More awesome ways to rack in tons of miles and use them even smarter!
Shopping portals - so easy to use, and often overlooked!
Rakuten - sign up for an easy $40 or 4K amex points! Read this to see how to make Rakuten earn you Amex points every time you shop. Remember to add their button to your computer browser so it reminds you every time you are eligible to earn points when shopping online! Also remember to refer your spouse or friends to Rakuten to earn additional points.
Business cards- If you own your own small business, then there are even tons more options for you on what credit cards you can apply for! Here's a link with more info.
Gift cards- these are a great way to earn lots of points on categories that typically don't earn you very much. For example if I buy something at Home Depot with my favorite Amex Gold card, I will only earn 1x point. But if I go to Smiths and buy a Home Depot Gift card (which I then use to buy whatever I need at Home Depot), I am essentially earning 4x points at Home Depot because my Gold card earns 4x points at grocery stores (which is where I actually spent my money). Every Quarter, the Chase Freedom carder offers a different category that offers 5x points. If one quarter the bonus category is gas stations, you could buy for example Maverick gift cards (from Maverick) during that quarter and then use them throughout the year so you are getting 5x points on gas not only in the quarter but throughout the year (if you can stretch your gift cards that far). Some of my favorite gift cards to buy at the grocery store are for Amazon, Smith’s gift cards for gas, Netflix, and Apple. Once you buy these gift cards you can load them onto your online account and then chuck the gift cards. As you buy things on Amazon (or Netflix or Apple) it will automatically draw from your gift card balance first before using your other payment method. Once you have Amazon $ built up, you can also then buy gift cards from amazon if you wanted like cinemark, or airbnb for example, because you typically don't see those ones offered at the grocery store. Just be careful to not abuse the system. Only buy one or 2 gift cards along with your other purchases and you'll be fine.
Click here for more info
Chase Freedom's rotating categories explained and making the most of them!
Use airline partners to get an incredible value on your points or miles. This can get a little confusing so you might need to do some reading up on the internet to get the grasp, but basically every airline has partners that it works with. For example you may have booked a Delta flight to Ireland, but once you landed in London you're ticket then had you board a Virgin Atlantic flight for your last leg to Ireland. Delta and Virgin Atlantic are partners - they help each other out with this example itinerary. So, using another example, you could book a Virgin Atlantic flight (using Virgin miles) from SLC to LAX and it will actually put you on a Delta airplane (because Virgin doesn't actually fly that route so it uses its partner Delta). So why would you want to do this???? Well, you may really like flying Delta but you don't have any miles (and you've already applied for all the Delta cards you can) so this gives you another way to still fly on Delta, just using someone else's miles (and credit cards). The other reason this is good to know (and use) is because Virgin Atlantic may actually charge you less miles than Delta would for the exact same flight! So say you have AMEX points that can transfer to either Delta or Virgin Atlantic, well you might as well see who is charging less for the flight you want, then transfer your points to that particular airline. Knowing who charges the least amount for particular flights, allows you to spend your valuable miles more wisely which then means you have more to travel with!
This post explains some of the best deals out there when using miles on a partner airline.
Transfer bonuses click here and here for more info
Business cards- If you own your own small business, then there are even tons more options for you on what credit cards you can apply for! Here's a link with more info.
Gift cards- these are a great way to earn lots of points on categories that typically don't earn you very much. For example if I buy something at Home Depot with my favorite Amex Gold card, I will only earn 1x point. But if I go to Smiths and buy a Home Depot Gift card (which I then use to buy whatever I need at Home Depot), I am essentially earning 4x points at Home Depot because my Gold card earns 4x points at grocery stores (which is where I actually spent my money). Every Quarter, the Chase Freedom carder offers a different category that offers 5x points. If one quarter the bonus category is gas stations, you could buy for example Maverick gift cards (from Maverick) during that quarter and then use them throughout the year so you are getting 5x points on gas not only in the quarter but throughout the year (if you can stretch your gift cards that far). Some of my favorite gift cards to buy at the grocery store are for Amazon, Smith’s gift cards for gas, Netflix, and Apple. Once you buy these gift cards you can load them onto your online account and then chuck the gift cards. As you buy things on Amazon (or Netflix or Apple) it will automatically draw from your gift card balance first before using your other payment method. Once you have Amazon $ built up, you can also then buy gift cards from amazon if you wanted like cinemark, or airbnb for example, because you typically don't see those ones offered at the grocery store. Just be careful to not abuse the system. Only buy one or 2 gift cards along with your other purchases and you'll be fine.
Click here for more info
Chase Freedom's rotating categories explained and making the most of them!
Use airline partners to get an incredible value on your points or miles. This can get a little confusing so you might need to do some reading up on the internet to get the grasp, but basically every airline has partners that it works with. For example you may have booked a Delta flight to Ireland, but once you landed in London you're ticket then had you board a Virgin Atlantic flight for your last leg to Ireland. Delta and Virgin Atlantic are partners - they help each other out with this example itinerary. So, using another example, you could book a Virgin Atlantic flight (using Virgin miles) from SLC to LAX and it will actually put you on a Delta airplane (because Virgin doesn't actually fly that route so it uses its partner Delta). So why would you want to do this???? Well, you may really like flying Delta but you don't have any miles (and you've already applied for all the Delta cards you can) so this gives you another way to still fly on Delta, just using someone else's miles (and credit cards). The other reason this is good to know (and use) is because Virgin Atlantic may actually charge you less miles than Delta would for the exact same flight! So say you have AMEX points that can transfer to either Delta or Virgin Atlantic, well you might as well see who is charging less for the flight you want, then transfer your points to that particular airline. Knowing who charges the least amount for particular flights, allows you to spend your valuable miles more wisely which then means you have more to travel with!
This post explains some of the best deals out there when using miles on a partner airline.
Transfer bonuses click here and here for more info
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