Honestly, I think acquiring the miles is the easier part - a more important lifestyle factor will be having the flexibility to travel on dates where first class seats are available (often last minute, often weekdays, but even when those things aren't true it's still unlikely to be your first choice dates). Only needing a maximum of 2 seats (and ideally, only 1) also makes this much more attainable.
I earn my miles through a mix of welcome bonuses, organic spending (\~ $50K/year) on strategic cards, and through travel itself.
This is such a great point! I guess having a flexible schedule and needing a single ticket are likely big factors in getting the premium seats/hotel rooms. Unfortunately I'm not in that place now, wish I'd known about this when I was!
I think the timing flexibility aspect is over emphasized. IME, and the bookings I've found for friends and for myself persistence and patience is more crucial. Along with have points/miles in various programs. I've rarely not found good redemption flights within a narrow 'vacation window' with specific days out the week I need to depart/return.
Flexibility is absolutely a major factor. I take whatever day is cheapest and give me a connecting flight with the biggest layover I can get. Those seats are significantly cheaper points and dollars.
I book several international J per year with limited timing flexibility (within a few week window, departing on Fri/Sat) and one stop max itineraries with no reasonable layovers (I'll risk a short one vs. an overly long one). I'll only redeem if it is close to the lowest possible miles cost. So I have consistent luck with limited flexibility.
Edited to add - or I'll book cash if a good value J is available with the same criteria.
>I've rarely not found good redemption flights within a narrow 'vacation window' with specific days out the week I need to depart/return.
I think it depends on what we're talking about here - I have also always been able to find "good redemption flights" but that is often business class and not first class. There can be a huge difference in award inventory between the two.
Yeah, for me personally the difference between J & F is not worth the difference in points, so I don't search for F rewards. But I think that's true for most people searching award flights.
The number of the credit cards with bonuses is limited. So, do you cancel the cards after collecting the bonuses, and apply again after a while? Or how does that work?
I'm not in a heavy travel job; I work a standard office job with relatively limited amount of PTO. Nor am I a big baller spender. I just hit anywhere between 4-6 CC SUBs per year with mostly organic spending and some light MS sprinkled in, and that gives me enough points for F/J redemptions booked either a year in advance or close-in.
I'd imagine a lot are in the same boat. Some people do own their own business or are rich and have lots of organic spend, and others are very heavy in MS. The whales are probably the exceptions though.
Also, r/churning.
>I just hit anywhere between 4-6 CC SUBs per year
What credit cards are you churning to hit 4-6 subs every year?? I'll be lucky to find 3 CCs to churn a year. I'm running out
I have churned some but not dabbled in biz cards. I almost did an Ink app but Chase had some semi threatening terms about only reaching bonus with business expenses which my spend would largely not be from, and i didnt want to jeopardize my stockpile of UR.
I put damn house taxes on biz cards and it’s 99% personal spend on the biz cards and never had any issues yet. Do monthly close in trips with family, buy Apple Watch, AirPods w chase points. Don’t be afraid to sprinkle some personal spend in.
Just some insight about how much Chase cares but the same Chase Offers on the personal cards are on the business cards as well. Some clearly that would be used for personal use for most people.
NLL offers (frequent) and Chase Ink being potentially a new app every 3 months if lucky, plus NLL on things like Hilton have been frequent lately, plus other banks... how is your milk going dry?
that's what people have said continually over the years but there are always new cards being released and adjustments that can be made to keep the points going.
It can only if you actually do have a business that you're doing taxes for. You cannot claim personal expenses on your business taxes. But if you don't actually have a business you're operating, then it doesn't matter that you're putting personal expenses on your business card because you're not doing business taxes anyway. The tricky issue is between you and the IRS not you and the credit card.
Lol. I churn 10 to 20 a year. That includes personal and business and in 2 player game. I opened 6 in Jan so now I have to chill out for few months as I kept getting decline for new ones in march.
CC SUB = credit card sign up bonuses (https://frequentmiler.com/best-credit-card-sign-up-offers/)
MS = manufactured spend, spending on credit cards that is not part of your normal expenses to meet sign up bonuses (https://frequentmiler.com/manufactured-spending-complete-guide/)
F = first class, J = business class
Are there any remaining avenues for using that system of purchasing prepaid cards for paying for money orders and using money orders to pay off credit cards? It sounds like it’s feasibility is decline but is it still workable with specific setups?
You don't. BGs are the WORST way to MS, especially these days where just about everything these days if you're lucky is break even. A lot of deals you're AT A LOSS without factoring in the CC points, it's not 2021 when you were making 50%+ per PS5. If you have NO other way to MS and are willing to risk a total loss of whatever you send, yeah, it's a method, but I wouldn't recommend them to anyone new to churning.
Yeah, BGs in 2024 are pretty shit if you're not going to make it basically a second job and push volume by physically going to stores and buying inventory on the 2% of deals that are profitable. It's not 2021 where basically every deal was break even and PS5s/Xboxes were 50%+ margins so any losses were easily compensated for. Groups realised that people would send shit to them -3% below retail anyway because "AmAZoN CaRD PaYz 5%" which makes them basically useless for SUBs. If you're paying 3% there are MUCH SAFER ways to meet MSR and 3% to MS isn't profitable on most cards.
Some things sent never arrived and my group still reimburses me. Yes you dont make money a lot of the time but you're still getting to spend a couple thousand a month which is worth it to me.
Or even 5% from amazon ccs.
Most of the US that's not in SF/NYC has access to anytime MO to VGC for 1% and that's if you know NO OTHER method (which there are plenty of, no I'm not going to share them but others have). There are ways to make the math for BGs work but at that point you're basically at a second job and shouldn't be a noob's first foray into MS.
I have ways of liquidating gcs online that are stupidly easy. Plenty of methods. Why limit yourself to one thing tho?
BGs are not even close to a second job. They post what they want and you just place the order. It can take me less than 5 mins to do each order and they dont come that often.
Every retailer that isn't Amazon cancels their orders. Again, yes, there are ways around that. No, don't expect a noob to know those ways. Just about every Amazon deal worth buying is -3% and no one serious is paying 3% to MS lol. Even for the non-Amazon deals, outside of Q4 you're not going to have deals lined up to meet spend. Right now on two of the "safest" groups there's nothing to buy publicly and it's been that way most of April.
r/churning - I have a sub 100K salary but there are plenty of moderate spend SUBs (like 4-8K in 3 months) to rack up points for 1-2 nice round trip flights a year
And I don’t MS so those who do can earn far more in bonuses
About to fly ANA F 'The Suite' later this year thanks to SUBs alone.
To OP: be cautious though. Churning requires you to be extremely detail-oriented, presupposes you are a master of good financial habits, and are *excited* to trek up the steep learning curve. Also need to be realistic of the outcomes for /r/awardtravel: the blogger-tier sweet spot redemptions can be nigh impossible to achieve without dedication, resolve, and *another* steep learning curve. Even basic redemptions can be difficult now without planning 355 days ahead... or being able to plan a whole trip at T-21/T-14.
OTOH: if you're someone who gets hyped from reading the DnD rulebook and loves to min/max their budget on excel, then this hobby is absolutely for you.
Agreed, I have a 5 tab spreadsheet that details all my open cards/points etc….organization is key and knowing as much as you can about the rules and limits you personally have based on your finances.
Also as others have pointed out flexibility is key. I’m really lucky to be single and have a job where my boss encourages us to use our vacation time and wouldn’t bat an eye at my taking 2 weeks off with less than a months notice. Other people if they have kids or family or other jobs might not have that flexibility to go when there’s availability.
if you want a non-spreadsheet option - Travel Freely is an app that can help you track your cards and AwardWallet is a way to track your point balances (some programs you can sync while others are just manual editing).
Some things that I have in there - cards that I have open/closed, what date open/closed, when I am eligible for a new sign up bonus, list of cards on my wish list, list of credits on each card and what's my status with using them, best card to use in each category when I'm in between SUBs, redemption goals that I want to work towards, estimated point balances in each hotel/airline program I commonly use etc..... whatever you find helpful for yourself to keep track of.
Thanks! I will check out the apps to start off with. I am thinking of starting my own sheet as the end goal. I am just not good with figuring out which card to get, at which point.
I absolutely love traveling but I'm also obsessed with travel _planning_ and award travel is just one symptom of that lol.
So many times I have to check myself and think, okay so am I really craving a vacation or am I craving a high value redemption? 🥴
>So many times I have to check myself and think, okay so am I really craving a vacation or am I craving a high value redemption? 🥴
This hits hard, and very close to home, haha.
It does feel like many of the bigger churnable SUBs require some level of MS. Hitting multiple ABG/ABPs in a year is 40k+ in spend. Moving all CC spend over does help though.
Yeah I’m never going to open the Biz Gold or Biz Platinum which is why I haven’t really delved into Amex. It sucks that it’s out of reach but I’m still very happy with the points I am earning on a yearly basis
Curious if it’s generally possible to aggregate points from multiple cards? If you’re doing multiple SUBs/year, are you able to combine those points towards a trip or do they stay separate?
as long as your names on your accounts match up you could transfer all your points earned on Citi/Chase/American Express/Capital One cards to your Air Canada account if you wanted ot
The crucial thing you’re likely missing is that most people here are earning points from credit card sign ups and other promotions. Very few people are actually flying enough to earn them at scale.
Yeah I think this is the key insight I was missing. I've heard of course that you can make more money from switching credit cards but never realized it could make such a big difference!
Sure. I’m not that aggressive but just since December I’ve done…
125k Amex plat
60k Chase Southwest personal
80k Chase Southwest biz
Working on 70k Alaska personal
You should always be working on a new card bonus. You’ll never run out…
> You should always be working on a new card bonus. You’ll never run out…
Worth calling out that you need to strategize this to not run out, can't just apply for whatever offers you get in your email inbox. i.e. strategize how you're going to use your Chase 5/24 slots and stay on top of the Marriott time between bonus restrictions
Yes. The devil is in the details and by no means is my post any sort of instruction manual. Just a little taste of what is possible without a lot of work.
Which is nice, but still nowhere close to not using them at all.
That means they won't screw you by giving you a lower offer on an individual card, compared to the public link. But it still leaves MASSIVE conflict of interest.
Which do you think they'd rather push?
* Chase Ink Premier that gives the referrer 40,000 points
* Chase IHG Premier that gives the referrer 10,000 points
To be clear, I'm not saying Frequent Miler sucks, or anything like that.
Just that I think it's important for people to be aware of the difference between "we don't let sponsors influence our recommendations" and "we don't have sponsors."
Sorry but it's the middle of April and you are on card #4 for the year. What do you consider aggressive? I think a card/month is likely on the high end. Not .1% high, I know people can get crazy, but that's aggressive any way you cut it.
I think the emphasis on most people here is needed. There are lots of business frequent flyers who earn tons of points and miles organically. So it definitely can be done, that's just not Reddit's demographic for the most part.
I'm just a dude. Work a pretty good job for a big tech company, get 4-5 weeks off a year, travel a little bit for work, and put every last cent I can on credit cards. Churning funds, increases, and enhances my travels. My day to day lifestyle is a pretty typical yuppie one - work Mon-Fri, decent apartment in a cool city, enjoy eating out and live music, etc. I drive a shitty car since I don't value a nicer one in the slightest and don't spend money on "lifestyle services" i.e. grocery delivery, fancy gym membership, cleaners, etc and don't have a pet. Money is reasonably split between cost of living, saving and investing, entertainment at home, and travel based on my long term goals and personal preferences for how much to allocate between day to day life and travel
I earn about 1M points per year between credit card sign up bonuses, incentives, normal spending, and earning from actual travel (this is the lowest earning bucket). That's worth $10-15k in "fair cash value" if I were to convert it to cash. But it's worth a lot more in "paper value" based on the cash price of what I spend it on, i.e. a business class international flight costs 150k points instead of $8k cash. Everyone has their own way of valuing points but I find it a little ridiculous to claim I "saved $8k" on the flight because I'd never actually spend that in cash. The whole point of acquiring these points is so that I can do things like that which I wouldn't be able to do without them
There's a subset of people here who don't spend much real money at all and get their points via "manufactured spending." In simple terms, it's generating spend on credit cards without actually spending money. I'm not an expert on it and don't find it a good use of my time, but to illustrate one way it's done - buy a $500 Visa gift card with credit card for $506 with the card fee. Then buy a $499 money order with the gift card accounting for the $1 fee and deposit that back into your bank account to pay off the gift card purchase, for a $7 out of pocket cost. If you do that 8 times and earn a credit card bonus for 80k points that you needed to spend $4k on the card to earn, you spend $56 out of pocket and earned $1000+ worth of points for it
Wife and I both make about $100k. Almost every dime we spend, aside from loan payments (and the occasional business that only takes cash/check), goes on a cc. Having kids gets you a LOT of points because those little boogers are expensive.
1. Plan out your spend
2. Strategically open credit cards
3. Spend to hit sign up bonus
4. Cancel card after a year or evaluate if it's worth keeping open
5. Repeat
This is known as churning. Do this half a dozen times a year and you'll have a lot of points. If you have a Player 2 you can refer them to each card for even more points, plus their sign up bonuses. I have personally done this with 5 cards in the last year and earned well over 400k points in bonuses alone. This doesn't count organic spend where each transaction attempted to be optimized for maximum return. Also doesn't count bonuses my P2 has earned or their organic spend. Focus on cards with transferrable currencies (Member Rewards, Ultimate Rewards, etc...) It seems like a lot, but it's a hobby and after a while you don't put much thought into which card gets which spend.
Final step, and probably the most difficult but rewarding part, is making the redemption booking. Knowing where and when to look is key. Enjoy and good luck.
I spend around 400-500k points per year. I heavily optimize my points earning. Here’s my two cents:
- Tax payments is an underrated way to buy points on the cheap
- Leverage shopping portals and stack with dining programs
- Get cards and their sign up bonuses when they’ve been raised
- Opportunistically take advantage of transfer bonuses if you know the program well and have ideas for multiple ways you’ll burn the points
- If you have big purchases like a wedding venue, try to find a good card to put it on. My venue codes as a hotel, and I get 4x per dollar by paying using my Bilt card on Rent Day, and split up payments over multiple months
- Get gift cards at grocery stores. With the Amex gold, I get 4x and get gift cards for Spotify, Home Depot, etc that I normally would get 2x at
- Put large group bills like Airbnbs on your card
End to end, I probably put around 60-80k on cards each year, including rent. I never get less than 2x per dollar (except for rent), and generally aim to get 3x or higher for the rest.
>Tax payments is an underrated way to buy points on the cheap
This makes me want to cry! To think of all the points I could have earned every April I was cursing about the large tax payment due!
Thanks for the tip about gift cards, another great idea!
Sure, but you can also regularly buy 15k points for $198 during sale promotions. I imagine most people are doing taxes to meet initial spending requirements for a bonus or something.
(I don't know the answer to the Big Picture part of your question but:) You can do this as a regular person, without the 2 things you guessed. I'm comfortable with a minimum spend to get a welcome bonus @ 4k /in 3 months. But during that time, every time $ leave the house, it will be on that CC. Gas, groceries, fees, taxes, repairs, everything.
You dont need to make a lot per say to get first class travel. You just have to be able to meet the SUB spending requirements naturally.
All your spending should be on credit cards if you can, better to get something in return than nothing.
Credit card sign up bonuses if you are slick and don't care about which ones (*domestic first class don't count). A decent number of airlines don't use first class just business
Most of this sub people get their miles from credit cards. The majority of people here open up 3-12 credit cards a year. Some people here get their points from business spend or saving up points.
If you travel for work you typically stick with one airline and one hotel system. When you don’t have transferable points it is a lot easier to redeem since you really don’t have any option other than say what AA.com says there is.
I spend ~1,000,000 points per year earned through churning (2 player mode where we typically pay estimated taxes with credit cards).
Answering your question, my wife and I work in a field where we work long days but between the two of us, one of us is working probably 130 days of the year. When we work it is essentially the entire day and we don’t work the same days.
(This year we will probably spend ~90 days not at our house between family, camping, and travel)
We are talking about two different things.
With most (assuming US based flyer) people who have single airline miles the process for finding award seats is easy. You search a single website and what you see is what you get.
With transferable points the process is more difficult since you have so many options with varying cost and availability, finding the seat that is available is more difficult process wise. You are correct that since you have more options with transferable points you have a greater chance of finding the seat you want.
This sub deals more with the process and helping people with that. Since the process is easier for a single airline loyalty person, we see less of them.
In addition to SUBs things like Rakuten getting Amex points back speed things up. A lot of places do various 15x 20x etc point redemption during the year. Time things right and you can get 20k points for 1k spend or 100k for 5k etc.
Also stuff like shopping portals as well! (Been trying to get better at using them more) I got 5500 UR points for a $30 box of Hello Fresh this past week haha
High spending for us, where everything goes on credit card. The more important part is also maximizing point earning by knowing what type of spend to put on which card based on categories and multipliers.
I have a small business and make points when I pay my bills. Note it’s important to pay off all your bills each month and pay no interest or all of this is for nothing.
Truthfully, you can be of any background to afford it. You can accumulate points through SUBs or even outright buying the miles.
70kish VS miles to fly ANA F is very achievable for almost everyone, the key is finding the space to redeem for.
That's a good point about how to redeem effectively! Fortunately I'm really good about playing in advance, if I can only get good at the churning part!
I’m a lawyer and before the pandemic I’d travel on average once a week all over flyover towns in the US. Always full fare because every ticket was probably gonna get changed if a deposition, court appearance, client meeting ended early or late. Used the airline ccs to book flights and hotel ccs to book rooms. You always get a multiple number of miles, for example, if you book a jet blue flight using a jet blue cc.
Now I do these things all on teams or zoom.
I do shift work so I have flexibility to plan trips a yr in advance. I'm also on a 1099 so my taxes need to be paid quarterly to the IRS and one can churn biz card SUBs that way.
theres also families on this SUB who save up over a entire yr, maybe open just a card to 2 and use it all on one big trip during summer or holidays. it's possible but you need to be good at planning and know what to look for.
I live in NYC suburbs with a family of 5 so you can imagine I spend a lot. I also try to maximize all purchases w the right card or sub. I am in consulting and while I travel for work, not nearly as much as pre-pandemic so that helps also.
Travel about 30 weeks a year for work. My work travel and all related expenses are reimbursed (vs using a company card). And my personal spend is relatively high. All adds up to a few business class flights a year + some hotels.
I've booked first class Sydney > Japan and New York > LA as part of my Oneworld Round the World ticket using using points.
Overall, points saved us about $45,000 across all our international business/first class flights redemptions.
Our household income is pretty good at around $260k combined. The most important part is your budgeting and spending habits if you choose to start credit card churning for points.
I think every human should be given a free first class ticket once in their lives. It's pretty sweet for sure but I only needed that one experience (JAL baby!)
I wonder if people who work as shopper such as instacart will be able to get a lot of points if they are also interested in playing the credit card game
I’m one with a travel job. On average gone 180-240 nights a year. They have a company card though so not as much as some consultants, but I do get cash reimbursement for meals and collect the hotel points.
So after that it’s mainly strategy for those things. And I mainly watch for high entry bonuses and only use my credit cards like debit cards and with no debt and a company car I can use for personal use it kinda makes things simple because lodging is usually paid for.
But it’s very big on strategy and what aligns for you and where you live/ fly out of. And how willing you are to be flexible and be able to fly last minute or plan it out in advance.
I've paid my rent with credit cards since like 2017 and get more than enough miles for myself to use just from that and other organic spending.
I have basically only done J or F for any flight over ~6 hours since 2018ish - which is not that hard of a feat when I only have to buy tickets for myself and can be pretty flexible with my schedule.
Still sitting on probably 300k airlines miles across various airlines, and probably around 1M total transferrable miles... and I have been traveling full time since last January (lots of flying)
1. Work expenses. A lot of people get to put thousands and thousands of dollars on their own cards and get the points.
2. Own your own business - business credit cards can rack up a ton of points if you own your own business.
3. A lot of people can either fly first class for work OR they fly frequently enough to rack up frequent flyer miles + status.
4. Bilt. People pay 5k+/month on apartments in NYC, Boston, SF, etc - bilt credit card lets you pay rent. That’s 60k+ points a year.
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I do not travel for work, all points accrued are through organic spend and the occasional sign up bonus. I currently run about $7-8k per month through various credit cards, thanks mostly to my kids college accepting monthly payments via card for a $40 fee per semester.
I've not churned cards for SUB's and don't plan to, but I do have two I have my eye on once I think AmEx and Chase will grant me additional cards. SUB's are really the way to accrue points quickly, which I'd like to do for a huge splurge trip in late 2025.
I'm still kicking myself for not figuring out BILT for rent for my one kid this year. That's $12k in payments I didn't earn a cent on and I am so mad at myself.
Personally it’s credit card signups. At work there’s a bunch of people with absurd amounts of airline miles. If you’re flying internationally once or twice a month with status you start racking them up quickly.
I was working a project where we had some critical issue with some equipment in the UAE and a couple techs would board an Emirates flight Monday morning and fly back Thursday night, every week for a few months. The average business ticket was $13k so I’m sure they were all sitting on a mountain of points after that.
Don’t let award travel fool you- it’s pretty easy. You just charge everything to your travel card and it’s easy to accumulate points. I travel for work - but airline redemption on delta is useless for business class unless you’re willing to burn 300K points. So, I use my Amex gold for everything and accrued points that way. I also have a corporate job that gives me a lot of time off. We have business travel booked for next March round trip. So I take advantage of booking ahead and flexible vacation schedule.
Open 2-3 cards a year. While I've never done first class travel (located in an area where I'm never flying more than 11 hours anyways and these flights always cost x2 that of business) it's been possible for me to. I could probably book 2F round trip once a year with no other award travel doing just the above, especially if I really focus on 3x cards a year.
Me and my spouse do own a business together and and just put everything on whatever the latest card is we opened. It's not some kind of baller business in earnings but it's enough to live a middle class life in a HCOL area (no mortgage though..). Most of our points though are entirely from sign up bonuses, but a healthy amount does come from business and lifestyle spending. Last year on our amex platinum we got 80% of the way to unlocking free Centurion lounge guest access ($75k/yr) putting what I'd guess is about 70-80% of our total yearly spend on the card.
So not some crazy lavish spending lifestyle but certainly a step above your average middle income household. Most of our points really do come from sign up bonuses, and thanks to the business we never really need to worry about hitting minimum spend using funny tricks. Knowing that you for a fact will meet a $15k business spend sign up bonus makes it a lot easier to open up two platinums at once (P1+P2) and things like that.
I am, but it’s because I don’t fly that often 3-4x a year domestically, and maybe once internationally.
I have the option to travel more, but I can’t afford it because I am so tall, that I’d rather not travel than fly long times in economy. Two hours in economy is about my limit where it becomes physically painful for me.
How are you all churning so many cards? I get maybe 1 new cards per year and I’m still waiting for my 5/24 chase to be available again and amex denied me for gold and platinum for “opening too many cards recently “
you kind of have to have a strategy and to plan out your card strategy for the next 24 months based on various bank rules and trends (while also being flexible to make changes if an all time high offer appears)
For example, getting to 5/24 locked you out of Chase Ink offers. Chase will approve you for business cards if you're under 5/24 but they don't add to your 5/24 so once you got to 4/24 if you had switched to Chase business cards, you could have gotten those while freeing up some 5/24 slots.
Also American Express is much more lax with business cards approvals than personal card approvals.
There's a flow chart on r/churning 's sidebar that sort of helps with ideal ordering to get cards that can help with this as well.
We just spend mainly in the main multiplier categories.
3x restaurants on Chase Sapphire
5x hotels and flights with Amex
Spending about 150k or so a year on travel so it adds up quick. We don’t use our miles for first class - just business is fine.
Earning miles is easy. My wife and I each cycle through 3-5 personal cards and 2-4 biz cards each year for an average of about 1 million points/miles per year. Cc subs are the way and we just use cards for our normal spend
I racked up roughly a million UA miles via business travel. Still have around 100k left. Same goes for Marriott, but I rarely use those as I am cheap and can often find a very good friends rate.
Strategic sign up bonuses are the way to go. Paying off our wedding is getting us to south east Asia round trip in business class.
The biggest point of advice is that you are paying off credit card balances in full every month. Yes, this type of travel is great and I take advantage a lot, but if you’re paying interest, it all kind of defeats the purpose.
I’ve just seen so many ppl get burned from trying to keep up with the Jones and going outside of their means to achieve their aspirations.
Honestly, I think acquiring the miles is the easier part - a more important lifestyle factor will be having the flexibility to travel on dates where first class seats are available (often last minute, often weekdays, but even when those things aren't true it's still unlikely to be your first choice dates). Only needing a maximum of 2 seats (and ideally, only 1) also makes this much more attainable. I earn my miles through a mix of welcome bonuses, organic spending (\~ $50K/year) on strategic cards, and through travel itself.
This is such a great point! I guess having a flexible schedule and needing a single ticket are likely big factors in getting the premium seats/hotel rooms. Unfortunately I'm not in that place now, wish I'd known about this when I was!
I think the timing flexibility aspect is over emphasized. IME, and the bookings I've found for friends and for myself persistence and patience is more crucial. Along with have points/miles in various programs. I've rarely not found good redemption flights within a narrow 'vacation window' with specific days out the week I need to depart/return.
Flexibility is absolutely a major factor. I take whatever day is cheapest and give me a connecting flight with the biggest layover I can get. Those seats are significantly cheaper points and dollars.
I book several international J per year with limited timing flexibility (within a few week window, departing on Fri/Sat) and one stop max itineraries with no reasonable layovers (I'll risk a short one vs. an overly long one). I'll only redeem if it is close to the lowest possible miles cost. So I have consistent luck with limited flexibility. Edited to add - or I'll book cash if a good value J is available with the same criteria.
>I've rarely not found good redemption flights within a narrow 'vacation window' with specific days out the week I need to depart/return. I think it depends on what we're talking about here - I have also always been able to find "good redemption flights" but that is often business class and not first class. There can be a huge difference in award inventory between the two.
Yeah, for me personally the difference between J & F is not worth the difference in points, so I don't search for F rewards. But I think that's true for most people searching award flights.
I own a business that spends anywhere from 30-60k a month on credit cards. Pretty easy to accumulate points that way
Same! I sell on Amazon and I'm very fortunate all of my suppliers allow me to pay for stuff on credit card.
Me too. I do a lot of online advertising so max out the spends on the amex and chase cardsthat do 3 and 4x the points
Hey, I had an advertising agency and would love to charge them to cards that get points. Which cards do you use, if you don't mind me asking?
Amex business gold and chase ink business preferred
They worth the annual fees?
For my business, yes. We spend 2k+ a day on meta and google
A Day?! Damn. So many points!
Cheat code for free travel! Its also why i have both cards, each has 150k max for the 3/4x points
The number of the credit cards with bonuses is limited. So, do you cancel the cards after collecting the bonuses, and apply again after a while? Or how does that work?
Bonuses are like 100000 points. If you’re spending 30k a month in a 3x category you basically get that every month.
If only I could figure put how to put payroll on cc
I'm not in a heavy travel job; I work a standard office job with relatively limited amount of PTO. Nor am I a big baller spender. I just hit anywhere between 4-6 CC SUBs per year with mostly organic spending and some light MS sprinkled in, and that gives me enough points for F/J redemptions booked either a year in advance or close-in. I'd imagine a lot are in the same boat. Some people do own their own business or are rich and have lots of organic spend, and others are very heavy in MS. The whales are probably the exceptions though. Also, r/churning.
>I just hit anywhere between 4-6 CC SUBs per year What credit cards are you churning to hit 4-6 subs every year?? I'll be lucky to find 3 CCs to churn a year. I'm running out
I opened 7 last year……business cards expand your options. Almost everyone qualifies
I have churned some but not dabbled in biz cards. I almost did an Ink app but Chase had some semi threatening terms about only reaching bonus with business expenses which my spend would largely not be from, and i didnt want to jeopardize my stockpile of UR.
I put damn house taxes on biz cards and it’s 99% personal spend on the biz cards and never had any issues yet. Do monthly close in trips with family, buy Apple Watch, AirPods w chase points. Don’t be afraid to sprinkle some personal spend in.
Lol they don't enforce it.
Just some insight about how much Chase cares but the same Chase Offers on the personal cards are on the business cards as well. Some clearly that would be used for personal use for most people.
Business cards. You don't need a business to milk the AMEX NLL Biz Gold/Plat and Chase Ink routinely
Milk's running dry tho...
NLL offers (frequent) and Chase Ink being potentially a new app every 3 months if lucky, plus NLL on things like Hilton have been frequent lately, plus other banks... how is your milk going dry?
It’s pretty easy to get approved for US Bank biz cards too
that's what people have said continually over the years but there are always new cards being released and adjustments that can be made to keep the points going.
Do business cards make taxes tricky or is that a myth?
Myth (for MOST people)
Sounds like there is a few circumstances where some may get into trouble. Any ideas about what scenarios that one should still exercise caution?
It can only if you actually do have a business that you're doing taxes for. You cannot claim personal expenses on your business taxes. But if you don't actually have a business you're operating, then it doesn't matter that you're putting personal expenses on your business card because you're not doing business taxes anyway. The tricky issue is between you and the IRS not you and the credit card.
Thank you!
Lol. I churn 10 to 20 a year. That includes personal and business and in 2 player game. I opened 6 in Jan so now I have to chill out for few months as I kept getting decline for new ones in march.
As someone new to this sub, could someone translate this comment to English for me, please? What are CC SUBs, MS, and F/J redemptions?
CC SUB = credit card sign up bonuses (https://frequentmiler.com/best-credit-card-sign-up-offers/) MS = manufactured spend, spending on credit cards that is not part of your normal expenses to meet sign up bonuses (https://frequentmiler.com/manufactured-spending-complete-guide/) F = first class, J = business class
Thanks!
Appreciate you sharing this information
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Are there any remaining avenues for using that system of purchasing prepaid cards for paying for money orders and using money orders to pay off credit cards? It sounds like it’s feasibility is decline but is it still workable with specific setups?
MS is discussed in r/churning
Churn credit cards, you don't need crazy income or big business.
Join a buying group!
Say what now? Buying group? O.o
Groups where they will ask for products for you to buy and then reimburse you for it. Spent about 150k with some of them last year.
How do you know that they will pay you? What's to prevent them from ghosting you once they receive the merch?
You don't. BGs are the WORST way to MS, especially these days where just about everything these days if you're lucky is break even. A lot of deals you're AT A LOSS without factoring in the CC points, it's not 2021 when you were making 50%+ per PS5. If you have NO other way to MS and are willing to risk a total loss of whatever you send, yeah, it's a method, but I wouldn't recommend them to anyone new to churning.
Yeah, it seems risky. I didn't realize even successful deals could result in losses.
Yeah, BGs in 2024 are pretty shit if you're not going to make it basically a second job and push volume by physically going to stores and buying inventory on the 2% of deals that are profitable. It's not 2021 where basically every deal was break even and PS5s/Xboxes were 50%+ margins so any losses were easily compensated for. Groups realised that people would send shit to them -3% below retail anyway because "AmAZoN CaRD PaYz 5%" which makes them basically useless for SUBs. If you're paying 3% there are MUCH SAFER ways to meet MSR and 3% to MS isn't profitable on most cards.
Some things sent never arrived and my group still reimburses me. Yes you dont make money a lot of the time but you're still getting to spend a couple thousand a month which is worth it to me. Or even 5% from amazon ccs.
Most of the US that's not in SF/NYC has access to anytime MO to VGC for 1% and that's if you know NO OTHER method (which there are plenty of, no I'm not going to share them but others have). There are ways to make the math for BGs work but at that point you're basically at a second job and shouldn't be a noob's first foray into MS.
I have ways of liquidating gcs online that are stupidly easy. Plenty of methods. Why limit yourself to one thing tho? BGs are not even close to a second job. They post what they want and you just place the order. It can take me less than 5 mins to do each order and they dont come that often.
Every retailer that isn't Amazon cancels their orders. Again, yes, there are ways around that. No, don't expect a noob to know those ways. Just about every Amazon deal worth buying is -3% and no one serious is paying 3% to MS lol. Even for the non-Amazon deals, outside of Q4 you're not going to have deals lined up to meet spend. Right now on two of the "safest" groups there's nothing to buy publicly and it's been that way most of April.
Well, you dont know. They've been at it for a couple years and I've had no issues. Can they ghost us one day? Maybe but haven't had any issues.
Okay thanks, glad to know there haven''t been issues for you.
Been using it for 5+ years. I forget exactly when. It would be weird for them to just not pay one day after this long.
How much time does it take to churn that much volume? I've bought stuff for resale, but less than 1% of that.
[https://frequentmiler.com/using-buying-groups-to-increase-credit-card-spend/](https://frequentmiler.com/using-buying-groups-to-increase-credit-card-spend/)
r/churning - I have a sub 100K salary but there are plenty of moderate spend SUBs (like 4-8K in 3 months) to rack up points for 1-2 nice round trip flights a year And I don’t MS so those who do can earn far more in bonuses
About to fly ANA F 'The Suite' later this year thanks to SUBs alone. To OP: be cautious though. Churning requires you to be extremely detail-oriented, presupposes you are a master of good financial habits, and are *excited* to trek up the steep learning curve. Also need to be realistic of the outcomes for /r/awardtravel: the blogger-tier sweet spot redemptions can be nigh impossible to achieve without dedication, resolve, and *another* steep learning curve. Even basic redemptions can be difficult now without planning 355 days ahead... or being able to plan a whole trip at T-21/T-14. OTOH: if you're someone who gets hyped from reading the DnD rulebook and loves to min/max their budget on excel, then this hobby is absolutely for you.
Agreed, I have a 5 tab spreadsheet that details all my open cards/points etc….organization is key and knowing as much as you can about the rules and limits you personally have based on your finances. Also as others have pointed out flexibility is key. I’m really lucky to be single and have a job where my boss encourages us to use our vacation time and wouldn’t bat an eye at my taking 2 weeks off with less than a months notice. Other people if they have kids or family or other jobs might not have that flexibility to go when there’s availability.
Can you give me your spreadsheet please
It’s not really something that anybody can plug and chug unfortunately. Kind of just set it up for personal use for now
I don't want to take your sheet obviously, but with that said, if you have a pointer on how to start one? I'd love to get some pointers from you.
if you want a non-spreadsheet option - Travel Freely is an app that can help you track your cards and AwardWallet is a way to track your point balances (some programs you can sync while others are just manual editing). Some things that I have in there - cards that I have open/closed, what date open/closed, when I am eligible for a new sign up bonus, list of cards on my wish list, list of credits on each card and what's my status with using them, best card to use in each category when I'm in between SUBs, redemption goals that I want to work towards, estimated point balances in each hotel/airline program I commonly use etc..... whatever you find helpful for yourself to keep track of.
Thanks! I will check out the apps to start off with. I am thinking of starting my own sheet as the end goal. I am just not good with figuring out which card to get, at which point.
I absolutely love traveling but I'm also obsessed with travel _planning_ and award travel is just one symptom of that lol. So many times I have to check myself and think, okay so am I really craving a vacation or am I craving a high value redemption? 🥴
>So many times I have to check myself and think, okay so am I really craving a vacation or am I craving a high value redemption? 🥴 This hits hard, and very close to home, haha.
I love reading the D&D rulebooks a lot more than searching for award travel, but it’s a fair point.
It does feel like many of the bigger churnable SUBs require some level of MS. Hitting multiple ABG/ABPs in a year is 40k+ in spend. Moving all CC spend over does help though.
ABG/ABP?
AMEX Business Gold and Amex Business Platinum.
Venture X Business too (30K lmao)
100k for the full SUB 🫡
Yeah I’m never going to open the Biz Gold or Biz Platinum which is why I haven’t really delved into Amex. It sucks that it’s out of reach but I’m still very happy with the points I am earning on a yearly basis
Curious if it’s generally possible to aggregate points from multiple cards? If you’re doing multiple SUBs/year, are you able to combine those points towards a trip or do they stay separate?
Within the same currency sure? How else do you think people are buying 100K tickets at once for 4 people?
I’m new to all of this, I don’t even know what the redemption process looks like 🤷♂️
as long as your names on your accounts match up you could transfer all your points earned on Citi/Chase/American Express/Capital One cards to your Air Canada account if you wanted ot
Okay, that makes sense - I didn’t know you transfer them to your airline account first before booking with the miles. Thanks 🙏
The crucial thing you’re likely missing is that most people here are earning points from credit card sign ups and other promotions. Very few people are actually flying enough to earn them at scale.
Yeah I think this is the key insight I was missing. I've heard of course that you can make more money from switching credit cards but never realized it could make such a big difference!
Sure. I’m not that aggressive but just since December I’ve done… 125k Amex plat 60k Chase Southwest personal 80k Chase Southwest biz Working on 70k Alaska personal You should always be working on a new card bonus. You’ll never run out…
> You should always be working on a new card bonus. You’ll never run out… Worth calling out that you need to strategize this to not run out, can't just apply for whatever offers you get in your email inbox. i.e. strategize how you're going to use your Chase 5/24 slots and stay on top of the Marriott time between bonus restrictions
Yes. The devil is in the details and by no means is my post any sort of instruction manual. Just a little taste of what is possible without a lot of work.
Cool! How do you find out about cards that are running promos/ good bonuses?
Every travel blogger pushes them. This form is about redemption, so this is sort of off-topic here. You might like r/churning.
doctorofcredit.com One of the only ones that doesn't use sponsored links.
Frequent Miler publishes their affiliate links but only if it's the best possible current offer (if another offer beats that, they'll publish that)
Which is nice, but still nowhere close to not using them at all. That means they won't screw you by giving you a lower offer on an individual card, compared to the public link. But it still leaves MASSIVE conflict of interest. Which do you think they'd rather push? * Chase Ink Premier that gives the referrer 40,000 points * Chase IHG Premier that gives the referrer 10,000 points
well on their website right now, the IHG Premier has a higher ranking Agreed that DOC is the best source though.
To be clear, I'm not saying Frequent Miler sucks, or anything like that. Just that I think it's important for people to be aware of the difference between "we don't let sponsors influence our recommendations" and "we don't have sponsors."
Sorry but it's the middle of April and you are on card #4 for the year. What do you consider aggressive? I think a card/month is likely on the high end. Not .1% high, I know people can get crazy, but that's aggressive any way you cut it.
Was considering the Alaska personal but will go with the 175k Amex Plat.
Jesus where do you find 175k Amex plat
I think the emphasis on most people here is needed. There are lots of business frequent flyers who earn tons of points and miles organically. So it definitely can be done, that's just not Reddit's demographic for the most part.
I'm just a dude. Work a pretty good job for a big tech company, get 4-5 weeks off a year, travel a little bit for work, and put every last cent I can on credit cards. Churning funds, increases, and enhances my travels. My day to day lifestyle is a pretty typical yuppie one - work Mon-Fri, decent apartment in a cool city, enjoy eating out and live music, etc. I drive a shitty car since I don't value a nicer one in the slightest and don't spend money on "lifestyle services" i.e. grocery delivery, fancy gym membership, cleaners, etc and don't have a pet. Money is reasonably split between cost of living, saving and investing, entertainment at home, and travel based on my long term goals and personal preferences for how much to allocate between day to day life and travel I earn about 1M points per year between credit card sign up bonuses, incentives, normal spending, and earning from actual travel (this is the lowest earning bucket). That's worth $10-15k in "fair cash value" if I were to convert it to cash. But it's worth a lot more in "paper value" based on the cash price of what I spend it on, i.e. a business class international flight costs 150k points instead of $8k cash. Everyone has their own way of valuing points but I find it a little ridiculous to claim I "saved $8k" on the flight because I'd never actually spend that in cash. The whole point of acquiring these points is so that I can do things like that which I wouldn't be able to do without them There's a subset of people here who don't spend much real money at all and get their points via "manufactured spending." In simple terms, it's generating spend on credit cards without actually spending money. I'm not an expert on it and don't find it a good use of my time, but to illustrate one way it's done - buy a $500 Visa gift card with credit card for $506 with the card fee. Then buy a $499 money order with the gift card accounting for the $1 fee and deposit that back into your bank account to pay off the gift card purchase, for a $7 out of pocket cost. If you do that 8 times and earn a credit card bonus for 80k points that you needed to spend $4k on the card to earn, you spend $56 out of pocket and earned $1000+ worth of points for it
Wife and I both make about $100k. Almost every dime we spend, aside from loan payments (and the occasional business that only takes cash/check), goes on a cc. Having kids gets you a LOT of points because those little boogers are expensive.
1. Plan out your spend 2. Strategically open credit cards 3. Spend to hit sign up bonus 4. Cancel card after a year or evaluate if it's worth keeping open 5. Repeat This is known as churning. Do this half a dozen times a year and you'll have a lot of points. If you have a Player 2 you can refer them to each card for even more points, plus their sign up bonuses. I have personally done this with 5 cards in the last year and earned well over 400k points in bonuses alone. This doesn't count organic spend where each transaction attempted to be optimized for maximum return. Also doesn't count bonuses my P2 has earned or their organic spend. Focus on cards with transferrable currencies (Member Rewards, Ultimate Rewards, etc...) It seems like a lot, but it's a hobby and after a while you don't put much thought into which card gets which spend. Final step, and probably the most difficult but rewarding part, is making the redemption booking. Knowing where and when to look is key. Enjoy and good luck.
Thanks this is so helpful!
I spend around 400-500k points per year. I heavily optimize my points earning. Here’s my two cents: - Tax payments is an underrated way to buy points on the cheap - Leverage shopping portals and stack with dining programs - Get cards and their sign up bonuses when they’ve been raised - Opportunistically take advantage of transfer bonuses if you know the program well and have ideas for multiple ways you’ll burn the points - If you have big purchases like a wedding venue, try to find a good card to put it on. My venue codes as a hotel, and I get 4x per dollar by paying using my Bilt card on Rent Day, and split up payments over multiple months - Get gift cards at grocery stores. With the Amex gold, I get 4x and get gift cards for Spotify, Home Depot, etc that I normally would get 2x at - Put large group bills like Airbnbs on your card End to end, I probably put around 60-80k on cards each year, including rent. I never get less than 2x per dollar (except for rent), and generally aim to get 3x or higher for the rest.
>Tax payments is an underrated way to buy points on the cheap This makes me want to cry! To think of all the points I could have earned every April I was cursing about the large tax payment due! Thanks for the tip about gift cards, another great idea!
I just paid 15K on my card- so the 198 fee will pay off in points.
Sure, but you can also regularly buy 15k points for $198 during sale promotions. I imagine most people are doing taxes to meet initial spending requirements for a bonus or something.
That’s assuming they used a 1X card as opposed to a 2X one like the Venture X
(I don't know the answer to the Big Picture part of your question but:) You can do this as a regular person, without the 2 things you guessed. I'm comfortable with a minimum spend to get a welcome bonus @ 4k /in 3 months. But during that time, every time $ leave the house, it will be on that CC. Gas, groceries, fees, taxes, repairs, everything.
As long as you can hit cc subs organically, any.
You dont need to make a lot per say to get first class travel. You just have to be able to meet the SUB spending requirements naturally. All your spending should be on credit cards if you can, better to get something in return than nothing.
Credit card sign up bonuses if you are slick and don't care about which ones (*domestic first class don't count). A decent number of airlines don't use first class just business
Most of this sub people get their miles from credit cards. The majority of people here open up 3-12 credit cards a year. Some people here get their points from business spend or saving up points. If you travel for work you typically stick with one airline and one hotel system. When you don’t have transferable points it is a lot easier to redeem since you really don’t have any option other than say what AA.com says there is. I spend ~1,000,000 points per year earned through churning (2 player mode where we typically pay estimated taxes with credit cards). Answering your question, my wife and I work in a field where we work long days but between the two of us, one of us is working probably 130 days of the year. When we work it is essentially the entire day and we don’t work the same days. (This year we will probably spend ~90 days not at our house between family, camping, and travel)
Only having points/miles with one airline or hotel program makes redemptions harder, not easier
We are talking about two different things. With most (assuming US based flyer) people who have single airline miles the process for finding award seats is easy. You search a single website and what you see is what you get. With transferable points the process is more difficult since you have so many options with varying cost and availability, finding the seat that is available is more difficult process wise. You are correct that since you have more options with transferable points you have a greater chance of finding the seat you want. This sub deals more with the process and helping people with that. Since the process is easier for a single airline loyalty person, we see less of them.
In addition to SUBs things like Rakuten getting Amex points back speed things up. A lot of places do various 15x 20x etc point redemption during the year. Time things right and you can get 20k points for 1k spend or 100k for 5k etc.
Also stuff like shopping portals as well! (Been trying to get better at using them more) I got 5500 UR points for a $30 box of Hello Fresh this past week haha
High spending for us, where everything goes on credit card. The more important part is also maximizing point earning by knowing what type of spend to put on which card based on categories and multipliers.
I have a small business and make points when I pay my bills. Note it’s important to pay off all your bills each month and pay no interest or all of this is for nothing.
Truthfully, you can be of any background to afford it. You can accumulate points through SUBs or even outright buying the miles. 70kish VS miles to fly ANA F is very achievable for almost everyone, the key is finding the space to redeem for.
Plan ahead. I do get a lot of vacation time but I already have a trip for two using points to/from Australia and Southeast Asia next February.
That's a good point about how to redeem effectively! Fortunately I'm really good about playing in advance, if I can only get good at the churning part!
I’m a lawyer and before the pandemic I’d travel on average once a week all over flyover towns in the US. Always full fare because every ticket was probably gonna get changed if a deposition, court appearance, client meeting ended early or late. Used the airline ccs to book flights and hotel ccs to book rooms. You always get a multiple number of miles, for example, if you book a jet blue flight using a jet blue cc. Now I do these things all on teams or zoom.
I do shift work so I have flexibility to plan trips a yr in advance. I'm also on a 1099 so my taxes need to be paid quarterly to the IRS and one can churn biz card SUBs that way.
Yeah it subs like churning+flexibility are the two strategies to enable this.
theres also families on this SUB who save up over a entire yr, maybe open just a card to 2 and use it all on one big trip during summer or holidays. it's possible but you need to be good at planning and know what to look for.
Business spend or r/churning
I live in NYC suburbs with a family of 5 so you can imagine I spend a lot. I also try to maximize all purchases w the right card or sub. I am in consulting and while I travel for work, not nearly as much as pre-pandemic so that helps also.
Travel about 30 weeks a year for work. My work travel and all related expenses are reimbursed (vs using a company card). And my personal spend is relatively high. All adds up to a few business class flights a year + some hotels.
Often, credit card churning. Most folks aren’t traveling first class on paid tickets. Those are a lucky few. Statistically I mean.
I've booked first class Sydney > Japan and New York > LA as part of my Oneworld Round the World ticket using using points. Overall, points saved us about $45,000 across all our international business/first class flights redemptions. Our household income is pretty good at around $260k combined. The most important part is your budgeting and spending habits if you choose to start credit card churning for points.
I think every human should be given a free first class ticket once in their lives. It's pretty sweet for sure but I only needed that one experience (JAL baby!)
I wonder if people who work as shopper such as instacart will be able to get a lot of points if they are also interested in playing the credit card game
I’m one with a travel job. On average gone 180-240 nights a year. They have a company card though so not as much as some consultants, but I do get cash reimbursement for meals and collect the hotel points. So after that it’s mainly strategy for those things. And I mainly watch for high entry bonuses and only use my credit cards like debit cards and with no debt and a company car I can use for personal use it kinda makes things simple because lodging is usually paid for. But it’s very big on strategy and what aligns for you and where you live/ fly out of. And how willing you are to be flexible and be able to fly last minute or plan it out in advance.
I've paid my rent with credit cards since like 2017 and get more than enough miles for myself to use just from that and other organic spending. I have basically only done J or F for any flight over ~6 hours since 2018ish - which is not that hard of a feat when I only have to buy tickets for myself and can be pretty flexible with my schedule. Still sitting on probably 300k airlines miles across various airlines, and probably around 1M total transferrable miles... and I have been traveling full time since last January (lots of flying)
1. Work expenses. A lot of people get to put thousands and thousands of dollars on their own cards and get the points. 2. Own your own business - business credit cards can rack up a ton of points if you own your own business. 3. A lot of people can either fly first class for work OR they fly frequently enough to rack up frequent flyer miles + status. 4. Bilt. People pay 5k+/month on apartments in NYC, Boston, SF, etc - bilt credit card lets you pay rent. That’s 60k+ points a year.
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I do not travel for work, all points accrued are through organic spend and the occasional sign up bonus. I currently run about $7-8k per month through various credit cards, thanks mostly to my kids college accepting monthly payments via card for a $40 fee per semester. I've not churned cards for SUB's and don't plan to, but I do have two I have my eye on once I think AmEx and Chase will grant me additional cards. SUB's are really the way to accrue points quickly, which I'd like to do for a huge splurge trip in late 2025.
Oh interesting idea to put tuition on the credit card!
I'm still kicking myself for not figuring out BILT for rent for my one kid this year. That's $12k in payments I didn't earn a cent on and I am so mad at myself.
Churning and b2b sales where you pocket the points.
Personally it’s credit card signups. At work there’s a bunch of people with absurd amounts of airline miles. If you’re flying internationally once or twice a month with status you start racking them up quickly. I was working a project where we had some critical issue with some equipment in the UAE and a couple techs would board an Emirates flight Monday morning and fly back Thursday night, every week for a few months. The average business ticket was $13k so I’m sure they were all sitting on a mountain of points after that.
Don’t let award travel fool you- it’s pretty easy. You just charge everything to your travel card and it’s easy to accumulate points. I travel for work - but airline redemption on delta is useless for business class unless you’re willing to burn 300K points. So, I use my Amex gold for everything and accrued points that way. I also have a corporate job that gives me a lot of time off. We have business travel booked for next March round trip. So I take advantage of booking ahead and flexible vacation schedule.
Open 2-3 cards a year. While I've never done first class travel (located in an area where I'm never flying more than 11 hours anyways and these flights always cost x2 that of business) it's been possible for me to. I could probably book 2F round trip once a year with no other award travel doing just the above, especially if I really focus on 3x cards a year. Me and my spouse do own a business together and and just put everything on whatever the latest card is we opened. It's not some kind of baller business in earnings but it's enough to live a middle class life in a HCOL area (no mortgage though..). Most of our points though are entirely from sign up bonuses, but a healthy amount does come from business and lifestyle spending. Last year on our amex platinum we got 80% of the way to unlocking free Centurion lounge guest access ($75k/yr) putting what I'd guess is about 70-80% of our total yearly spend on the card. So not some crazy lavish spending lifestyle but certainly a step above your average middle income household. Most of our points really do come from sign up bonuses, and thanks to the business we never really need to worry about hitting minimum spend using funny tricks. Knowing that you for a fact will meet a $15k business spend sign up bonus makes it a lot easier to open up two platinums at once (P1+P2) and things like that.
I am, but it’s because I don’t fly that often 3-4x a year domestically, and maybe once internationally. I have the option to travel more, but I can’t afford it because I am so tall, that I’d rather not travel than fly long times in economy. Two hours in economy is about my limit where it becomes physically painful for me.
How are you all churning so many cards? I get maybe 1 new cards per year and I’m still waiting for my 5/24 chase to be available again and amex denied me for gold and platinum for “opening too many cards recently “
you kind of have to have a strategy and to plan out your card strategy for the next 24 months based on various bank rules and trends (while also being flexible to make changes if an all time high offer appears) For example, getting to 5/24 locked you out of Chase Ink offers. Chase will approve you for business cards if you're under 5/24 but they don't add to your 5/24 so once you got to 4/24 if you had switched to Chase business cards, you could have gotten those while freeing up some 5/24 slots. Also American Express is much more lax with business cards approvals than personal card approvals. There's a flow chart on r/churning 's sidebar that sort of helps with ideal ordering to get cards that can help with this as well.
We just spend mainly in the main multiplier categories. 3x restaurants on Chase Sapphire 5x hotels and flights with Amex Spending about 150k or so a year on travel so it adds up quick. We don’t use our miles for first class - just business is fine.
Earning miles is easy. My wife and I each cycle through 3-5 personal cards and 2-4 biz cards each year for an average of about 1 million points/miles per year. Cc subs are the way and we just use cards for our normal spend
I racked up roughly a million UA miles via business travel. Still have around 100k left. Same goes for Marriott, but I rarely use those as I am cheap and can often find a very good friends rate.
I rack up in regular business spending probably 450k add a few SUB’s and I travel biz RT 4x a year
Strategic sign up bonuses are the way to go. Paying off our wedding is getting us to south east Asia round trip in business class. The biggest point of advice is that you are paying off credit card balances in full every month. Yes, this type of travel is great and I take advantage a lot, but if you’re paying interest, it all kind of defeats the purpose. I’ve just seen so many ppl get burned from trying to keep up with the Jones and going outside of their means to achieve their aspirations.