Step One: Have a Goal
Step Two: Craft a Strategy
Step Three: Point Accumulation
Step Four: Search for Award Availability
Step Five: Book Flights & Hotels
First, let's recap the goal we covered in step one.
"You want to fly to Europe next summer in business class. You're flexible on the timing and the destination. You want to stay in decent hotels for a week. You currently have a great credit score, payoff your balance each month, and spend about $3,000 per month as a couple. And you want to minimize your cash outlay for the trip."
The easiest/fastest way to accumulate points and miles for a dream trip is through credit card sign-up bonuses. You can also pad your balances without getting on a plane by shopping online and dining out. I also recommend you sign-up for an AwardWallet account to keep track of your hard earned points and miles. But signing up for a handful of credit cards will be the fastest way to get your trip booked.
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| Park Hyatt Vendome |
Let's start with hotels. To earn 4 free nights in any Hyatt, (including the Park Hyatt Paris-Vendome) you and your spouse could both signup for the Chase Hyatt Visa Signature Card. The minimum spend threshold ($1,000) is very low and the annual fee is waived for the first year. Hyatt has a decent footprint throughout Europe so you'll have plenty of choice once you get to the point of actually planning your itinerary.
To ensure your other 3 nights are free, you and your spouse could each signup for the Starwood Preferred Guest Amex (email me if you'd like a referral) which will give you 25,000 SPG points after spending $5,000 in 6 months. The annual fee is also waived for the first year. Once you complete the minimum spend on both cards, you'll have 60,000 SPG points - good enough for 3 nights in a ton of properties all across Europe!
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| SPG's Grosvenor House Dubai - would this be on your list? |
Let's move on to Flights. First up on your list is the Chase Sapphire Preferred Guest card. You'll earn a minimum of 49,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points each (more based on bonuses) after meeting the minimum spend of $4,000 in the first 90 days. The annual fee of $95 is also waived for the first year. Ultimate Rewards points can be transferred to a variety of airlines (British Airways, Singapore, and United) so you'll have lots of options when it comes to actually booking your flights. Since you'll need more than 98,000 points here, you'll need to keep spending on this card. It is also very simple to combing points in one account. Next up is the United MileagePlus Explorer which offers 50,000 United miles after spending $3,000 in the first 90 days. The annual fee is also waived for the first year.
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| Andaz Amsterdam - great use of Hyatt free nights |
After each of you acquire both of these cards, completing the minimum spend, and spending $3,000 (of which 50% is dining/travel) on the Sapphire card for 3 subsequent months, you'll have 115,500 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points and 106,000 United miles. Since the Ultimate Rewards points can be transferred to United, you now have a total of 221,500 United miles!
To recap:
- You and your spouse each apply for 4 credit cards to prepare for your trip to Europe
- All annual fees are waived for the first year so there's a $0 cash outlay
- Total minimum spend is $26,000 so if you spend $3,000 per month it would take approximately 8-9 months to achieve the spend required for all the bonuses. If you are able to spend a bit more, you could go faster.
- When complete, you would have earned 4 free nights at any Hyatt in the world and 60,000 SPG points. You would also have 221,500 United miles.
This is just one example of how to take a dream trip for pennies on the dollar. We'll keep going with this example and dive a bit deeper into the mechanics of acquiring the points, impact on your credit score, how to stay organized, and earn extra miles through shopping portals and dining out!
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