How to Travel for (Almost) Free on Miles

This is one of the questions that we get asked ALL the time –  “How do I fly for free with credit card miles?  I don’t know where to start!”  So today’s post is the most basic of the basic – how I got my first (almost) free international flight with airline miles.

Travel rewards credit cards are cards that offer airline miles or points in exchange for spending money on their card. For details on this, check out our overview of the different types of reward mile programs and the different cards offered.

Today though, I’m just going to talk through our most basic strategy.

How I got my first free international flight with a reward credit card:

1. I started looking early. I started looking for credit cards the fall before the next spring’s travel season. I wanted plenty of time to accrue enough miles.
2. I picked the right card/bonus for me. After looking through the available cards, I picked one that had a minimum amount that I would be able to meet in order to get the bonus miles.
   • Example: Many cards offer a sign-up bonus, say 30K miles if you spend $1,500 in the first three months. Another card may offer 50K miles for spending $5,000 in the first three months.
   • Calculation: To do this, I added up my upcoming expenses to see the highest minimum/bonus that I could achieve. I needed to purchase an $800 software set, so I added this in.
   • Result: I found one that would give me 35K miles if I spent $1500 in the first three months. (It was an American Airline Visa card). Bingo!
   • Note: You should make sure the airline or reward card offers flights to where you want to go 😉

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3. I saved major purchases for the credit card promotional period. I knew that I would need to spend $1500 in the first three months, so I saved that $800 software purchase until I got the card.
4. I received the card in the mail and activated it (although, technically you can use it before it comes in the mail).
5. I met the minimum. I made the software purchase. Then I ran all other expenses that I could through the card for those months to meet the minimum. (Note, mortgage payments cannot be placed on credit cards, although believe me, I tried).
6. I didn’t over-spend. I set my account to auto-pay the account in full at the end of every month so I wouldn’t be tempted to over-spend.
7. Woohoo! I received my miles. By March, I had not only received my 35K bonus miles, but also accrued another 5Kmiles from spending and other bonuses, such as taking an airline survey (I received at least 1 mile per dollar spent on the card). I should note that for 40K miles, you can get a round-trip ticket to Europe if you travel off-season and sometimes shoulder season.
8. I flew on the fewest miles possible. In early March, I booked flights for shoulder-season in very early May to fly for the cheapest miles. (Flying one month later would have almost doubled the required miles).
9. I reduced fees. I also made sure to choose flights without British Airways segments to reduce fees, as our blog post detailed.
10. I bought a bottle of NyQuil and jumped on the plane. 🙂

Kristian was also going through this process simultaneously. We ordered cards during the same week and ordered tickets at the same time. With this strategy, we flew round-trip to Europe flew for next-to-nothing.

Discussion of Credit Cards – Who is this best for?

Now, to be honest, this won’t work for everyone. And we don’t think it’s right for everyone. First of all, you need to be able to qualify for the card. Also, these deals are usually for new card holders.

And finally, we believe this strategy is only smart if you don’t already have credit card debt and can control your spending. Let’s be real, if you get carried away at the mall if you have a visa slab of plastic in your wallet and wooohoooo your way across the jewelry stores……that kind of defeats the purpose of saving money on tickets with the card, right?

This worked for us with our flights to Europe because:

• We had good credit and no credit card debt
• We could control our spending
• We paid the credit cards off in full every month

If you meet those criteria, travel credit cards can be a pretty good deal. I personally have saved over a thousand dollars in flights so far. But make sure that you’re using the system to get cheap flights…..and the system isn’t using you to rope you into credit card debt.

What are your experiences with travel credit cards? Have they worked well for you?

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