The purpose of this page is to teach you how you can earn free travel by building up your rewards points and airline miles. Traveling anywhere around the world is now a future possibility for you. I am no different than you, I’ve just learned these techniques and use them every day of my life.
Your journey starts now.. start dreaming.. where will you go this year?
Now before you can start traveling for free, you have to learn how to get free rewards points and free airline miles. I will also show you my techniques of leveraging those rewards points and airline miles to your benefit. Just like I said in The Purpose Of This Travel Blog, I can turn 100,000 points into 140,000+ airline miles, just by leveraging what I already have. My wife, Melissa and I pay very little when it comes to traveling or lodging, and believe me when you have over 500,000 airline miles you don’t mind spending a little more to fly First Class.
I’m a very busy guy and honestly I don’t want to spend a lot of my personal time building up my points or airline miles. However, there are a few steps you will have to take to do this successfully, but once you start on this path its a simple process that anyone can do.
- First Step – The very first step is to find out if you have the credit score to even start building miles or rewards points. If you have a lot of debt or a credit score less than 700, you will want to work on building your credit score first before applying for these rewards credit cards. Most reward cards require a good credit score, which starts around 700-750. You can find out more about what credit scores are required for credit card approval here.
- Second Step – This is where a little research comes in handy. Obviously you will want to find the best rewards programs for your particular situation. For instance I use Delta whenever I fly. I find that Delta offers a huge range of travel destinations and living in Alaska, Delta and Alaska Air are the 2 main airlines flying out of Anchorage. So it wouldn’t make sense for me to build up all of my airline miles with American Airlines or even Continental. But if you live in Miami or New York, then building up your American Airlines account would be worth it. Find out who flies out of your home town, this will give you a better idea which airlines rewards programs you will want to register for. Keep in mind that most rewards programs are partnered with other airlines. So I can use my airline miles with other airlines if I needed to. I have used Alaska Air multiple times flying from Seattle directly to Anchorage using my Delta SkyMiles. Signing up for rewards programs are free and since there are so many be sure you keep track of your account numbers, username and passwords for each program.
- Third Step – Keep track of your rewards points and airline miles. I personally do not use a service for this. There are a lot of travel bloggers who will suggest AwardWallet.com as their services is mostly free to use. Since my Delta SkyMiles and American Express rewards points never expire, I don’t need a service to keep track of those two programs for me. If you do register for an awards program that has an expiration date, then a service like AwardWallet might be good for you. Usually hotel awards programs expire, so be sure you know the terms of each program you sign up for.
Now For The Credit Card Rewards Strategy
Without ever stepping on a plane or into a hotel, the easiest way to earn free airline miles and rewards points is by signing up for specific credit card offers. These reward credit cards will profit you a huge bonus of 50,000 miles or points on just 1 credit card signup. Some offers get as high as 75,000-100,000 points. Now think about if you could sign up for just 2-3 of these offers each year, that would net you a minimum of 150,000 airline miles or rewards points. On a basic US Delta flight, that would give you 6 round trip airline tickets each year!
I have registered for multiple credit card offers and my credit score is still above 760. For every credit card offer you register for, expect your credit score to drop 3-5 basis points. Over time your score will improve, mainly because of your increase in available credit. Part of your credit score is based on how much debt you have, to how much credit card debt you can have. Since you are increasing your available credit without increasing your debt your score will improve.
Word of caution, if you plan on buying a house or taking out a large loan within the next year, you might want to wait to sign up for these reward credit cards. Most large loans will look at the number of times you applied for credit as a factor in their decision or interest rate, even if you have a great credit score. When I purchased my house in 2011, the bank hounded me about 1 credit card that I got purely for one of my businesses, so to make the loan process easier on yourself, wait until after your loan closes before applying for these credit cards. They have been around for a long time and will still be available when you are ready to get in the game. Don’t rush to get a ‘great’ offer, as these credit card offers happen all of the time.
One last topic we need to discuss before you start is your current debt balances. If you are paying interest on your debt then it’s a waste of time building credit card rewards as you are gradually giving back what you have earned to the credit card company. The best way to avoid your current interest payments is to first transfer your balances to a credit card that offers 0% interest for 12, 18 or 24 months, therefore you won’t be paying interest on any current debt you have. Make sure you save money after transferring the debt before proceeding. Most of these offers charge 3-4% of the transferred amount, but if you are paying $100 in interest each month and it only cost you $300 to transfer $10,000 of debt, you will save money after month 3, make sense? Depending on your credit score will depend on what offers you qualify for. Usually the better your score the longer the 0% interest will last.
Now its time to sign up for the best credit card offers!
By now you will have everything in order, you will know which programs you will signup for depending on which rewards programs fit your requirements and you won’t be paying interest on your purchases. From now on, every purchase you make will be based on your everyday expenses. Every rewards credit card requires you to meet specific requirements within a specified period of time to qualify for the rewards points. Some of the easier rewards to achieve, you will have to spend $3,000 within 3 months, but some of the more difficult but higher rewards programs will require you to charge $10,000 for 75,000-100,000 rewards points. Some offers may be out of your reach, but if you are willing to charge everything possible to these credit cards, you should be able to reach almost all of the requirements on most cards. Stop using your debit card and stop writing checks! Everything has to be pushed through your rewards credit cards from now on.
(I do earn a referral if you register with these cards and thank you for supporting my site)
Here are some of the better rewards currently being promoted:
- Coming soon..
Remember to put all of your normal expenses on these credit cards to meet the rewards threshold. After you have earned the rewards, find the next card and do the same thing. Depending on how much you can charge will depend on how many rewards cards you can signup for and ultimately how many rewards miles and points you will earn in a years time.