I’ve written about traveling business class for free before, but as with everything in travel, metho

Last month, my friend Pat came to me with a problem – he wanted to fly Cathay Pacific business class round-trip from the U.S. to a conference nantucket vacation rentals in the Philippines. He had only a few frequent flyer miles and was all like " travel hacking, what ?"
I've written about traveling business class for free before, but as with everything in travel, methods and tricks that worked in the past might not work now, especially when it comes to airlines. nantucket vacation rentals They change their rules all the time.
As you know, I am an avid travel hacker because I hate flying nantucket vacation rentals coach. To me, there is nothing worse than being in coach on a 10 hour flight and if I can avoid it, I will. When you are up in the air as much as I am, you want comfort.
So I collect points in order to upgrade nantucket vacation rentals or redeem for business and first class tickets, have a lie flat bed, and enjoy some luxury before staying in my 10 dollar a night dorm room. (Yes, I'm a bundle of contradictions. I'm a Gemini.)
Second, he signed up for the business version of the same card with the same deal. ( Note : you don't need to be a business owner to get a business card. I used to sign up for these cards as a sole proprietor. The credit card companies never seemed to care.)
Third, I made him open a Starwood American Express card , which offers 25,000 Starwood points when you spend $5,000 USD in 90 days. He then transferred those points to American Airlines. Since Starwood gives you a 20% transfer bonus on 20,000 points, in the end 35,000 points were transferred to his AAdvantage account.
Pat met all the minimum spending requirements with his regular spending. It was money he was going to spend anyways. (Never spend extra just to met one of these spending requirements!!!) After it was all said and done, Pat had 97,000 frequent flier miles.
Pat could have "faked" his spending (he also could have done to meet the spending requirements). He could have sent $1,000 every month via Amazon Payments to his wife without any fees and then she could have cashed the money back into their bank account.
Or he could have walked into a CVS and bought Vanilla Reload cards with his credit cards, then loaded the balance onto his American Express Bluebird account (maximum $5,000 per month), and then used that money to pay off his credit card balance.
But first this point: you should open at least one rewards credit card because credit cards are the best way to jump start your balance and if you're going to put money a card, you might as well get points for it. I mean I bet you already have at least one card, right? Why not get free trips from it? Use your everyday nantucket vacation rentals spending to gain points for travel, even if you aren t traveling until next year!
Moreover, nantucket vacation rentals you get a big sign up bonus. My American AAdvantage card gave me 40,000 miles just for joining. That's a free round trip domestic nantucket vacation rentals ticket or miles I can use for an upgrade. United Airlines gives you 30,000 miles for signing up. Lufthansa is offering a 50,000 miles sign-up bonus right now!
Shop with an airline s preferred partners nantucket vacation rentals All major airlines have a preferred nantucket vacation rentals shopping partner where you can get 3-20 points per dollar spent. If I am going to go shopping anyway, I might as well do it online and get 4 points per dollar spent than just the one I would have earned if I walked into the store. Do your shopping online, avoid crowds, get more points, fly quicker.
Use your family - My parents might fly once a year. My sister might fly twice. They don't really need or use their miles, so they give them to me. My parents use my credit card to purchase all their tickets and when they fly, they transfer their miles over to my account. There is a small fee for the transfer, but it's worth the extra miles. After they visited Israel last year, the miles they both earned ended up in my American Airlines account.
Sign up for newsletters – I sign up for all the airline newsletters as well as those for their credit cards so I can stay up-to-date on special fares, deals, and offers. Many of the best deals in the world are only sent via a newsletter nantucket vacation rentals and if you don't sign up, you'll never know. Recently, I got triple miles on purchases from my Citi American AAdvantage card through nantucket vacation rentals an alert sent via e-mail.
Take surveys – Every little bit counts and for signing up for surveys, liking Facebook pages, nantucket vacation rentals and more, many companies offer 250-1000 points. I always participate in these stupid online contests because they add up over time. Airlines usually send this via their newsletters but I also follow companies on Twitter and Facebook just to make sure I don t miss anything.
Stay up-to-date on bonus offers – Be sure to constantly nantucket vacation rentals check for bonus offers on airline websites. Many brands, especially airlines, offer bonus offers on selected flight routes, fare classes, and dates. By flying during these times, you can maximize nantucket vacation rentals your miles for future nantucket vacation rentals redemptions. You can stay up-to-date via newsletters or following some of the sites listed nantucket vacation rentals in the resources nantucket vacation rentals section of this blog.
Airlines love when people actually fly to earn their miles and they treat those who do with extra special nantucket vacation rentals care. However, they make it so easy to earn the frequent flier miles that it s silly to not take advantage of the situation while it lasts. Business nantucket vacation rentals class is no longer out of reach for even the most infrequent flier.