Hey,
Do any of you have credit cards and use them to rack up airmiles? I dont have one at the moment, but my brother spent a bunch of money last year and i was able to upgrade his London - Thailand flight to from economy to business for him and his wife.
I was wondering if you guys do similar and if you’ve managed to get many perks?
Absolutely - get BA American Express Credit Card. Its brilliant. Can’t remember the last time I actually paid for a flight to Europe
Yes, I have Citi AAdvantage card and will be flying the whole family to Mexico in a couple of months using miles. I threaten to cancel every year and they waive the annual fee most of the time. When they don’t, I cancel and they send me an offer the following year with 50,000 bonus miles.
How did you upgrade him if he spent a bunch of money?
Yeah, I have a variety of cards that earn airline miles or points that are transferable to a variety of airlies. I pay for pretty much everything via credit card to get the points/miles.
typo… I meant that he used his airmiles and upgraded to business.
I have every recurring bill that I can funnel through my credit card plus all my spending. I don’t have my mortgage (though I wish I could) and my water/utility company won’t let me (though I don’t know why).
Higgmond, we travel to Mexico pretty much every year (Cabo or Playa Del Carmen). I switched from the Citi AAdvangtage because they always charge me a 3% foreign exchange fee. I now use Capital One which does not have those fees. They give me 2 points for every dollar spent and can use with any airline. May not be an issue for you though.
I have a friend that “mile runs” to get cheap airplane points for use in his leisure time.
I keep a Capital One card for when I’m travelling internationally, although I typically use cash when travelling internationally and hit an ATM as soon as possible after I arrive. I bank with BofA and they have a deal with a bunch of international banks, including Banco Santander in Mexico, that results in no foreign transaction fees for ATM use.
We’ll be going to a resort in Riviera Maya and will likely spend a day in Playa Del Carmen.
Understood.
We’ll be in Playa the last week of June (29th - July 5th). it’s more humid than I prefer but my wife is a middle school principal so she only has about a three week period to travel.
We tend to only go with adult couples to Playa and we take our kids to Cabo. From Dallas it’s only a 2.5’ish hour flight to either.
Safe travels!
Interestingly, US Airways’ card, which is through Barclays, has no international transaction fees and their miles are now AAdvantage miles.
I’ve had a few free international biz class flights from Air Canada Aeroplan points via card.
I’ve been through
Marriot - 5 free hotel rooms
Hilton - 1 free room
Southwest - $800 of flights
US Airwayws - 2 domestic round trips $900 FMV
Chase - $500 in gas cards
Capital One - $450 in gas cards
American Express - 60k miles with United Airlines
This is all in the last 3 years I believe. After I cash in on #4 this April, I’m moving on to exploit someone else.
I definitely take the sign-up bonuses, but I don’t use the miiles cards for everyday spending.
Hard to beat unlimited 3% cash for restaurant and gas purchases from Chase and unlimited 2% cash from Fidelity for all other purchases.
I try to avoid coach, so a recent one-way flight from Nevada to Florida would have been 55,000 miles or $425 for a restricted First Class ticket. Taking the cash is usually a better deal from me.
Years ago I used the GM card for everything that earned 5% towards any new GM vehicle. I was the fool. I haven’t bought a GM vehicle since 2001 and just about all my points have expired.
^ I looked at the cash back options, but I think the points is better if you do international biz class. The cost for my wife and I to go to Europe biz class is about $9,000. It takes $100,000 in spending to get there. So thats a 9% return.
Yeah, maybe I should use the airline cards. If you spend the miles wisely, I imagine you do get pretty good returns. Now the question is which one??? I feel like a game show contestant in the “Running Man” movie.
There are online calculators that can help you. But if you have something in mind like Geo you can easily build your own valuation out. Using an app like Wallaby, you can input your custom values and it’ll tell you which card works out best.
Thanks, I’ll check it out.
bossing it!!
Because vendors only allow CC use because it encourages additional spending (this offsets the charge they pay to the CC company), pretty sure you won’t change your water usage if you pay with a CC rather than cash.
These miles and cash back are scams that encourage you to spend more money.