Weekend Blitz

For those of you saying, “Enough already! How do you get started?” here’s a quick crash course on racking up the points required for a free trip. This is written from the perspective of someone with no frequent traveler points that is starting from scratch.

This is imperative to getting in on the free miles game. Start by reading our Credit Score Crash Course post here. This will give you an idea of what is behind your credit score.

Before going any further, figure out what you’re working with. Please don’t go to just any website for a credit report– there’s a reason [...]

Valentine’s Day is on Friday and it’s the season where just about every hotel chain, airline and credit card shopping portal teams up with the various flower companies for some pretty huge points earning potential. Always keep in mind that they can afford to pay out the large bonus miles/points because their markup is usually huge. For example, a dozen roses from one of the following companies will cost you around $39-$49 + tax + delivery fees whereas you can usually get the same dozen roses from a local florist or even just Costco for $10-$20 + tax! But, here are some ideas on how to make sure that you’re earning a ton of points while getting a gift for that [...]

There’s nothing better than double (or even triple!) dipping when it comes to earning miles and points — and credit card shopping portals can help out a ton when it comes to finding good opportunities.

Now, I’m not sure if this is news or not, but it’s definitely news to me: Hotels.com is now a partner in the Chase Ultimate Rewards Mall at a current rate of 3x! This means that if you have the Chase Sapphire Preferred (like McCown and I), you’re getting the following for every $ of Hotels.com spent through the portal:

2.14x normal (2x on travel + 7% annual dividend standard with Chase Sapphire [...]

Credit card signup bonuses are a big part of travelling for free using miles and points — probably the biggest part. 

So, what do you do when you pull the trigger and register for that awesome signup bonus just to find that next week (or month) an even better bonus is offered? Luckily, you can often get the credit card issuer to match your offer.

Here’s how I got Chase to give me an extra 20k Ultimate Rewards Points.

The signup bonus for Chase’s Ink Bold and Ink Plus cards have been 50k each for the past few months, however, they made an announcement that for this week only the signup bonus would be increased to 60k each. Feeling like I missed [...]