Stepping Up the Game, My Next Churn!

What's better than going to the airplane bathroom to change into PJs provided by the airline and coming back to your seat that has magically transformed into a bed?

PJ's received from my Cathay Pacific First class

Seat turned into a bed with down comforter!      

Sending your parents on that trip instead! As you can guess, it will cost me a good portion of my accrued miles, but hopefully it will be enough for them to finally stop bringing up the time I tried changing the grades on my report card in high school.

To keep my points balance at a reasonable level, I will need to do another round of applications. These are the ones I've signed up for and where I'd like to eventually spend them:

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

Triple Card Update: Meeting the Minimum Spend

A little over a month ago, I signed up for three cards and I had to meet a minimum spend of $2,000 in two months and $4,000 in three months.

I managed to "spend" $6,000 in less than two months, and I was able to secure the sign up bonuses of 50k Southwest Rapid Rewards points and 80k American Airlines AAdvantage points.

Everyone should know by now that I don't work hard enough to earn an income that lets me spend that sort of money. And if I did, I wouldn't be involved with a blog that centers on affordable travel.
Luckily for me, Vanilla Prepaid Reload cards exist to help meet the minimum spend requirements.

Southwest 50k points back!

Deals We Like has posted that the Southwest 50k Rapid Reweards points after $2,000 spend in 3 months credit card is back. Remember if you applied to one already, you can still apply to the other 3 cards since they are considered different products. I will be applying to another one myself.

Check our more detailed info on the card below!

Southwest Rapid Rewards Card

Southwest Valentines Day Sale!

 


For those brave few in a long distance relationship, or those who just want to get the hell away from a certain someone, Southwest is having a valentines day sale! Valid only on non-stop flights and only on Feb. 14th(Valentines day for those unromantic ones). Maybe you can surprise that special someone! Deal ends Saturday Januaray 12th 11:59.

 Link below:

Southwest Valentines sale

When Does a Mile Not Equal a Mile?

The biggest misnomer we'd like to clear up is the term "mile" or "point". It's forgivable if you believe that when you earn a 50,000 mile bonus, you're able to fly that many miles. Unfortunately this is not the case. (If that was true, you could fly around the world twice with that single sign-up bonus.)

The terms "mile" and "point" are interchangeable and it just depends on which reward program you're talking about. The key to understanding the term is to think of miles/points as a currency, and not distance. If miles/points are a currency, how much are they worth?

Redeeming Your Points (Part 1): Introduction and Southwest Airlines

You've signed up for a credit card, completed the promo to earn the bonus and you are now ready to unleash the point beast to do your bidding and spirit you to faraway lands.

Whether that point beast is a demure little thing that makes it easy for you to plan your trip or a too-high of a level Pokémon that ignores you when you need it most (I'm looking at you, Charizard!), is completely dependent on the program from which you are redeeming.

Some are fantastically user-friendly and easy to redeem while some are notorious for their limited seats/schedule.

This is the first of a multi-part series on point redemption; this post will focus specifically on my experiences with Southwest Airlines.

Chase Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Card

Chase Southwest (SW) Airlines Rapid Rewards Premier Card is probably the best card for the beginner since the card user (you) has the fewest hoops to jump through to get your points.

What you need to do:

1. Spend $2,000 within three months.
2. Pay the annual fee ($99)
3. Annnnnd... that's it.

What you get:

• 50,000 Rapid Rewards points, which is approximately two round trip tickets.
• Anniversary bonus of 6,000 points every year. (which is basically the annual fee in points)