All The Points
As always, travel has been on my mind lately. I have been reading all the articles on The Points Guy and more trying to learn how best to use them for upgraded flights. Do you do that? I am learning to be more strategic about how to use all the points. Let’s look at some of the options.
Airline Cards
If you are in a hub for your airline, it might be beneficial to have an airline card. Most likely if it’s a hub, you will be using that airline anyway. Purchasing your airfare with the airline card will provide the most points for future travel. The downsize is you cannot transfer these points to anything else.
Credit Cards
Here is where you need to do your research. Credit cards offer sign up bonus miles and other incentives like free TSA (see last week’s blog post) or Clear. Some offer travel refunds up to $300 per year. So, what are some of the best credit cards? Well, from my research and I am certainly no expert here, I think that Chase Sapphire Reserve and American Express are holding the lead. With both, you get some hefty sign-up bonuses, free TSA, a $300 travel credit and the best part? You can transfer the points from both of these to your airline points for purchasing reward flights. Do you have a different favorite one?
Reward Flights
So, all these are fine and can really come in handy for purchasing flights, but the real trick is learning how to use them to the best advantage. This is where I am still learning. If you can plan ahead and are flexible using your preferred airline, if you check their reward flights you can see when the best time is to purchase the flights. For example, with United (my hub airline), when I search for a flight with “flexible dates” paying with miles, I can see how much that flight in business will cost me in miles. So mostly it’s like 155,000 miles. Then you will see an occasional one for 55,000. That would be the bonus ones to book with your points. Tip I learned from the Points Guy, never pay the same or more with points then you would with cash. It doesn’t make sense then to use your points.
Are you ready to plan a trip, possibly using your points for flights? Let’s discuss your next adventure. Click on the button below to start a conversation and let’s discuss your pent-up demand.
