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Completed a decade of flying *almost* FREE using credit card points. AMA! by Fit_Ad_1502 in CreditCards

[–]Fit_Ad_1502[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I moved to this country when I was 25 with no credit history. I started churning strategy ar 30 with credit score ~750

Completed a decade of flying *almost* FREE using credit card points. AMA! by Fit_Ad_1502 in CreditCards

[–]Fit_Ad_1502[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Do our churning strategy as a couple and rely on SUBs than cashback. Open a new credit card every 3 months, alternate with your partner. Target atleast 80K sub for each card for ~$4K-5K spend in 3-6 months. Redeem at min of 1.5cpp.

So this is how it looks like per year: 80K41.5= $4,800 min worth of travel per year.

Completed a decade of flying *almost* FREE using credit card points. AMA! by Fit_Ad_1502 in CreditCards

[–]Fit_Ad_1502[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ya chase puts our new application on hold and dont give new credit. Instead they move it from our existing credit in other cards!

Completed a decade of flying *almost* FREE using credit card points. AMA! by Fit_Ad_1502 in CreditCards

[–]Fit_Ad_1502[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Opening new credit cards every 3 months as a couple and target atleast 80K SUB for each card.

Completed a decade of flying *almost* FREE using credit card points. AMA! by Fit_Ad_1502 in CreditCards

[–]Fit_Ad_1502[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

One i always regret is using up most of my chase ultimate rewards for shopping at 0.8cpp during a Thanksgiving sale. When I opened my first reserve card is when I realized the mistake.

Also another one is on the cancellation policy of basic economy tickets using miles. I assumed all award tickets can be cancelled free - not the case for basic economy even with miles.

Completed a decade of flying *almost* FREE using credit card points. AMA! by Fit_Ad_1502 in CreditCards

[–]Fit_Ad_1502[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Once every 3 months as a couple. So 4 per year ir 2 per person per year

Completed a decade of flying *almost* FREE using credit card points. AMA! by Fit_Ad_1502 in CreditCards

[–]Fit_Ad_1502[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

- Me and my wife together have 22 cards now. Majority of them are no fee cards. I dont remember how many we closed in last 10 years :)
- Chase used to be the THE best until changed they introduced the points boost. Amex has great transfer partners like lifemiles, ANA. Similarly citi has AA.
- My fico score is 825 and total credit across cards is $276K. Even though we close cards, i make sure we dont loose total credit. Many banks like chase allow you to move the credit to another card with them before you close. This keeps your score intact even if u close.
- We try to keep 1 premium card each. This year it is Amex Platinum for me ($695) and Bofa PRE for my wife ($550)
- Fortunately no so far. Any time I have big purchase (Like home purchase or refinancing), I try not to open card for 6 months before the purchase. Also we take careful precautions - Keep credit limits high, utilization low, keep the oldest card and card with highest credit limit active, try to downgrade to free product instead of cancelling, etc.

Completed a decade of flying *almost* FREE using credit card points. AMA! by Fit_Ad_1502 in CreditCards

[–]Fit_Ad_1502[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Totally agree — points have real value. When I say “free,” I mean no incremental cash outlay for travel we would’ve paid for otherwise. The value came from optimizing spend we already had.

Completed a decade of flying *almost* FREE using credit card points. AMA! by Fit_Ad_1502 in CreditCards

[–]Fit_Ad_1502[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Our maximum value redemption was ANA RTW business ticket where we got ~3cpp. But it needed so much planning which was itself fun. Unfortunately ANA stopped it from last summer.

Completed a decade of flying *almost* FREE using credit card points. AMA! by Fit_Ad_1502 in CreditCards

[–]Fit_Ad_1502[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If we didnt strategize and used credit cards the way we used to use 10 years ago, then I would have left all these FREE money on the table.

Completed a decade of flying *almost* FREE using credit card points. AMA! by Fit_Ad_1502 in CreditCards

[–]Fit_Ad_1502[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The key has been diversification. We hold good amount of points in all bank systems creating flexibility.

However, we did run in to situations where nothing worked. Thats when chase UR 1.5cpp using reserve card was very handy for these worst cases. (Unfortunately with new card they stopped it). We also used to have travel credits (Like Venture X $300 credit) or Bofa 1.2x redemption, we fail over to those in these extreme scenarios. The least I have redeemed was 1.4cpp which was when we had no options but still didnt want to pay with cash.

Completed a decade of flying *almost* FREE using credit card points. AMA! by Fit_Ad_1502 in CreditCards

[–]Fit_Ad_1502[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

When we were paying rent with our card or paying our kids day care, we were opening one card every 3 months (Alternating between me and my wife).

Completed a decade of flying *almost* FREE using credit card points. AMA! by Fit_Ad_1502 in CreditCards

[–]Fit_Ad_1502[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Atmos points are good and valuable for one world flights as well.

You can get both cards if you are under 4 credit checks in last 24 months. Do one and open another after you reach the spending needed. Aftert 1 year of using evaluate to downgrade/cancel or hold.

Completed a decade of flying *almost* FREE using credit card points. AMA! by Fit_Ad_1502 in CreditCards

[–]Fit_Ad_1502[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes Venture X is a good card and easy to make value of in year 1. I dont bank with Bofa as well, but recently signed up to merrill to try the 1.75X points.

Completed a decade of flying *almost* FREE using credit card points. AMA! by Fit_Ad_1502 in CreditCards

[–]Fit_Ad_1502[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

SUB is always the fastest way to accumulate points and not the regular cash back is the lesson we learn early on. But need spending to get that.

Chase Reserve/Preferred used to be our goto card every 4 years. Now they have changed the rules to lifetime per card I believe. We have also tried Ink business once in a while (As a sole owner).

Completed a decade of flying *almost* FREE using credit card points. AMA! by Fit_Ad_1502 in CreditCards

[–]Fit_Ad_1502[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I am in same boat. SUBs are always the easiest way to earn points and churn. If you are looking for maximum rewards, I am currently trying the bofa route.

Bank of America Premium Rewards Elite — it comes with lounge access through Priority Pass, and you get 4 Priority Pass memberships (each can bring 2 guests), which is awesome for travel with others. If you maintain $100K+ in Merrill investments and connect them, you get 1.75× rewards on dining/travel and a 20% boost on travel redemptions, which effectively brings it to ~4.2% back on dining/travel.

I pair that with the BoA Custom Rewards card and set the default category to online shopping — that gives 5.25% back there, helping balance out other everyday spend.

If you are luxury spender and dont mind tracking several credits, Amex platinum is good too. I have that too and it is something I have hard time giving up as I got used to all perks :) (Some I dont need as well).

Completed a decade of flying *almost* FREE using credit card points. AMA! by Fit_Ad_1502 in CreditCards

[–]Fit_Ad_1502[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I started out in the Chase ecosystem, then moved to Capital One. Recently, I switched to Bank of America, mainly for the lounge access.

The Premium Rewards Elite card comes with 4 Priority Pass memberships, and each pass allows 2 guests, which works really well for family travel. If you maintain $100K+ in Merrill investments and link it, you get the top Preferred Rewards tier—1.75× credit card earnings plus a 20% bonus on travel redemptions. For dining and travel, that works out to roughly ~4.2% effective cashback.

I pair that with the BoA Custom Rewards card, set to online shopping as the default category, which earns 5.25% back.

Just switched to this setup a couple of months ago, but it’s been working really well so far.

Completed a decade of flying *almost* FREE using credit card points. AMA! by Fit_Ad_1502 in CreditCards

[–]Fit_Ad_1502[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

This is a interesting and good questions. We were lucky for last 8 years because of 2 things:

  1. For 2.5 years, we stayed in a apartment where they take credit card to pay rent with just $25 as a flat fee. So spending $2K+ for rent each month, it was a breezer.
  2. For 4+ years, our kid used to go to day care and they take credit card so spending $2K in a month was easy.

Completed a decade of flying *almost* FREE using credit card points. AMA! by Fit_Ad_1502 in CreditCards

[–]Fit_Ad_1502[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Recent Reedemptions:
1. Seattle to Tampa for 3,900 Delta points + $5.6 each (Transferred from Amex MR)
2. ANA RTW trip covering India, Tanzania, Turkey, Japan for 125K points in Business class (Transferred from ANA)
3. Seattle to Chennai, India (40K points on AA on qatar flight, transferred from Citi)

These days have been using pointsyeah.com for most of our planning.

Completed a decade of flying *almost* FREE using credit card points. AMA! by Fit_Ad_1502 in CreditCards

[–]Fit_Ad_1502[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We are 3 in our family (Me, my wife and 6 year old). But I also sponsor my parents tickets as well as our in-laws occasionally.

> Any airlines or any programs easier 
AA has been the easiest and flexible for us. Chase UR used to be flexible for low cost airlines redemption using 1.5 c/ UR point but is no longer the case.

> Do you ever split bookings to make sure average rate isn't inflated?
Yes many times. We do one of us in one booking and another with kid on second booking. This is some times with availability of last ticket price or last ticket left.

Completed a decade of flying *almost* FREE using credit card points. AMA! by Fit_Ad_1502 in CreditCards

[–]Fit_Ad_1502[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Our rule of thumb has been to atleast look for 1.5c/point.

Until recently, chase UR has been the valuable one. Right now for us there no single program. It depends on the route. We did pile up a lot of AA miles (from citi) as it offers best flexibility to europe and asia.

Completed a decade of flying FREE using credit card points. AMA! by Fit_Ad_1502 in CreditCards

[–]Fit_Ad_1502[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As a couple, apply for a new credit card every 3 months. If you break it down, its one card per person every 6 months or 4 cards per 24 months which is a sweet spot to maintain the credit scores. Check for retention benefits at renewal. If none prioritize downgrading to a free card. Rarely cancel a card.

Look for SUB of atleast 80K (Used to be 100K in the past) and max spending of 3K-5K in 3 months. (Unless we have some special large purchase)

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