In order to travel on points, you have to have points! How do I earn points? That is a question I get asked frequently. And I’m here to tell you how I do it. There are many ways to do it, but this has worked for me so far!
I got my first travel credit card in 2013. It was a Choice Privileges card that allowed for free hotel rooms at Choice related hotels – Comfort Suites, Sleep Inn, Quality Inn, etc. Over the years, I have earned and redeemed many hotel stays using that card. My favorite was being able to stay in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on game weekends when hotels were extremely overpriced! I used that card for every purchase and the points added up over the years. I used the points several times a year for the trips I took. I loved it!
I got my next travel card in 2020. It was an American Airlines card. The flight attendants made an announcement in flight pushing the credit card, so I nabbed an application. Paired with my Choice card, I was set! I could fly to a location for free and stay for free, what else was needed? But it seems that the points spent so much quicker than they were earned through my usual spending. What was a person to do? I just put all my spending on that card and tried to be patient until the points accumulated again.
Occasionally one of the cards would offer bonus points – get 20,000 points for opening a savings account, get a free night stay when you stay twice within a period of time, earn double points by purchasing fuel, dining or groceries. Because it took awhile for points and miles to add up on my cards, I still used my points sparingly.
In the summer of 2023, I noticed a post in one of my facebook groups talking about traveling on points. Someone recommended a group “10X Travel”. I went to join that group and the agreement upon joining that group is that you must take their free online course prior to posting questions in the group. Off I went to take the online course! And down the rabbit hole I went!
Between that online course and more research that I did, I found many of the tools to help make earning points and transferring points easier. My first two cards were specific to Choice and American Airlines. What I didn’t know is some credit cards allow you to transfer your points to many different partners – you aren’t tied to just one hotel or one airline!
I proceeded to open my next two cards – Citi Premier (now Citi Strata Premier) and Chase Sapphire Preserve (CSP). The Citi card gave me 75,000 points if I charged $4,000 in 3 months and the CSP gave me 60,000 points if I charged $4,000 in the first 3 months. I signed up for those two cards within a week of each other. That meant $8,000 would need to be spent in 3 months! That was a lot – but I had some expenses coming due that I knew I could easily meet that spend. My son was in college, so his tuition could be charged to the card. He was also doing another special program that was a little pricey at the time. So meeting $8,000 in 3 months was not a problem. But you might say , “Well, Tracey, you will have to pay fees for charging tuition!” Yes, this is true. His tuition was about $4,000. The fee was about 3%. $120 in fees to get 75,000 points is a good swap because you can get quite a few hotel nights at Hyatt for 75,000 points, but would do well to get one night for $120 cash.
Those two bonuses came much quicker than I expected. Very soon, I had 135,000 points! Then I opened the Chase Ink Business Preferred – 100,000 points for spending $8,000 in 3 months – because after all, I whizzed through that first $8,000! Then the American Airlines Business card – 65,000 miles for spending $4,000 in 4 months. Oh my! Miles & Points are adding up fast!
“But wait, Tracey, you don’t have a business, how are you able to open a business card?” Well, I kind of do! For years, I worked at one accounting job, and moonlighted at another – receiving a 1099 for that job. Then I did bookkeeping for my sister’s business (well, sometimes). So yes, in the eyes of a credit card company, I do have a business. In reading all the blogs on credit card points and miles, you’d be surprised at what qualifies for a business. If you deliver for DoorDash, you have a business. If you tutor or clean houses or babysit, you have a business. Or even if you have ever sold your used clothes on Facebook Marketplace, they claim that qualifies you as a business…in the eyes of a credit card company.
But why do you want a business credit card? Well, Chase seems to think if you open more than 5 personal credit cards within24 months, that you don’t need anymore and they will decline any future applications until you fall back below 5 cards in a 24 month period (5/24 rule). But funny, business cards aren’t included in that formula. So you can open a million business cards with Chase (well, probably not – maybe I exaggerate a little!), and still continue to be approved. But if you open a Citi, a JC Penney, an Old Navy, a Chase and a Capital One personal within 24 months, all of a sudden, Chase says “That’s enough, you can’t have any more!”
So that’s how you accumulate points – you open a credit card, you meet the minimum spend, you earn the points, you open a credit card, you meet the minimum spend, you earn the points, over and over!
“But, Tracey, I value my credit score! Opening that many credit cards will tank my credit report!” Ok, I hear you! I started in June 2023 with a credit score of 819 on Experian. I opened 8 cards between June and December AND co-signed on a student loan for my son. My credit dropped to a low of 780 in December 2023 – still in the “Very Good” range. Now in October 2024, it is back to 801 (12 credit cards in 16 months – plus that co-signed loan). I won’t lie, my credit did go down more than I wanted it to. All of the blogs and Facebook groups I read made me think it would not. But let’s talk about this. There are 5 ingredients to your credit score:
- Payment History – 35% – I have all of my bills set to auto-pay. I always pay my bills on time.
- Amount of Debt – 30% – I have zero debt. I follow the Dave Ramsey principles … EXCEPT for when it comes to credit cards! LOL My cards are paid off every month. I never carry a balance and I never pay interest. But by opening more credit cards, this category will actually improve. It looks at the total amount you have outstanding compared to the total credit available to you.
- Length of credit history – 15% – I’m not sure how this computes because the blogs warn about closing your oldest card. My credit report shows the age of my oldest card is 35 years – but for the life of me, I have no idea what card I have that might be 35 years old!
- Amount of new credit – 10% – THIS is what had me in trouble! Opening 8 cards in 6 months time took a toll on my credit. What I have read says that when a credit card company does a “hard pull” of your credit, that it will stay on your report for 2 years. But I know that some of those that pulled a credit report in 2023 have already fallen off.
- Credit Mix – 10% – Again, not sure how I have a high rating in this category because my credit consists of way too many credit cards and the co-signed student loan – no mortgage, no car loan. But it is in the exceptional range, so I’ll take it!
If you are responsible with your payments and keep your utilization (amount of debt) low, then 65% of your credit report should be in the excellent range. If you open 10 cards with $10,000 limit per card, then you now have $100,000 available credit. If you have a balance at the end of the month of $4,000, then your utilization is 4% ($4,000/$100,000). But if you have 1 credit card with $10,000 limit and you have $4,000 charged, then your utilization would be 40%. To the credit bureaus, 4% utilization is much better than 40%. So having more cards open actually does help your score. Just in my case, I did it a little quick. I believe if I would have paced it out a little more (and not had the co-signed loan), it would have never dropped below 800.
In 16 months, I have accumulated almost 1,000,000 in points and miles. I have used my American Airlines miles on multiple trips and bought hotel rooms on points when maybe I would have insisted to drive home after a concert or skimped and gotten the cheap hotel. The Hyatt Regency in Tulsa was 5,000 points the night of the Eagles concert – it was going for over $200 a night (maybe more – I don’t remember for sure). The Grand Hyatt on San Antonio Riverwalk was 12,000 points per night instead of $300 per night!
Future blog posts will be on ways to redeem all of these points. And some of the other perks of having various different credit cards.
Thanks for reading! And please ask any questions below that you may have!! I’d love to help you get into this fun hobby too!