's better value to just buy them. If you follow Scott's Cheap Flights, you can get notifications of fare deals. You can regularly get $300-400 flights from US-Europe or $500 US-Asia flights. These flights would cost 60-70k miles roundtrip, but with CSR you can "buy them for 1.5 cents per mile," so you can use 25K chase points to buy a $375 flight, and earn miles on that flight. Conversely business class tickets usually go for $2-4K, so using 100K miles is a way better "redemption", if that's what you're interested it. Ultimately it depends on your willingness to pay - some people stretch miles to economy as much as they can. Hope that helps as a quick primer. Happy to answer any questions. Miles & points is an interesting world but it has gotten less rewarding. Nowadays I just see them as a nice to have but not something I'd go out of my way for.

have_faith 9y ago

Like most "in clubs". Once everyone is In, the system doesn't work anymore and the added value dissipates.

saryant 9y ago
I think that was true up to the point where the US-based programs all devalued and largely put a stop to churners. The game is hard enough if you're only willing to deal with domestic reward programs that I think the vast majority give up chasing aspirational awards. Anecdotally I've found that things have been getting gradually easier. For example, now that AA has devalued their award program and Citi cards can't be churned so easily, it's a lot easier to find Cathay Pacific awards if you're redeeming through another program like Alaska.

wink 9y ago

I really wonder how feasible this is when you live in a country where you can't pay everything by CC and therefore have a hard time collecting points/miles in the first place. I did look into this a few years ago, but basically nothing expensive I ever buy makes it worth to get full-on credit card hypey. Or maybe I'm indeed just to lazy to properly research it :) For real flying miles.. I guess with like one vacation and one business trip per year, all the time with different airlines.. they usually expire before I can even get a bag of sweets :P