My wife just got her new Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card today, which we signed up using the link at InACents! We had them rush ship the credit card, took 3 days to get here.
My wife and I sign up for credit cards that get us the most rewards points or airline miles. Since we put all of our spending on credit cards it make it easier to reach the minimum spending requirement to get the bonus. A few months ago Chase dropped their reward bonus from 50k to 40k as long as you met their minimum spending requirement. To get the bonus points we have to spend $3,000 within 3 months, which we knew would be simple.
Reaching this bonus will be easy since we just had our new lawn installed here in Alaska. We knew getting the new lawn would make for an easy bonus, so we opted for the Chase Sapphire card. This credit card is probably the coolest credit card I have ever owned. I still can’t believe its made of metal. I got my own Sapphire card back when Chase was offering the 50k bonus points, but since we wouldn’t have been able to reach $6k in spending within 3 months we decided to only get the one card. With this new lawn install, we not only will get the 40k bonus points, but also the extra 6,000 rewards points for spending $6,000 plus the 7% bonus at the end of the year. At 46,000 rewards points we can either get $460 back or use it at one of the many Chase rewards partners.
For those who like gift cards, I find that the Chase Ultimate Rewards program has a good number and variety of cards to choose from. Since my wife and I are traveling to Seattle later this month, we will be using my 65,000 rewards points for our hotel stay or in other words $650 taken off our hotel bill. Not only do we get the $650 off, we also will earn rewards points for staying at the hotel.. this is how we maximize our rewards!
Along with our already free airline tickets (First Class on Alaska Airline), our hotel stay for the week will be practically paid for. The only cost will be our car rental. Most of our traveling cost have been paid for without us ever having to pay out of our own pocket. Thanks American Express and Chase.. thanks for paying for our free travel… again!
Obviously you have to use credit wisely and never get too far into debt where you are making payments. As soon as you start making payments and start paying monthly interest, fees and yearly fees then the value of ‘free travel‘ becomes less and less.
Cost of trip:
- $1,200 per first class ticket x 2 = $2,400 in free airfare.
- $742 for hotel stay for 1 week
- $226 for car rental
Total Cost Of Trip = $3,368
Our Responsibility For Trip = $318
Do you believe you can travel for free?
