Travel
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
How do you get your frequent flyer miles/points?
in Travel
Re: How do you get your frequent flyer miles/points?
We use American Express. After a year, we upgraded to premier rewards and now we get double or triple points for certain purchases, like gas and groceries. We try to exclusively use the Amex card for as much as humanly possible (we pay it off in full every month) and the points add up. They don't expire, so we're saving all of our points for flights over the next few years. I like Amex people you can book airfare or other things like hotels and car rentals, or even gift certificates if you wanted.
We also have United Plus, which is a mileage program in the Star Alliance. I think finally this year we will have enough points for two domestic tickets. I prefer Amex though - the points accrue much faster.
We have the Capital One Venture card that gets us 2 points per $ spent on all purchases, plus extra points per $ spent at stores in their online shopping portal. (For example 2 extra points per $ spent, for a grand total of 4 points per $ spent through Expedia.) The online portal has several travel sites where you can get extra points (hotels.com, LAN Airlines, Expedia, etc.) as well as major retail stores (Old Navy, GAP, etc.).
I pair the Cap One card up with Alaska Airlines FF program. I use Alaska because they partner with several other airlines (Delta, American, LAN, Iceland Air, British Airways just to name a few). Then I use e-miles and e-rewards to add miles to Alaska airlines. When we fly, we always choose an Alaska partner. We have also paired the Alaska FF up with our Hilton HHonors and rental cars through Avis to add to the points.
We do our best to only stay in Hilton hotels if possible to get the Alaska miles, and try to book through Hotels.com if possible because we get 8 points per $ spent at hotels.com through the Cap One card. Also, with hotels.com every 10th night is free.
I really only started all of this (signed up for the card and the Alaska FF) in January this year and have already gotten a payoff, in terms of travel credit through the CC and free nights through hotels.com, of over $1k.
I guess I should also mention, we charge every single purchase per month to our CC and pay off in full at the end of the month. That's the best way to add up rewards.
I fly a lot.
And that got me status, after which point, the you get 25% extra FF miles/flight or whatnot, and then they build up faster.
We have an American Airlines MasterCard and get 1 point per mile and more if it's through their online shopping thing. So we charge anything everything to it (then pay off every month). We also get 1 mile for every mile we fly with them. So California round trip = 6k miles.
We'll also pay to upgrade to first class which I think doubles your flying miles earned which is worth it because it's about 25k miles approx to fly across country or ~50k miles out of country and those add up quickly if you fly a lot and in first class. So we're pretty much flying first class for the price of economy ticket.
Sorry, I guess I didn't really explain that very clearly. :-)
So with the Capital One card, you get 2 points per $ spent on everything, plus extra points per $ spent when you go through their online shopping portal. Those points can then be used for any travel expense - any airline, any hotel, baggage fees, rental car, etc. with no black out dates.
Then, we also have FF accounts through Alaska Airlines. We fly exclusively Alaska or one of their many partners to amass miles there. Plus, we use e-miles and e-rewards to add to our Alaska miles. Through e-miles you can even earn miles for iTunes and Groupon purchases if you go through the e-miles portal to make your purchases.
Hilton hotels also partner with Alaska Airlines, so for every night we stay in a Hilton-owned hotel (also includes Hilton Garden Inn, Hampton Inn and some others) we get Alaska miles AND Hilton points. Same for a lot of rental car places - we can get Alaska miles for renting cars.
Then, separately, hotels.com offers one night free per every 10 nights booked. Shopping through Capital One's online portal, we get 8 points per $ spent through hotels.com. Plus, if we book a Hilton-owned hotel through hotels.com we get the Capital One points, the Alaska Airlines and Hilton points, AND we get a free night every 10 booked.
So right now, we have not yet gotten any free flights through FF, but we have gotten several free flights and hotel nights through points on the Capital One card. And we are well on our way to free flights through FF as well. I like using the Capital One card this way as opposed to having a specific airline card b/c we can search for the best deal and fly any airline this way with no blackouts ever. Also, you can retrospectively use miles to pay for purchases. So you can cash points in to cover any travel purchase within the past three months. This is really nice if you're close on miles when you book but not quite there.
Does that make more sense? If you have other questions, let me know and I'll try to explain more clearly.
I would just caution this route if you aren't really invested in researching and paying close attention to what you're doing with opening and closing credit card accounts. This is a great way to amass free miles and free flights, but it can really wreck your credit score if you don't pay close attention to what you're doing.
Our wedding on Wilson Island!
I wouldn't support it if my husband wasn't the most meticulous, organized guy I know. We both have excellent credit, no debt, healthy savings, a paid off car, and no need to finance anything anytime soon anyway. He times and limits the number of cards we sign up for carefully to make sure we don't have trouble with credit. This is sort of a golden era with credit rewards that we don't expect to last forever, so we're taking advantage while we can. Trust me, he's researched it to the 9th degree. He knows what he's doing. ;-)