5 Questions You Need to Ask Yourself Before Getting a Card

"What card should I get?" That's the wrong first question.

We get this question a lot, which makes sense. There are countless options with various perks and bonuses for various airlines, hotels and travel companies. Our short answer is always the same: it depends.

Before you even consider a card, you need to answer:

1. Where do you want to go?
2. What can you get?
3. How soon do you want to get there?
4. How do you want to get there (economy, business or first class)?
5. What cards are available?

How you answer is important because not all points are created equal. Take Southwest Airlines for example. Both Goo and I are fans of it, because we fly domestically along the west coast a lot. Southwest is great for that, but it's useless for hopping oceans.

And it just so happens, we love hopping oceans.

Here's my thought process two years ago on choosing the cards that eventually helped me book a three week trip later this year that will span four countries, seven flights and all three flight classes (economy, business and first) for just $147.32.

Isn't it beautiful?

Step 1: Profit Step 2: Profit Step 3: Profit. Take Two

OfficeMax has an instant $20 rebate if you spend $300 or more on MasterCard gift cards, with the promo limiting you to two rebates (a total of $40 off if you spend $600).

Using an Ink Bold/Plus card that gives you 5x points at office stores, you can manufacture up to 3,000 Ultimate Rewards points if you buy two $200 gift cards twice and then end up making a $22.50 profit:

• Buy three $200 MasterCard gift cards = $20.85 activation fee for all four cards cards ($6.95 per card)
• $40 instant rebate (two $20 rebates) - $20.85 activation fee = $19.50 (Profit! Like, literally.)

I wasn't able to get the $200 gift cards on my first day, so I altered the strategy and went for the $100 gift cards instead. I bought six of them (to get maximum of two rebates for every $300 spent). This meant I only got a total of 3,000 UR points and a profit of $4.30.

I asked the cashier if she would allow me to buy above the restriction, she said, "No, but I'm not working tomorrow." Hint, taken. I returned the following morning to make another "purchase" for the same amount. ("Purchase" in quotes because I earned money for showing up and taking their inventory.)

NOTE: Some people are reporting that the limit restriction sometimes is not enforced and is very cashier dependent. Give it a shot and see what happens!

This is a great way to manufacture spend or to meet those large minimum spend requirements for your new card. These cards can be easily added onto bluebird via Walmart money center kiosks after adding a PIN via telephone. Or if you have enough to pay off your credit card bill, just use these gift cards as regular gift cards. Go get some free money!

Want free easy travel? Southwest 50k offers are back

These cards are great to dip your toes into the points game. Spend $2,000 in the first 3 months and get 50k points. Although it says 2 free round trips, the points are directly converted into dollars so you are getting a value of around $900 worth of points.

For instance if I wanted to travel from LAX to PDX on Jan 24th to Jan. 27th, it would cost as low as $173 round trip. That is a great price already, but with one sign up bonus worth of points, I could make six round trip flights!

There are two brands of cards available: Premier and Plus. Both brands are available for both the personal and business card types. The big difference is the annual fee of $69 (for personal) and $99 (for business). Another difference is that the Premier will give you 6k points annual bonus for keeping the card a year (which is about $99 anyway) and the Plus gives you 3k (so it basically evens out).

Doing the final math after annual fee, you get about $800 worth of fares for free.

I have signed up for the Plus card because I already had the Premier and you can only get the bonus once.

Getting 2 versions is also a very good idea because of the companion pass that you can easily obtain. If you earn 110k points (including sign up bonus's) in one year, you can bring a companion with you at no extra cost each time you get a ticket. EVEN WITH THE POINTS YOU EARNED

Worried about being able to spend the minimum requirements? Look here for ideas to meet minimum spend. We will also be writing about the easiest method, using the blue bird card.

What are you waiting for, sign up for at least one of them!

Link to all 4 cards here

Sri Lanka: The Great Tuk Tuk Scam Number 2?

With my previous 3 destinations being full of food and adult beverages, I decided to give either my stomach or my liver a much needed break. (If I deprived myself of both, what fun would there be?) Luckily, Sri Lanka was my next stop, which I planned as my relaxing beach destination.

Some beach shots I took:

Beach side dining

Back of my hotel

Even though a random man asking me to marry a girl from his village did make the beach interesting, I realized that I had as much enjoyment as I could with the beach after relaxing there for an hour by myself. I decided to explore the area for the next two days.