There are two traits needed  if you want to excel at booking free airline award tickets and hotel rooms on points. The first is the knack for planning in advance sometimes up to an entire year. The second trait is the opposite: the flexibility to take advantage of spur-of-the-moment opportunities like booking a trip at the last minute within weeks or even days of departure.
London and Paris are two of the most popular European cities and so close it is very easy to visit both in one trip. They have history, architecture, and nightlife to offer tourists. And they have another thing in common. They are very accessible from several frequent flyer programs.
Do you know where you’re going on vacation this year? Now is the time to start planning!
As an avid collector of miles and points, it won’t take long before you notice something: frequent program devaluations. Changes to award rates happen occasionally in some programs and all too often in others. You’ve got to be aware of what’s going on in the loyalty travel market so you can best utilize the miles and points you’ve earned.
Among travel hackers, elite status is a badge of honor. For business travelers, it’s a reward for miles logged and a key to sanity via upgrades and special treatment.
If your imagination were the only limit, where would you go?
A secluded island getaway with private access to a crystal clear lagoon from your glass-bottom villa floating over the warm tropical water?
According to Conde Nast Travelers 2013 Readers Choice Awards, the prettier-than-a-postcard private islands in the Maldives are a dream getaway for many people:
“Our readers found this island nation to be the epitome of “rest, relaxation, and indulgence,” citing the “polished, polite” service, the “gorgeous resorts” and the “superb villas.”
Diving into the “turquoise water,” lounging on the “white sands,” and dining under the “incredible sunsets” make the Maldives experience “more picturesque than postcards can portray.”
So, let’s dream that dream for a second.
Though a pampered Maldivian vacation sounds like something you might win in a contest on the radio, you can make it happen just by living your normal life with a simple plan and two well-chosen credit cards.
Only two
Some truly luxurious airlines, including Emirates, Turkish, Etihad, Singapore Airlines, and Cathay Pacific, fly to the Maldives. However, none of them have good co-branded credit cards for Americans. Opt for a card that allows you to transfer points to these airlines, whether through another airlines frequent flyer program or directly from your credit card.
The main three transfer programs Chase Ultimate Rewards, American Express Membership Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest have a variety of cards to choose from, as do the major airlines. You’ll start with 30,000 free Delta miles with the American Express Gold Delta Skymiles, 30,000 American Airlines miles with the Citi Premium Select American Airlines AAdvantage Visa Signature, and up to 100,000 Avios with the British Airways Visa Signature Card.
For your hotel nights, you have many options for booking with points. Indulge all the way with princely, private villas starting at 30,000 points per night at the W Retreat & Spa Maldives and the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island by Hilton, two of the country’s most luxurious resorts. Or experience more laid-back luxury at the Sheraton Maldives Full Moon Resort & Spa, Holiday Inn Resort Kandooma Maldives through IHG, and the soon-to-open the Radisson Plaza Resort Maldives Naagoshi.
Sign up for the card that goes with your dream hotel:
Blogger Andrea Rotondo checked this dream trip off her bucket list using points and miles.
Through most programs, you’ll need 80,000 points for an economy ticket and 120,000 for a first or business class ticket (which is what you would want on a dream vacation, right?).
In most cases, you’ll start out with 60,000 hotel points and 30,000 airline points for signing up for those two cards. Let’s say you’re going away for a week. That’s long enough to forget that any other world exists beyond your tropical breakfast served on the mirror still waters of the lagoon.
So, you’ll need 120,000 points for your flight and somewhere between 120,000 and 300,000 hotel points depending on how splashy your vacation will be.
How do you get them all?
Look at your credit card, debit card, and cash spending for one year:
Say you’ve got $3,000 spending per month or $36,000 for the year, with half that in categories that earn extra points. You can easily earn around 54,000 points in one year.
You can earn extra points in so many ways:
Bonus points on spending. Most cards have a quarterly offer for anywhere from 5 to 15 points per dollar on spending in certain categories.
Point exchange bonuses. Last December, American Express offered a 35% bonus on transferring points to Virgin Atlantic, which transfer to double Hilton points.
Paying rent with points. Unless you completely own your house, your biggest expense if probably your housing. Amazon Payments allows you to pay rent with a credit card so you can earn points.
Paying your mortgage with points. If you have a mortgage another huge expense that seems like it must be paid in cash check out ChargeSmart, a website that allows you to pay your mortgage and home-related expenses with a credit card.
Making basic purchases through shopping portals. Everyone knows that you can buy practically anything on Amazon these days, but you can also find pretty much anything you’d buy online through point shopping portals, where you earn up to 12 times normal points buying goods and gift cards for popular brands.
With the right reward cards and a little diligence, you can amp your reward earning up to 100,000 points per year.
Add in sign-on bonuses (about 90,000 points) and in two years, you’ve got nearly 300,000 points! More than enough for a week in paradise.
I want to tell you a little secret about the airline industry.
About booking flights in particular.
Shhhh…come closer.
The best time to book flights is not when the inventory first loads!
I know, it’s so counterintuitive you don’t believe me.
It’s no secret that credit card sign-up bonuses are the fastest and easiest ways to earn miles and points. However, opening up a dozen credit card accounts is fraught with problems if you’re not organized. Playing the points and miles game is only a good idea if you have excellent credit (730 or higher), you pay off your credit card balances monthly, never miss a payment and are organized enough to keep track of annual card renewal dates.
Ever since American Airlines has come out of bankruptcy, they can’t stop talking about the new American. New planes! New amenities! And now: a host of new routes, hubs, and aircraft courtesy of the American Airlines-US Airways merger.
This is the ideal time of year to donate to your favorite charities. The holidays are upon us and it’s natural to give thanks for all we have and to want to help those who are less fortunate. Many nonprofits could really use an infusion of goodwill as the year comes to an end.
With Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday behind us, you just can’t hide. It’s time to do your holiday shopping. For miles and points hounds, picking up stocking stuffers and more expensive gifts offers a lucrative opportunity to earn rewards.
When I worked in a university, it was always a game of chance making holiday travel plans. Our office almost always closed the week between Christmas and New Year’s, but you never knew for sure until less than a month before, too close to book reward tickets without a fee. I traditionally ended up on a short holiday trip followed by a staycation during the office closure.
Unfortunately for reward travelers in America, the days of zones when you could hop to nearby states on a couple thousands airline points are over.
What would you do with 12,520 pudding cups?
After finding out Healthy Choice was offering 100 frequent flyer points for every product barcode sent in, the father of travel hacking, David Phillips, figured out what was the lowest-priced bar-coded item he could buy (pudding cups for $0.25) and bought out every store in his state.
There are dozens of ways to earn frequent flyer miles and hotel loyalty points. Setting out on an actual trip is the most conventional way to earn miles and points. You earn frequent flyer miles for taking a flight, but you can also actually earn bonus miles for car rentals and hotel stays as well.
Even if you’re new to earning miles and points, you’ve probably heard people talk about Bluebird as a way to boost earnings potential. It solves a major problem: how to accrue miles and points when paying bills with merchants like your landlord or mortgage company that don’t take credit cards.
How about earning miles for your morning coffee and bagel or dinner out with friends? Enroll in the dining rewards program for your favorite airline and get up to 5 miles per dollar spent.
Isn’t it frustrating when you’ve got a monthly expense or a personal debt to pay and there’s no way to do it other than personal check? You won’t earn miles or points on those transactions and they can add up to a huge loss of rewards over time. What if there was a way to pay the maid, babysitter, or even your landlord and earn miles and points?
American Airlines does not allow stopovers on domestic award tickets, but does permit them for international travel. I live on the west coast and often use the rule to my advantage to squeeze in a stopover on the way to a foreign destination or to book one leg of a bonus trip on the way back from overseas travel.
I’ve traveled extensively since 2006 when I first discovered the power of frequent flyer miles and hotel loyalty program points. I’ve become the envy of my friends and colleagues who continually ask about the exotic destinations I visit on a regular basis. They are also always intrigued when they hear that it only costs me a few dollars to make these trips and they want to know how they can replicate my success.
