31/01/2024
If you’re super new to using points to travel, here are some basic faqs to get you closer to your future free/nearly free adventures!
🔹Open a credit card and meet the minimum spend — The minimum spend is the amount of money you have to spend within a certain amount of time (usually a range of 3-6 months) in order to gain the SUB points (or Sign-Up Bonus). For example, the Chase Sapphire Preferred has a SUB of 60,000 points once you spend $4,000 in 3 months. When you add up expenses such as groceries, various bills, gas, kids’ extracurricular activities, etc., it’s pretty easy to meet that minimum spend! Instead of using your debit card or cash, put everything on the credit card, and pay it off each month.
In exchange, those points are worth $750 if you cashed them outright. (But we’re not going to do that as we’re going to use them for free travel and make that dollar worth so much more!)
🔹Once you have the points, consider where and how you want to use them. You could even do this in order to decide which card to open. There are four major banks that transfer to airline and hotel partners: Chase, AmEx, Capital One and Citi. A lot of these are a 1:1 ratio and transfer within same day. Transferring points to partners usually gives you a better redemption than using that bank’s portal to book a hotel or flight. However, I’ve booked two car rentals on Chase’s portal so far and felt it was a pretty good redemption.
You will need to create separate accounts with those partners in order to transfer points to that account.
🔹When you get within a couple hundred dollars of meeting your SUB, go ahead and be ready to apply for another card.
🔹Do NOT cancel a card unless you’ve had it for a year or more. If you’re paying a yearly fee, you can wait until the yearly fee posts, then call to downgrade (best option) or cancel the card, and they will refund the fee back to you.
When Sam and I both got the Chase Sapphire, there was no need for us to pay two $95 annual fees, so I downgraded to the Chase Freedom card which has no annual fee.
🔹Do NOT add your spouse as an authorized user, as that takes one of their Chase 5/24 spots if you do this. If you need a card for each of you, call Chase or send a secure message on your Chase account to ask them to expedite a card so you can start using it sooner rather than later. It will usually show up within 2-3 business days.
🔹How do you keep up with all of the cards?? Use the free app Travel Freely. It keeps track of all of your credit cards and will notify you when you have a yearly fee coming up. The best part is you don’t have to enter any personal card information.
https://my.travelfreely.com/share?ref=54678
🔹What about my credit score?
Here’s a breakdown of what affects your credit score so you can have a bit more piece of mind:
1.) Payment History — 35% — Paying on time and full each month is key👌
2.) Credit Usage — 30% — How much credit you’re using.
3.) Credit History — 15% — Don’t close your oldest accounts!
4.) Account Diversity — 10% — How are you using your credit - Loans, CCs, etc.
5.) Account Inquiries — 10% — Applying for cards
So you see, inquiries only take a small hit to your score before it will go back up after a short while. This is exactly what has happened to Sam and I.
