Brandon Lisonbee

Disney World is a common destination for many families, unfortunately it can be very expensive, especially with ticket prices going up each year. However, points can significantly decrease the financial burden of a trip to the happiest place on earth.

A Quick Summary

Growing up, I had the opportunity to go to both Disney Land and Disney World. However, my wife had never been before. So, we decided to go for our 5th-year anniversary. For this trip, we decided not to bring our kids, since they are still really young, but the lessons we learned from this experience could apply for entire families.

We decided on a week long trip to Orlando with 3 days in Disney World, and 1 day in Universal Studios. That left us 1 day to visit some friends of ours that live in Florida, and another day to see more of the city or relax as needed.

We had saved up about $1,500 in anticipation of eventually taking a trip for one of our anniversaries. At the rate we were saving, it would take several more years to have enough money for a big vacation, which is what we wanted. That’s when we discovered points, and realized we could make a trip happen sooner than we initially thought. At the time I was newer to the whole points and miles community, so, I wasn’t as efficient as I could have been when getting or using points.

For the flights, my wife opened a Delta Gold Card from American Express that had an elevated 60,000 mile welcome bonus. For the hotels, I opened the IHG Premier Card from Chase with a 140,000 point welcome bonus. I also opened the Citi Premier card with a 75,000 point welcome bonus and used those points as cash back to offset the price of the Disney World and Universal tickets (Not the best way to do this looking back).

All in all, I spent $22.40 on the flights, using 50,000 points for two round trip tickets from Salt Lake City to Orlando in economy on Delta. I didn’t even have to pay an annual fee since the Annual Fee is waived for the first year on the Delta Gold card. I spent $99 on the IHG card annual fee, which paid for 7 nights at the Holiday Inn Express & Suites Nearest Universal using 120,000 points. Disney tickets cost around $1,500 for 3 days in Disney (with the Park Hopper option) and 1 day in Universal (with access to both parks), which was half paid for using the $750 worth of points I received from the $95 Citi Premier Card, and half paid for from our savings.

I was also able to score a small SUV for a week through Hertz using Autoslash for $265. All in all, that meant the Cash Price of the trip (excluding food/souveniers/parking at the parks) cost about $1,200 of the $1,500 we had already saved. Since I had planned the trip about a year in advance, I was able to save up some more money to increase our remaining trip fund about $700 for food during the week.

All in all, this was still an expensive trip, because of the Disney World/Universal tickets. They cost $1,500 alone. If we had taken a different trip, where we wouldn’t have spent that much on an attraction, we would have had a larger budget for food/activities.

Things I wish I had done differently

Looking back, this was not the most effective way to get to Disney World using points. First off, we used Delta points for a Delta flight. Using another program could have given us much better value. However, there was also the convenience of a direct flight for us (since we live near SLC airport, which is a Delta hub). We potentially could have used 10,000 points or less per person each way, if we had been willing to make a stop somewhere using Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles to book a United flight. American Airlines also had some good pricing for a short layover in one of their hubs (less than 10,000 points each way). Overall, this might have saved us somewhere in the ballpark of 10,000 points, and we could have potentially earned some transferable points for future trips in the process.

For the hotels, we probably could have used a Chase Sapphire Preferred Card, and transferred points to Hyatt and had a potentially better hotel experience. For example, there is the Hyatt Place on I Drive, that had the same amenities that would have been 8,000 points per night, making it a total of 56,000 points for the stay. Or, we could have gone for the Hyatt House for 12,000 points per night. If we wanted a more premium stay, we could have gone to the Hyatt Regency Cypress for 15,000 points per night.

One of the issues with that is that we would have had to pay parking fees each day, ($12-$35 depending on the property). Also, the Hyatt Regency Cypress does not have free breakfast. Since we were trying to save as much cash as possible, we probably would have gone more for the Hyatt Place or Hyatt House in order to get free breakfast and minimum parking fees. Part of the reason we didn’t look into that option was that I didn’t understand transfer partners when I was planning for the trip. If I had known, I probably would have explored the possibility of using a transferable currency instead of just using an IHG card.

Takeaways

Overall, the biggest takeaway I learned from this is to do the research first. The most obvious choice is not always the best choice in these instances, especially when taking into account transferable programs and airline partnerships. If I could do this over again, I would have focused on transferrable points, gained a few stashes in a couple of programs, and then used whatever was the most advantageous. Advantageous in both convenience and points cost, since both are factors when it comes to travel. I wouldn’t want to save 15,000 points and have a long layover, but if it was a quick layover, I would have considered it.

For us, cash was tight, so using a cash back card (like the Bank of America Premium Rewards Card) could have been a better option than using Citi Thank You Points, which can potentially be redeemed for much better than one cent per point. Especially since there was the potential to use Turkish Miles & Smiles to book flights for 40,000 points, and still have 35,000 transferable points for future travel. Doesn’t mean I would have done it that way, but it would have been something to consider.

Overall, getting to Disney World doesn’t have to cost you thousands of dollars. If you are strategic, you can save so much on flights and hotels by using points that the other costs become less of a hurdle, making your dream a reality.

I was recently reading a blog post by frequentmiler (link here) that got me thinking about how I look at annual fees and credits or perks that some cards have. So, I thought I’d break it down here for you.

Annual fees are an interesting beast. It’s quite common for those just getting into the points and miles game to avoid annual fees at all costs. After all, most of us were taught that credit cards were mostly bad, and that annual fees were even worse. However, once we start getting hooked on using points to travel, annual fees start to become less important since you can get so much value out of large welcome bonuses only available on cards with annual fees. In fact, it could easily get to the point where you aren’t even paying attention to the annual fees and end up spending too much on them. With all of the ultra premium credit cards out there that have tons of perks included after paying the annual fee, the money we spend on having credit cards with points could quickly get out of hand. This can be one of the big dangers of using credit cards for points and miles.

So, how do I look at annual fees and keep myself from spending too much?

The first thing I do, is look at my finances and determine how much I’m willing to spend on annual fees each year. This limit is determined by the amount of income and other expenses I have each year. If you don’t have some sort of budget or spending plan to keep you on track for your goals, do that now. I can not stress the importance of knowing where your money goes. Specifically, plan out your needs (food, housing, transportation, etc.) that you can not avoid, investing (enough to get you to your retirement goals), saving for short term goals, and some money for things you enjoy (such as travel).

Within these parameters, I set aside some amount each month that will cover the annual fees for the cards I have/open each year. For example, you could save $50 a month, which allows for $600 in annual fees each year between all of your cards. Theoretically, that means you could open 6 cards a year that have an annual fee of $100 or less. Or, you could open a couple of cards with higher annual fees that may have perks you are looking for.

Since credit cards often have perks/credits that can be taken advantage of, I like to also look at the $600 for annual fees as an annual fund rather than a $50 monthly expense. You could also think of it as a bucket that you take out/add to each month. If you open a card, or reach a full year where an annual fee comes due, you’ll take the corresponding amount out of your “bucket”. Each month, you’ll keep adding $50 (for this example) for future cards you are wanting to open. If you take advantage of a credit, you could also add the money received from those credits to your bucket as well, increasing the amount of money you have for future cards.

To simplify this, let’s look at a couple of cashback card and how you could value the cards considering the annual fee and the welcome bonuses.

For this example, I’m going to compare two Bank of America Credit Cards: The BofA Preimum Rewards card and the BofA Unlimited Cash Rewards Card. The Premium Rewards card has a $95 annual fee with a welcome bonus (at time of writing) of 60,000 points ($600) after $4,000 spent in 90 days. The Unlimited Cash Rewards Card has a welcome bonus of $200 after $1,000 spent in 90 days and no annual fee. The points for both cards can be redeemed as a statement credit, or a deposit to a BofA account. The Bank of America Premium Rewards card also has a $100 Airline incidental fees credit per calendar year, and a $100 TSA Precheck/Global Entry that can be used once every four years.

Assuming you can meet the minimum spend requirements for both of these cards, how would that affect your $600 annual fee budget for the year? Since we are comparing the two cards, we’ll assume you spend $4,000 using the base rewards earning rate (1.5% for both cards), since that is the highest minimum spending requirement between the two cards.

First Year

BofA Unlimited Cash Reward Card

Let’s start with the no annual fee card. Since you won’t be paying an annual fee, you would still have $600 in the annual fee budget. You’d also have $200 from the welcome bonus and $60 from spending $4,000 on the card. That $260 could be spent for whatever you want, including putting extra money towards annual fees for other cards, travel, or another savings goal. So, you’d have $600 for annual fees and $260 for travel.

BofA Premium Rewards Card

Meeting the spending requirement for the welcome bonus would mean you have $660 worth of points ($600 from the welcome bonus, $60 from the $4,000 spent to get there). Since there is a $95 annual fee, that will need to be subtracted from the $600 annual fee budget leaving you with $505 for annual fees for the year and $660 in rewards to do with as you please for a total of $1,165. Since we’re dealing with cash back cards, you could pull $95 of the cash back earned back to your annual fee fund, meaning, you’d have $600 for annual fees, and $565 for travel (or anything else). That is $305 more than getting the no annual fee card.

Are you beginning to see the power of using cards with annual fees? For the first year, you can often get a lot more value out of the card than you ever could with a no annual fee card just from the welcome bonus. Also, cards with annual fees often have some sort of perks as well, that may make them worth even more.

Credits

The Premium Rewards Card has two credits that should be accounted for as well when looking at the value of the card compared to the annual fee. These credits are $100 per calendar year in airline incidental fees, and $100 up to once every four years for TSA Precheck or Global Entry.

If you have travel planned during the year, the airline incidental credits often work for the taxes and fees or baggage fees that can not be paid for with points. This can be very useful in this game since these cash fees can be a significant cost depending on the airline and the destination/origin. Keep in mind that not every airline’s fees may work for Bank of America’s airline incidental credit. I would recommend checking the internet for things that have worked for other people to give yourself a better chance of getting the credit.

These credits are where things can start to get a bit tricky. My rule of thumb is to value credits such as these at the amount that I would have spent without the card. For example, if I was already planning to spend $100 in taxes and fees and baggage costs for a flight, I might value the $100 airline incidentals credit at $100, because it was $100 I was already planning on spending, and now I’m getting it back.

If you are going out of your way to spend a credit, I wouldn’t count it as a full credit. You’re still getting value out of it, but you’re also going out of your way to use it, when you normally wouldn’t. For example, if you had never considered getting Global Entry, but decided to because of the credit, I wouldn’t view that credit as giving you money back. Rather, I would look at it as paying $95 (the annual fee of the card) to get Global Entry, which normally costs $100.

Let’s put this in context of a first-year value comparison between the two cards.

Card	Cost of Annual Fee	Welcome Bonus	$4,000 Spend	Airline Credits	Global Entry/TSA PreCheck	Total Value
BofA Unlimited Cash Reward Card	$0	$200	$60	$0	$0	$260
BofA Premium Rewards Card	-$95	$600	$60	$100	$100	$765
BofA Premium Rewards Card (No Global Entry Value)	-$95	$600	$60	$100	$0	$665
BofA Premium Rewards Card (No Credits Value)	-$95	$600	$60	$0	$0	$565

As you can see, the way you value the credits can change the value of the card for the first year. If you already have Global Entry, or wouldn’t normally pay for it, you would value the card less than someone who doesn’t have Global Entry, and was planning on paying out-of-pocket for it. Now, the next question becomes, how do these cards stack up after the first year?

Ongoing value

If you commonly spend $100 on things that can are considered airline incidental fees, then the BofA Premium Rewards Card starts to look pretty good. All of a sudden, this card starts to be a “free” card (after credits). However, if you don’t commonly spend $100 on airline incidental fees, this card wouldn’t be as attractive.

Card	Cost of Annual Fee	Airline Credits	Global Entry/TSA PreCheck	Total Value
BofA Unlimited Cash Reward Card	$0	$0	$0	$0
BofA Premium Rewards Card (If you use Global Entry Credit that year)	-$95	$100	$100	$105
BofA Premium Rewards Card (No Global Entry Value)	-$95	$100	$0	$5
BofA Premium Rewards Card (No Credits Value)	-$95	$0	$0	-$95

As you can see, the card very quickly becomes a liability if you are not making good use of the credits. Especially since you can only get the Global Entry Credit once every 4 years at most. Note that I did not include the rewards earned from purchases made with the card. Points earned from spend on the card each year would be added to your Total Value of the card, and could change whether or not the card is worth keeping for you.

Since this is a cash back example, the total value of the card can be used for anything. You could even put it into your annual fee fund to open up more options for future cards. Or, you could put the cash towards travel expenses that can not be paid for with points. The choice is yours, but with cards that do not earn cash back, it can get a bit more complicated.

Comparing Values of Points Cards

To use a personal example, we opened an American Express Gold Card under my wife’s name when the welcome bonus was 75,000 points and 20% back on dining for the first 12 months (issued as statement credits up to $250 total). We typically spend around $100 eating out to begin with (or $1,200 within 12 months). That meant we should get back $240 just on our typical dining spend for the first year, as long as we only used the Amex Gold Card for dining purchases.

On top of that, we planned a trip to Disney World that year. Since we’d be on vacation for a week, we were going to be spending a lot more money on dining this year, making it even easier to hit the maximum $250 from the 20% back on dining. This is a perfect example of using credits to offset the annual fee. Since we could easily spend enough to get $250 back on dining spend we had already planned for, this card was essentially free for the first year. That means 75,000 American Express Membership points without paying an annual fee. That’s huge!

Also, with the Amex Gold Card, there are also $10 monthly credits for dining a Amex’s partners and $10 in Uber Cash each month. We did not use those credits, as we don’t have any of the partner restaurants near where we live, and we don’t typically order delivery, so using the Uber Cash for Uber Eats or using GrubHub would have required changing our habits. Now, if we did change our habits and started ordering in at least some of the time, we could have gotten back even more than the $250 from the 20% back on dining. However, since there are usually delivery fees, tips, and increased prices using GrubHub or UberEats, we probably wouldn’t have valued the credit at the full $10.

To further complicate the math, you can also account for the points you get from the card, using their reasonable redemption value. You may find a card’s annual fee worth the points you can get from the welcome bonus, or ongoing spend on the card depending on the category.

For example, with the Amex Gold Card, I got 75,000 points from the welcome bonus as well as 4x points on dining and grocery purchases for ongoing spend. According to Frequent Miler, American Express points have a reasonable redemption value of 1.55 cents per point (cpp). So, the welcome bonus alone could be valued as $1,162.50 if redeemed at 1.55 cpp (which should be easy to do given the methodology Frequent Miler uses for their valuations). If you are pickier about your redemptions, you could possibly get even more value out of those points than just 1.55 cpp.

The welcome bonus alone, minus the annual fee (assuming no credits are taken advantage of), would make the card worth $912.50. With the 20% back on dining, if valued at full value, the card becomes worth $1,162.50 again. If you were able to take full advantage of the other monthly credits, and valued them at full value, that would bring the value of the card up another $240 to $1,402.5. That is a lot of value out of a single card.

Let’s also assume you use this card for grocery store (does not include most Walmarts) and dining purchases throughout the year. Just $500 per month in those categories on the card would be 24,000 points a year ($372 based on 1.55 cpp). That alone, could be worth the annual fee, if the annual fee doesn’t prevent you from getting other cards based on your budget.

Scenario	Annual Fee	Welcome Bonus (75,000 points at 1.55 cpp)	$6,000 Minimum Spend (assuming 1%)	Spend on Card ($500/month in 4x categories)	20% Back on Dining (over 12 months)	Monthly Uber Cash	Monthly Dining Credits	Total Value
Amex Gold Card (Full Value)	-$250	$1,162.50	$60	$372	$250	$120	$120	$1,834.50
Amex Gold Card (Ongoing w/credits)	-$250	$0	$0	$372	$0	$120	$120	$362
Amex Gold Card (Ongoing w/o credits)	-$250	$0	$0	$372	$0	$0	$0	$122

One last thing to keep in mind is to not to get cards specifically for the perks, unless you are willing to pay the annual fee to get the perks. If you want lounge access, are you willing to spend the annual fee to get it? If a card costs $450, and you are only taking advantage of the lounge access, is the lounge access worth $450 to you? If you are able to get $300 in credits, that you are going to take full advantage of, are you willing to pay $150 for the lounge access? Also, do you have enough money in your annual fee fund to support the cards you want to keep? These are the things to consider when deciding if a card is worth the annual fee to you.

Hopefully, you now have an idea of how cards can be valued with their annual fees, and the pitfalls of getting too wrapped up in credits. As long as you get real value out of the credits based on your typical spending, or are willing to trade the annual fee of the card to get a specific perk, go for it. Otherwise, don’t overextend yourself and spend tons on annual fees for cards where you are not getting the value out of it.

Travel is an important goal for many people. Unfortunately, most of us have limited money to spend on travel. But what if you could travel more often? Or, maybe travel in luxury? And best of all, what if you could do that without spending more money than you can manage? You can travel more without spending more. Let me teach you how.

The Basic Strategy

The key to improving your travel without spending more than your budget can handle comes from points and miles. Specifically we usually target points and miles for travel expenses that can be earned from credit cards. I’ll explain how that works in this article, but first, here’s a basic overview of the strategy.

1. Open a credit card and get the welcome bonus
2. Use those points to book flights, hotels, and sometimes other travel related expenses
3. Repeat with other credit cards as often as you want

NOTE: Typically in this strategy, you will want to close or downgrade a card to a no-annual fee card after 1 year. Doing so, you usually can avoid paying the annual fee for the second year and maximize the strategy while paying less out of pocket.

For example, let’s say you wanted to spend some time in Hawaii. Using this strategy, you could get a round trip economy flight from just about anywhere in the U.S. and 6 nights in a vacation rental on any of the islands. All it takes is two cards and an out-of-pocket cost of less than $200 (not including costs of food, activities, or local transit). Compare this to $2,000+ it would typically cost for the same flights and vacation rentals. 

Have different goals? The numbers may not be the same as the example, but the strategy is the same. You can travel just about anywhere using points and miles. The best part is, anyone can do it. Stick around to see how you could travel more without spending more.

WARNING: This strategy can be used by anyone, but requires certain conditions before you should start using it. To effectively earn points with this method you need to have no credit card debt, pay off your credit card in full every month (so you don’t pay any interest and can keep a good credit score), and have a credit score over 700 to begin with (to qualify for the cards with good bonuses). 

Credit cards can be financially devastating if not used properly. If you currently have credit card debt, a low credit score, or are worried about spending more than you should on these cards, DO NOT start this strategy before resolving those issues first. 

Feel free to contact me via this form to discuss my recommendations for your individual situation to get you on track so you can use this strategy for your travel goals.

How to Maximize the Strategy to Travel More Without Spending More

Maybe you’ve heard or even tried using credit card rewards to travel, maybe not. If you’ve tried, you may have found that it can be really hard to accumulate enough points to book a flight or a hotel with a single credit card. The fastest way to accumulate points is through credit card welcome bonuses.

Earning Points and Miles Like a Pro

Credit card welcome bonuses are, by far, the fastest way to earn travel rewards. Welcome bonuses vary from card to card and each bonus will have its own requirements. A relatively typical bonus structure is somewhere around 60,000 points after spending around $4,000 points within 3 months. Cards with this structure typically have an annual fee around $100. By opening multiple credit cards throughout the year and earning the welcome bonuses, you can earn hundreds of thousands of points quite easily. 

If you are concerned about ruining your credit, don’t worry, this strategy can actually increase your credit score. I personally started with a credit score around 760 and opened up two new cards my first year. By the end of the year, my score was over 780. I know of others that  have been doing this a while and have even better credit scores.

Redeeming Points and Miles Like a Pro

There are many ways to redeem points and miles. The most basic method is to use points from a specific loyalty account to book travel with that company (e.g. using United Miles to book a United flight). Sometimes these present a very good value for your miles, but more often than not, you can get better value by booking with partners. This is specific to airlines, hotels have fewer ways to get extra value from their points as you typically can only book a hotel using the points with that hotel’s loyalty program.

Airlines have created partnerships and alliances to expand the destinations and flights available to their customers. One of the biggest benefits, in my opinion, of these partnerships and alliances is that it allows you to book flights on partner airlines using another airline’s points. These bookings will often be the greatest value for your points. You can learn more about airline partnerships and alliances here.

To use the example of flying to Hawaii, one of the best ways to get good value is booking a United Airways flight using Turkish Airlines points (called Miles & Smiles). You can book any United flight to Hawaii (in economy) using only 10,000 Turkish Miles & Smiles each way. There is a catch. There are a limited number of seats available to book via partner airlines. This article, How to Find Saver Awards, has more information on finding seats available to book via a partner program.

Crafting an Individual Strategy

And there you have it. You now know the basics of earning and using points and miles. There is a lot more to learn so that you can maximize your travel. The goal of this blog is to help you meet your travel goals without spending more than you can manage.

There are a ton of credit card options available to points and miles enthusiasts. Especially if you are able to apply for business cards. The number of options available causes one of the most difficult questions to answer: Should I open this card?.

How Many Cards Should I Open?

First, let’s talk about pacing strategy. This is completely up to you and your situation and your travel goals. Theoretically, you could be applying for cards every day, but that’s not really practical, especially with the different application rules from each of the credit card companies. Because there are many restrictions to prevent you getting tons of cards all the time, such as the Chase 5/24 rule and others, and limits based on your financial situation, you need to find a pace that works for you.

Starting out, my strategy was 3 cards each year for me, and 3 for my wife. This totals 6 cards every year for our combined strategy (often called 2-player mode). We chose this specific pacing strategy for a couple of reasons. 1) We wanted to stay under the 5/24 rule as much as possible. 2) With our combined income and expenses, we could comfortably meet the spending requirements and annual fees on 6 cards total  a year if we were selective of the cards. We also weren’t comfortable with opening business cards at this point, so that limited the number of cards we could get while staying under the 5/24 rule as much as possible.

Some of you may choose to open more or less cards each year, that’s up to you and your personal situation. However, I do think it is important to consider application restrictions of the credit card companies you will be using, and your personal financial situation when it comes to annual fees and spending requirements. You can always start out with 1 or 2 cards a year and increase from there. Just don’t overextend yourself. (Click on this link to see the application rules for the major credit card companies).

When Should I Consider Opening a New Card?

If you have a planned out pacing strategy, this is pretty simple, open a card when it works for your strategy. Even if you don’t have a specific pacing strategy, you should consider opening a card after you’ve met the welcome bonus for your last card and there has been some time after you opened your last card (usually 30-90 days is recommended).

What Card Should I Open?

This is where things get complicated. There is no one right answer for everyone, it all depends on what you can manage, and what will be most useful to you. Since transferable points are so valuable, I generally recommend that you start there. However, if you have a specific vacation in mind, there may be better cards to get you to your goal. Regardless of which card you go with, there are a few things that need to be considered.

Annual Fees

First, annual fees. Annual fees are something I used to avoid completely. I never wanted to pay for a credit card when there were perfectly good options without annual fees. After learning the amount of travel I could get by opening cards with annual fees, my opinion changed; however, there is always a limit to how much you should spend on annual fees. For this reason, it’s important to first consider how much you are willing to spend each year on annual fees. Since travel rewards allow you to get more travel for less, 

I recommend looking at the amount of money you currently spend, or are willing to spend, on travel. You’ll probably want to set aside some of that amount for costs that can’t be covered by points, or at least don’t present a good value for points. The rest of your travel budget could be used for an annual fee fund. Pick a card that fits within your overall strategy and stays below your limit of total annual fees. This is the key to traveling more without spending more.

Current Welcome Bonus

It’s also important to consider the current welcome bonus and its value to your goals and when compared to the annual fee. What travel can you get from the card? Is the travel you can get (and would actually use) worth more than the annual fee? How does the current welcome bonus compare to previous welcome bonuses? These are all important questions to consider.

Certain welcome bonuses may also contain credits that can be useful in reducing travel expenses in other ways. For example, the Capital One Venture card welcome bonus with a $200 Avelo credit. Or, the American Express Gold Card bonus with 20% back on dining for the first 12 months (up to $20). These credits could be used to reduce travel expenses or, especially in the case of the Amex dining credits, to reduce the impact of the annual fee.

Perks

Certain cards also come with perks (often credits or memberships) included just for having the card. These perks can be valuable to you in and of themselves, or could be valuable as ways to offset the annual fee. The difference comes down to what you would use if you did not have the card and should be analyzed accordingly.

For example, if you value being able to visit airport lounges, but wouldn’t normally spend money to get in, a card with this perk may be valuable, but you shouldn’t discount the credit from the annual fee since you wouldn’t normally use it. You are essentially paying for access to the airport lounges through the card’s annual fee. This may give you a discounted price in comparison to what you pay otherwise, but you are still spending more than you typically would.

 On the other hand, a card with an entertainment credit for a service you already have, you could discount the value of that credit from your annual fee. You are simply shifting the amount you already spend on something else to a card with an annual fee giving you the same service along with the other benefits of the card.

Application

As an example, let’s say you are willing to allocate $50 a month ($600 a year) on annual fees. You would then need to select your cards based on what you need to get without exceeding the $600 in annual fees. This will affect what cards you get. 

For example, you probably wouldn’t get the Platinum Card that has an annual fee over $600. Even with the perks, if you use them, you may not be able to get any other cards that year. However, you may consider the American Express Gold Card, even though it has a $250 annual fee, if the welcome bonus at the time includes some sort of dining credits. Or, you may consider other cards depending on what your travel goals are. 

For those with lower amounts to spend on annual fees, no-annual fee cards or cards where the perks outweigh the annual fee will be especially useful. Those with more money to allocate to annual fees have more options. Either way, you can get some amazing travel benefits out of strategically picking your cards and staying within your typical travel budget.

One of the biggest concerns for people new to the points and miles game is their credit score. After all, we’re told that opening a lot of credit cards will hurt our credit score. And then, when it comes to closing them, that’s even worse! At least that’s what we’re told. However, there are multiple variables to your credit score. Once you understand them, you will find that this strategy is actually not that bad for your credit. In fact, you may see your credit score go up!

Before we get into the details of how credit scores work, let’s talk about why a good credit score is important. In today’s world, if we want to pay for anything using a loan, a credit score is necessary and can save us money in the long run. The classic example is if you are wanting to buy a house or a car. When a bank is looking at your loan application, your credit score will be a huge factor in whether or not you can get a loan as well as what the interest rate will be. In short, the higher your credit score the lower the interest rate and the less you end up paying. However, there is a diminishing return the higher your credit score is.

The key here is that once you reach a certain credit score, you get the lowest rate. Usually that score is around 760 though a score of 780 or better may get you a lower interest rate in some cases. Credit scores can go as high as 850, so that gives you a huge range of scores that will still get you the same interest rate.

Because of this, once you reach a score over 760, you have more leeway to do things that may lower your credit score slightly. As long as your score doesn’t dip too low, following the points and miles strategy won’t actually affect your credit score in any significant way. If your score drops a few points, who cares? You still have an excellent credit score. Now, let’s get into the details of how credit scores work so we can see how the points and miles strategy actually affects your credit score.

How Credit Scores Actually Work

Credit scores are determined on a number of weighted factors. Certain activities are going to affect a score more than others. These factors are as follows (listed from highest to lowest impact)

1. Payment History
2. Credit Utilization 
3. Length of Credit History
4. New Credit
5. Credit Mix

The biggest factors by far are your payment history and your credit utilization. These two factors together make up for the majority of your credit score, so these are the most important. However, it is important to understand how the other factors affect your credit score as well.

Let’s start with payment history since it has the largest effect on your credit score. This is also the easiest to understand. Always make payments for your card by the due date and your credit score will be great. Any late payments will hurt your credit score. Especially if these missed payments go to collections, that is the one of the worst things that can happen to your credit score. Previous bankruptcies will also factor into this part of your credit score and can be very difficult to overcome.

So, the best thing you can do for a credit score is to make payments on time no matter what. Two important notes on payment history.

1. Even if you carry a balance from month to month, you could have a great payment history (i.e. always paying at least the minimum payment on time).
2. Paying your card before a statement is generated (i.e. you get a statement with a $0 balance) can be counted as no payment in some cases. It’s best to leave enough of a balance on your credit card each month for a statement to be generated, then pay it off by the due date. (Automatic payments can be a great way to handle this without having to think about it too much).

Now that you understand how payment history affects your credit, let’s talk about the next most important factor: credit utilization. Credit utilization is looking at the balance of all of your lines of credit compared to the available credit. Simply take your balance divided by the credit limit. For example, if you had a $4,000 balance across multiple cards with a total credit limit (sum of credit limits on all of those cards) of $50,000, your credit utilization would be 8%. Lower credit utilization is a good thing and will help your credit score. 

There are three ways to decrease your credit utilization: pay off some/all of your balance, increase your credit limit on a card, or get another card. The higher your credit limit, the lower your credit utilization. The lower your balance, the lower your credit utilization limit. You can really make a huge difference by adjusting both of those at the same time.

The next factor to your credit score is the length of your credit history. Simply put, the longer you’ve had credit the better. There are multiple things that a credit bureau will look at, the age of the oldest account, the age of the newest account, and the average age of your accounts. By far the most important thing to do is to keep at least one account open for a long time. This improves the age of your oldest account and the average age of all of your accounts.

Closing an account (such as a credit card) can affect your score, but not as badly as you may think. In many cases, your closed account stays on your credit score for up to 10 years. This means you are still getting the benefits of the account and the age of the account. After 10 years, it falls off, removing the advantages regarding the age of the account. However, as long as you keep your oldest account open, you won’t see any significant impact on your credit score. 

Opening new accounts will decrease the average age of your credit, but again, as long as you keep your oldest account open, you will most likely not see any significant impact. Consistently opening new accounts can prevent your credit score from increasing dramatically. However, since length of history is a slow moving variable anyway, and also has a lower impact, you can still open multiple cards a year without dramatically affecting your credit score. 

New credit accounts create hard inquiries which stay on your credit report for 2 years. Hard inquiries will lower your credit score, but are far from the highest impact on your score. As long as you have a good payment history, credit utilization, and length of credit history you most likely will not see a significant decrease in your score. 

Your credit score also looks at the different types of credit you have. Specifically, the more types of credit you have the better. So having a mix of credit cards, a mortgage, car loans, student loans, or personal loans is good. Again, this is a lower impact factor (same impact as hard inquiries) so it’s not the most important thing to worry about, but can be useful to improve your score.

How These Factors Affect Points and Miles Strategies

Now that you have a good understanding of how credit scores are determined, let’s look at how opening and closing multiple accounts will affect your credit score. 

Opening multiple cards increases the number of accounts (which can be good for your credit mix) and will decrease your credit utilization rate. Both of these are good, especially the credit utilization rate since it has the highest impact on your score out of the two. The negative impacts will be on your average age of credit and the new hard inquiry on your report. Both of these have a lower impact on your score, but could still decrease it. Comparing the positive and negative impacts, the positive impacts outweigh the negative impacts, so you most likely will see a minimal decrease, if any at all when opening multiple new cards throughout the year.

Closing cards that you no longer use typically will have negative impacts to your credit score. Closing an account may or may not have a significant impact on your length of credit history. Since closed accounts can stay on your report for up to 10 years, you may not see any difference at all. Your credit utilization could also decrease when you close an account, since you lose the credit limit on that card. Overall, closing a card could impact your score negatively, but not necessarily by a lot if you still have a high enough credit limit across your open cards and a good history of credit. This is why downgrading a card to a no-annual fee card or even keeping the card open is often a better decision. However, don’t be afraid to close an account (especially if it has an annual fee) if you aren’t going to use it any more. It’s not worth the extra fees for something you don’t use.

As you can see, the commonly heard statements about opening and closing credit cards can be misleading. While they are technically true, they don’t take all of the factors into account. In fact, most people that get into the points and miles game and open lots of cards will see an increase in their credit score. For example, I opened a couple of cards my first year, and my credit score went up about 20 points over that year. There’s no guarantees on what will happen to you, but it most likely won’t be as bad as you think as long as you always pay your cards off in full each month and keep your oldest account open.

Any given flight has a certain number of seats available for booking. That number goes down as people book the flight. For loyalty program members, there is also the option to book a seat using points instead of cash. Typically, an airline will set aside a certain number of seats for this purpose (award seats/space). Over time, the airline may increase or even decrease the number of award seats available to be booked. This creates a limited quantity of seats bookable with points.

This is a good thing because it makes it a little harder to find these seats. Most people don’t know the process of booking these seats, or don’t take the time to do so, giving those of us in the points and miles game huge opportunities to travel while spending significantly less than everyone else. 

To further complicate this, partner airlines have access to some, but not all, of those seats. This allows you to book a seat on a flight operated by one airline using points from one of their partner airlines. You can often book a flight using less points or sometimes less taxes and fees by using a partner airline. However, there is a catch. Not all award seats are bookable through partners.

An airline will designate certain flights to be bookable with points via a partner airline. In the points and miles space, we usually call these saver awards. There are a couple of reasons for this: these flights typically cost significantly less points via the airline operating the flight (thus saving points) and United actually labels these flights as saver awards. Note that certain partnerships may have access to space that would not typically be considered saver award space and is therefore not available to other partners.

Also, not every airline makes it easy to find seats for partner awards. Many will only let you search one day at a time, or you may even have to find a flight elsewhere then book it over the phone. Because of this, it’s important to know how you can find these saver awards. 

For this article, we’ll just focus on the best ways to find saver award space for each alliance. If you can find saver award space through an airline in an alliance, you should be able to book that flight using any of the airlines in the alliance. However, be aware that there is a phenomenon known as phantom space where you might find an award on one site that is not actually available. For the most part, this isn’t too hard to avoid, but it can be a good idea to call and make sure the space is actually available or verify through the partner airline’s website before transferring any points..

General Rules

In general, saver awards will cost fewer points than the typical awards. So, no matter what site you are using to look for awards, the lowest points cost you can find is more likely to be a saver award. You can also use the fact that partner airlines can only be booked with points if the flight is a saver award to your advantage. For example, if you’re looking on aa.com (American Airlines) and you see an Alaska Airlines or a British Airways flight that is bookable with American Airlines miles, that flight must be a saver award for Alaska or British Airways since you can book it with American points.

If you want to book with a specific airline, you can start with a search for a flight on that airline and find one that costs fewer points than others. You can then verify that the flight you found is a saver award and bookable through the partner airline you want to use by searching for that specific flight on the partner’s website. In cases where the partner airline you want to use requires a phone booking, you could use a different partner airline to verify it’s a saver award, then call the airline you want to use to book the flight.

Maybe you aren’t particular which airline you fly with, but know which partner you want to use for booking. To find saver award space, just use the easiest tool within the alliance you’re looking at. You know it’s a saver award if it’s a flight on a partner airline. If the flight is operated by the airline whose tool you’re using, you can use the lower points price to get an idea of what is a saver award. Then you can find that specific flight on the partner airline you want to use and book the flight if it is available.

There are also many tools that can be used to find these awards as well. One of my favorites of these is www. pointsyeah.com. Using this tool, you can search for flights from one point to another, either roundtrip or one way. The tool will then show the flights bookable with points with taxes and fees. You can filter flights using multiple criteria allowing you to only book flights that match your preferences or points available. You can also set alerts when award space meeting certain conditions becomes available.

A tool like this can be incredibly useful as a starting point. I definitely suggest using PointsYeah if you are new to tools like this because it is very easy to use and has a lot of capability for free. There is also a paid version with added capabilities, but the free version honestly has enough capabilities to start. However, every tool has limitations. For this reason, it can be good to use multiple tools and even do individual searches outside of these tools. 

Some other tools that you might find useful for flights are seats.aero, Roame.Travel, Points.Me, AwardLogic, SeatSpy, ExpertFlyer, and Flights Connections. For hotels, there is StayWithPoints, MaxMyPoint, AwardMapper, and Open Hotel Alert. 

Now let’s look at the easiest ways to find saver awards for each alliance.

Star Alliance

The Star Alliance has one of the easiest ways to find saver award space: United. United airlines specifically labels these flights as a saver award. However, if you are logged in to your United Mileage account, you will see extra saver availability. These extra saver flights may not be bookable for partners, so if you are trying to find saver awards to book via another airline, don’t log in to your account when searching.

To search for these awards, simply go to United.com and put in your origin, destination, and flight date(s) and check the book with miles box. It can often be a good idea to search for one-way flights instead of round trips. This will give you more flexibility to book with multiple partners and get the most value out of your miles. However, some airlines will only let you book a round trip flight (e.g. ANA) or you may be able to get better value out of a round trip flight (e.g. Delta). So it can be good to search both one-way and roundtrip flights.

Once the search has populated results, you can browse the flights, either for the day you selected, or using the 30-day calendar feature. To find a saver award flight, look for days with the lowest amount of points needed, as these are more likely to be days with saver award flights. The nice thing is, United will put “saver award” right below the points price making it very clear what United flights should be available through other partners. And of course, any flights using partner airlines that are available on United should be bookable through other Star Alliance partners as well.

OneWorld Alliance

One of the best airline websites to find saver award space on OneWorld airlines is aa.com. Similar to united.com, all you have to do to see points redemptions for a specific destination is to click the redeem miles box. 

American Airlines has a robust search tool on their site that allows you to see a whole month of availability at a time. Not only that, you can filter by airline allowing for specific redemptions. You can even see the airplane scheduled for the flight right in the search. This can be super useful for people looking for a specific flight product. 

If you want to check for American Airlines availability on partners, Alaska Airlines is my choice for searching. It can also be very useful to confirm that you are able to see the same partner availability on multiple sites. Similar to American Airlines, you can use the calendar feature to see the lowest prices across multiple dates as well as filtering by airlines.

SkyTeam

To search for SkyTeam availability, I would recommend Delta or Virgin Atlantic. The Delta tool is very similar to the American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, or United search tools. There are options to view the lowest price per day for a whole month at a time, as well as filtering to nonstop only flights. Any flights bookable through Delta that are operated by another SkyTeam member should be bookable through any other SkyTeam member. 

Now, if you want to find Delta availability, the best search tool is actually not a SkyTeam member, Virgin Atlantic. Virgin Atlantic has partnerships with Delta and Flying Blue (Air France/KLM. These are the two most commonly useful SkyTeam members, so being able to see both of these airlines through Virgin Atlantic is very useful. Keep in mind that the Virgin Atlantic search tool seems limited, but with a few tricks it can be just as useful as the other airline search tools we’ve discussed.

By editing the URL of an existing search, you can gain access to the calendar view, and search any flight for seat availability. For the calendar view, you need to first search for a flight using the points search. This is as straightforward as the other airline tools, but you’ll need to open the advanced search options in order to select the points option. If you aren’t able to select the points option, you can often switch some of the search options so that the book with points feature is available.,Then just click on the use points option and reset the other criteria to what you actually want.

When you complete your search, the website will pull up one week of availability including the date you selected. If there isn’t any availability you won’t see any dates at all. Unfortunately, you’ll have to search one week at a time until you find a week with a flight available. Once you can see at least one date with a flight available, you can edit the URL replacing “dates” with “calendar”. This then pulls up the 30-day calendar feature.

Another useful tool, specifically for delta flights, is the reward seat checker on Virgin Atlantic’s website. This is only available for flights operated by Virgin Atlantic and Delta. You will notice that there aren’t many airport options to search using this tool. However, by adjusting the URL you can see other potential flights. 

We’ll look at Delta flights, since we are discussing how to find SkyTeam award space availability. First, select Delta in the Flying With dropdown. Then pick any available airports in the dropdowns for the origin and destination airports and the month you want to look at. 

Once you search using these options, you’ll see a calendar view with information on what seats are bookable with points for each day. However, this is only showing a flight based on the initial airports you used, which most likely aren’t the flights you are looking for. To check for seats on the actual route you want, simply go into the URL and replace the 3-digit airport codes with the airports you actually want and hit enter. Make sure not to edit anything else.

Editing the URL in this way will pull up the reward seat checker for your desired route. You can then check for dates that Delta or Virgin Atlantic (depending on what you selected) has award seats available. You can also switch the airports so you can find award space on a returning flight as well. If there are seats available on a specific day, it will also break down how many seats are available in each class. If you want to fly using Delta One, this could be very useful for finding flights with seats available in that business class. 

Now you’ve narrowed down to a single day that has award space available, and you can search for flights on that specific day. This can be extremely useful to find award space on Delta flights. Virgin Atlantic also has some pretty good value for booking Delta flights as well, and since they are transfer partners with multiple transferable points programs, getting those points is very easy.

Now you know how to find saver award space using many different methods. The best way to find award space is to look for it. You never know what you may find. The more you search, the easier it becomes, allowing you to do more searches in less time. It can be confusing and difficult at first, but with practice, you’ll be able to find great deals for your points without too much difficulty.