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Are you wanting to learn more about how to use points and miles to travel the world? If you answered yes, this is the podcast episode for you! This is a beginners guide to points and miles with our friend Jess Austria. Our hope for this podcast episode is for you to gain more knowledge on how to travel hack and use points and miles responsibly to travel more while saving money!
You better have a pen and paper ready because you are going to want to take notes!
Did you know most people sitting in upper class aren’t rich? They’re smart. Jess is a points and miles enthusiast and one half of @fromourpointsofview on Instagram. Her and her husband, Dom, travel hacked roundtrip Business Class Flights to Greece as their first points and miles redemption and only paid $130 per person. And soon they will be back on business class all because of credit card points and miles. Curious how to do it (responsibly) too?
Become Jess’s Travel Bestie: Instagram
Before we get in-depth on how to travel with points and miles, let’s first explain what points and miles travel is. Points and miles travel is when you are traveling by cutting down the price by earning and redeeming the points earned on travel. These earned points and miles can be redeemed on airfare, hotels and even cruises.
Now that we know what points and miles travel is, let’s talk about where to start this journey. There are several things to consider before entering the points and miles world, so let’s discuss how to start.
The first thing that you need to consider is your finances. If you are going to start travel hacking and traveling on points and miles, its important to know how you earn those points and miles. Points and miles are earned through expenses on a credit card. So you need to make sure you are financial responsible. One rule to follow: you MUST pay your statement balance in full on time each month. Not paying the balance in full and accruing interest negates the whole process.
Second thing to consider when starting your points and miles journey is considering your travel goal. Each person has a different goal they are trying to achieve with their points and miles. Are you wanting to fly first class or just trying to fly for free on all domestic travel no mater the flight class.
Lastly, you need to know the difference between the different types of credit cards that you collect points and miles on. The two different cards are non co-branded and co-branded credit cards. Non co-branded credit cards are issued by the bank, where a co-branded credit card is when a company will partner with a bank to offer credit cards bearing their name or loyalty program. Examples of non co-branded credit cards are American Express, Citi, Capital One and Chase. Popular co-branded cards include those you get through an airline or hotel.
To start earning points and miles, you will need to open a credit card, but what card is the best to start with? The travel hacking experts will tell you to start with a transferrable credit card. These transferrable credit cards give you more opportunity to transfer your earned points and miles to several different airlines and hotels. These transferable cards are your non co-branded credit cards.
There is an unwritten rule in the travel hacking community and that is the 5/24 rule. This rule is where Chase will not approve you for one of their credit cards if you have applied for a credit card, closed a card, opened a card from other issuers, applied for a retailer card or added an authorized user in the last 24 months. With this unwritten rule, the experts suggests that at the beginning of your travel hacking journey, you should start with a Chase credit card. The best beginner travel hacker card is the Chase Sapphire Preferred.
When earning points and miles, it is important to understand how to maximize your points. Maximizing your points will allow you to earn the most points possible to go towards travel.
One of the first ways to maximize your points is through sign up bonuses. When you open up a credit card, there will be a sign up bonus. These sign up bonuses are achieved when you spend an X amount of money in an X amount of time. For example, you just opened the Chase Sapphire Preferred. This card has a sign up bonus of 80,000 points. This bonus is earned if you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
That sign up bonus may seem hard to achieve but that brings us to the next way of maximizing your points. Whether you are trying to earn that sign up bonus or not, the travel hacking experts will tell you to use your credit card like your debit card. So instead of using your debit card for daily purchases such as gas, groceries, etc., they suggest that you purchase everything with your credit card to earn those extra points and miles. Just make sure you follow that golden rule and pay off the entire balance every month.
Another way to maximize your points is through bonus categories or multipliers. Each card offers different bonus categories. For example, the Chase Sapphire Preferred offers 3x on dining where another card gives you 2x on groceries. Because of this, most travel hackers will strategize and use more than one card for their day to day purchases to maximize points within these bonus categories.
There is a golden rule to follow when redeeming points and miles for travel. The guideline to determine value of points for a flight is to assess the cent per point. You can do this by taking the cost of the flight’s cash value and multiply by 100. Then divide that number by points needed to book the flight. If the value is more than one cent per point, that is a good value.
Below are links to resources that are beneficial to all points and miles beginners
The Points Guy: BEST Travel Credit Cards
The Points Guy Beginner’s Guide
The BEST Beginner Travel Hacker Card- Chase Sapphire Preferred
How to keep track of your cards and points: Card Pointers APP
We hope this beginners guide to points and miles was helpful as you begin your journey travel hacking. We learned so much and we feel as if we can confidently start earning and maximizing our points and miles to achieve our travel goals.
We would love to have a part two to this podcast episode to go more in-depth about travel hacking as we feel like we just scratched the surface. If you would like to see a part two or have questions regarding to points and miles leave us a comment or slide in our DMs on instagram!
Hi travel besties! It's Kayla and Cheraya, your co-hosts of the Passports and Coffee Podcast. We are fellow corporate world millennials looking to escape the 9-5 and are encouraging you to do the same.
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