Why isn’t everyone doing this thing I love???
Sometimes, when I’m signing up for a new credit card with a great bonus or I’m booking flights with miles, I wonder why more people aren’t collecting miles and points. Seriously! The majority of people I know aren’t using miles and points at all, or they have one airline credit card they’ve been using for years. I discovered that people have fears and misconceptions about this hobby that prevent them from jumping in. These are some I hear:
I have to travel a lot to earn miles and points
Nope! Hardly any of my miles and points were earned from actual butt-in-seat flights or hotel stays. And, my husband is not on weekly business trips racking up miles. Our miles and points come from credit card sign-up bonuses and everyday spending on my credit cards.
My credit score will go in the crapper for opening new credit cards
My credit score is over 800, despite opening many new credit cards over the past 10 years. As long as you start slowly (i.e. don’t open 10 new credit cards at a time), in the long run your credit score will not suffer.
The hobby involves paying interest and going into debt
No! To benefit from this miles and points credit card hobby, you must pay off your balances in full every month. You must be disciplined to stick to a budget. If you can do that, you will not pay interest or rack up debt.
The hobby is illegal or shady
Again, no. There is no money laundering going on here. In signing up for miles and points, you follow the terms and conditions of the credit card offer. Of course, the banks hope that most people will screw up and miss a payment or overspend so that they pay interest.
On the other hand, once people decide to travel with miles and points, they sometimes have other misconceptions and high expectations.
Travel is completely free
This isn’t actually true. While some trips will be mostly free, there are some still nominal travel costs (like airline taxes on award flights). You also still have to pay for food, entertainment, pet sitting and airport parking during your trips. Those costs add up.
People in this hobby fly first class all the time
When you read miles and points blogs, you may think that we fly in business/first class all the time. For most of us, that’s not true, especially for those of us with large families. The reality is that, while business and first class award flights are well within reach using miles and points, most of us don’t splurge on those seats for all of our trips. It takes a lot of miles to fly my family of five anywhere, let alone in business/first class all the time.
I can apply for a credit card today and travel free in a few weeks
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way in most cases. To get a credit card sign-up bonus, you must first meet the minimum spend and wait for the credit card’s bill to cycle. For most folks, it takes 2-3 months to meet the minimum spending and another month for the miles to post to your account. So, you will need to plan well in advance to accumulate miles and points for a trip. (There is one exception–see my post What’s the best card I can get to earn miles for a spring break trip?)
Author: Nancy
Nancy lives near Dallas, Texas, with her husband and three kids. Her favorite vacations include the beach, cruising and everything Disney.
Thank you for being honest and transparent. Lots of bloggers/vloggers only tell of first class travel, the most stunning vacations on the most beautiful beaches.
Yes, all of that can be had with points and miles but it’s a false image of what it’s like for most who don’t churn credit card subs or have lots of business travel that help accumulate lots of points and miles.
I like to tell those who ask me that even with points and miles, travel is never free…just deeply discounted.
I always try to be as transparent as possible. I tell folks that dreams of Hawaii during the summer, in first class using points and miles will be just that, a dream for most. Even more so if your traveling party is large.
The best value/redemptions will usually be on days when folks paying cash aren’t traveling (think Tuesday and Wednesday).
Lastly, to be careful of the subs…most require a lot of spend in a short amount of time that’s outside the range of the average person so have a plan to meet said spend and not to get upset when if you sign up for a card and the folks on the internet won’t tell you all of their secrets (lots of folks get bothered by this one).
Tame your expectations and be realistic in your desires and points and miles can be an absolutely amazing tool to get you places that most of us would never spend hard earned cash on.
“While some trips will be mostly free, there are some still nominal travel costs (like airline taxes on award flights). You also still have to pay for food, entertainment, pet sitting and airport parking during your trips. Those costs add up.”
If we’re talking purely airline and hotel points then this would be true, but there are a lot of ways to cover all expenses. Plenty of cash sign up bonuses, bank bonuses, ways to easily cash out URs, MRs, and TYP, and of course manufactured spending techniques to generate cash. On top of that, you can use that cash to offset all the annual fees that come with the territory. As the old saying goes, Cash is king!
@projectx I agree that there are ways to offset some of the cost that comes with travel but you touched on something that is really important “MS techniques” which those of us in the space know about but for someone just getting into it…it can be overwhelming, lots of things that worked in the past don’t work anymore and all of the good things that still work, no one talks about for fear of killing it.
Also it’s worth mentioning that a lot of us in this hobby have nurtured our relationships with banks and credit unions over time so some things that come with MS doesn’t set of triggers and warning bells as it would for someone who is new to say Amex, Chase, or Citi.
Going in on a new card with a lender that isn’t use to you or your spending habits and then trying to do some of the basic things folks talk about in regards to MS will set off more fraud/trigger warnings that a non-seasoned person in this hobby can handle. Oh, and that’s not to mention that a lot of this that we do required have a P2 and sometimes a P3 which isn’t always an easy subject to talk about or bring another person into.
That’s a really good point. And if you’re just jumping in, the thought of getting a Schwab Platinum for example so you can cash out all those points, along with multiple sign up bonuses (or MSing), would be daunting.
Still, plenty of cash bonuses available through credit cards or bank bonuses.
Regardless, I love how you keep it real with award flights. And well, everything else travel related on this site. Most of us, especially with families, aren’t flying up front. Yeah, you could get a business or first class seat through this. But there’s a lot of ifs that come with it. Like if you want to fly to the destinations that are available, with potentially crazy routings, on the dates that are available, and with only a couple seats. So many bloggers make it look easy (and the banks even more so), and that can be misleading.
@projectx and @2808 Heavy All good points! I don’t chase a lot of cash bonuses but that’s definitely a way to make this travel even cheaper or free.