Hey Maneesh, I ve been looking to start the process of collecting miles for quite some time, and you

Over the last 18 months, hawaii cruises small ship I've increased my frequent flier mile balance from 0 – 600,000+. Below, you ll see my AwardWallet screenshot. ( NOTE: If you want a free premium account at AwardWallet, sign up using this AwardWallet link ). I really don t get any money or benefits from this link, it s just a special hawaii cruises small ship link that gets you premium. hawaii cruises small ship It only works for new users, not for upgrading old accounts.
UPDATE: Since I wrote this article in March, hawaii cruises small ship 2012, I have earned 1.2 million starpoints, and 350,000 more miles on various hawaii cruises small ship airlines (Air Canada, AA, United, etc). Award Wallet has been attacked by airlines a few times, so it won t work with United Airlines, Southwest, or AA anymore. Allow me to type a sad face.
A couple of years ago, I read an article on Chris Guillebeau's site called the Frequent Flyer Challenge . Chris wrote about his experience applying for credit cards that offered a mileage bonus for signing up. I ve been hooked ever since I received my first 20,000 mileage bonus. And now I m going to share with you the exact steps you need to follow to fly anywhere in the world, for free.
I ve written about this in the past in my Travel Hacking Report , but I ve gotten some questions about the specific steps to make it happen. I want this article to go into more depth about how it works and how you can redeem tickets.
An airline alliance refers to airline partners. When two airlines are in the same alliance, you can use the miles from one airline to book a flight on the other. hawaii cruises small ship For example, if I have miles with United Airways, I can book a ticket to Europe with Lufthansa, using my United Miles. However, I must book by calling United Airlines, not Lufhtansa.
This also means that if you pay for a ticket on Lufthansa, you can earn miles that accrue in your United Account. The goal is to centralize hawaii cruises small ship all your miles into a single milage account for each alliance.
Skyteam which consists of Delta, Air France, KLM, and a bunch more. Skyteam sucks. It just does. This alliance is irrelevant for international flights. It s okay for flights within the US though, using Delta.
Once you have enough miles in your account, you can redeem miles by going to your airline s website, or calling their help desk. I recommend you call in, because only by calling can you search partner airlines as well.
I ve marked flights originating or ending in North America with a red box. As you can see, the cost in miles is based on the region you are originating from and the region you are ending up in. Doesn t matter which airport, which city, etc. This means that it costs the same number of miles to fly to a capital city as to a difficult and hidden airport.
So, for 30,000 miles round trip, you can head all the way to Peru or Colombia. These tickets often cost $1000+ to fly to. But, with miles, it costs almost the same as flying to another US city. Amazing, right?
So, depending on where you want to go, all you have to do is earn enough miles to book that ticket. Then, when actually booking the ticket, I recommend you call in by calling in, they will check partner airlines as well as the original airline. hawaii cruises small ship When you try to book on the website, you have much less availiability.
My favorite card, the Starwoods Preferred Card , gives you 25,000 miles that you can redeem on any airline. The coolest hawaii cruises small ship part is that Starwoods offers a 5,000 point bonus when you transfer 20,000 at a time the only card that offers such a serious bonus.
For spending just $750 in 4 months, you get 30,000 miles. BUT, that s not it you also get $100 in free credit. That s right they are actually paying you $100 AND giving you a FREE Roundtrip flight to central america for just a single credit card.
So, if your goal is to get to Colombia or Peru or central america, round trip, you only need to apply for a SINGLE Citi AAdvantage card. But you can apply for 4 or more at the same time, earning up to 120,000 miles.
The other cards that are great for starting out are the United and Continental Award cards. I use the Continental OnePass card. These guys give you 30,000 miles after hitting the minimum spend, hawaii cruises small ship and because they are about to merge, you can transfer the miles into a single account. Awesome.
Now here s the cool part after you ve received the miles, you can cancel the card, and they ll usually pay you more if you just hold off for 24 hours. I usually call in, and they say we ll give you 3,000 miles if you wait to cancel. Free 3,000 miles? Score.
I ve written several articles about credit hawaii cruises small ship scores hawaii cruises small ship when I blogged at Lending Club , but my experience has been this: In the four or so years that I ve done credit card mileage hacking, my credit score has increased hawaii cruises small ship from 715 to 800. The reason is this: I always pay off my cards on time. Because each new card increass my credit limit, and I continue to pay off my card, my record looks consistently better and better, and therefore hawaii cruises small ship my score increases.
From anecdotes and experience, it seems that your credit score will drop in the short term, especially when canceling cards, but will go up in the long term. So, if you don t expect to be purchasing a house or car in the short term (1 year or so), then this mileage hack is perfect for you.
Then, this is probably not for you. I don t recommend that people deeply in credit card debt attempt this method of mileage hawaii cruises small ship hacking for two reasons. 1) You probably won t be able to get the cards anyway, and 2) I m worried hawaii cruises small ship you ll overspend and go deeper into debt. Don t do this if you re stupid hawaii cruises small ship and will go deep into debt.
I followed your tips the first time around and finally got the SPG card. Looking forward to my free trips! Could I get one of those free AwardWallet premium accounts you mentioned? I currently just have a regular account.
Oh the joys of American credit. Jealous. I recall hawaii cruises small ship seeing some tips for Canadians somewhere hawaii cruises small ship on your blog or Chris .hmmm this post got me hooked enough to seriously look into miles for us Canadians. Any folks know of suggestions, places to look or cards to get up here let me know!
Our health care isn t necessarily hawaii cruises small ship as free as it seems (we pay through our high taxes) but it definitely is on our side when we need it (ie no need to mortgage our hommes for a major surgery). I used to have an aeroplan card. Seems you have to pay for your points now.
I m a new reader to your site and am looking forward to following your posts in the future. hawaii cruises small ship I have the Chase Venture card, which has given me great rewards so far, and I just got the Citi AA card. But, after reading your post, it sounds like the Starwood Preferred Amex is the one to get. If you don t mind, I would love to get one of the AwardWallet membership.
And here I am searching online for the cheapest fare I can find. Cheers for the post Maneesh, I m going to get myself on credit card hunt. I stumbled across this lifestyle the other day and I must admit it has me interested. I want to say thanks for putting this sort of info out there. hawaii cruises small ship Could I trouble you for the AwardWallet account please?
Pretty sweet Maneesh! Thank you!!! I ve used some of these tactics for a long time. At one time AA offered hawaii cruises small ship a 75,000 mile sign up bonus for their citibank card . . . guess they wised up on that one after a bunch of us signed up for three cards each! Thanks for the tip on the Starwood Amex.
You and I should talk about how I negotiated a free transcontinental ride on a private jet! In fact, I m writing this comment hawaii cruises small ship from 41,000 feet as we re heading back to California! Not really replicable on a mass scale, but a good story nonetheless.
This is awesome! I was waiting for a definitive guide to actually consolidate everything into one place. This really is idiot proof. Thanks for clarifying the process! Also, that premium membership would be greatly appreciated!
Hey Maneesh, I ve been looking to start the process of collecting miles for quite some time, and you ve definitely put together something really helpful here. I d love an AwardWallet hawaii cruises small ship account, if you would provide me with one.
[Maneesh, please send me premium access to AwardWallet. Thanks for wonderful tips! I've been doing an elementary version of what you're suggesting, but this is way better and gives me an easy and simple way to track, accumulate, and use. thanks so much!
I enjoyed this post and I ve been collecting miles for some time now with multiple airlines, as I travel so much for work. I have reached high statuses and fly for free with all personal hawaii cruises small ship travel. I have a few questions for you.
You mentioned that you have to reach spending marks to get some of the mileage rewards. What are you spending on? A $750 dollar amount in 4 months can be a lot if you are trying to live cheap and don t have any large expenses. For me, this is no problem because I expense so many things to work, but if I didn t have my job, this might be difficult.
Every credit card seems to have an annual fee with it. You mentioned flying to Europe for only $40 in taxes or to Columbia for only $77 in taxes. What are you doing about these annual fees? My solution was to convince my work to allow me to expense these fees because holding the credit card allows me to have all checked bag fees waived while traveling (which would normally be expensed to my company).
Great tips Maneesh! I m plotting how to turn my working remotely into something more exotic and crossing those some day places off my list. Could you hook me up with an AwardWallet premium hawaii cruises small ship account? Thanks!!
Thank you so much for all the information. We travel a great deal for work, and this lets us really maximize our required travel and expenditures helping us make it to all those places on our wish list.
This is amazing advice. I can t wait to be able to apply for a card. Could you recommend a post on building credit? hawaii cruises small ship I turned 18 in January and have only had two jobs. I have applied for two credit cards in the past so I can build credit early on and been denied, also my banks and credit unions do not offer secured cards. I m stating these as limitations but I