With a change of strategy and a few tweaks, you can revamp your credit card points to reap major award travel to your dream destinations.
You’ve been putting every purchase on your airline credit card for months, and now, you’re ready to take that trip to Paris. You call to book flights for your family of four, only to find there’s no available award inventory.
Hours later, you’re still empty-handed, having only determined that while you have enough points for two tickets, the paid seats on the same flight are way beyond your budget. You feel like there must be a better way to wrangle points, but you have no idea what it is, only that the whole endeavor seems inordinately complicated.
Guess what, weary would-be traveler? You’re right. There IS a better way. And it IS really complicated. But there’s hope.
Enter: Trent Swanson, aka “MilesHusband,” a travel-loving IT consultant who has turned his hobby of maximizing credit card points for lavish, low-spend family trips into a side gig to help others find their way through the morass of award travel planning.
The moniker was bestowed on Swanson by his wife and travel partner, writer, and former CNN anchor, Daryn Kagan, who embraced her spouse’s enthusiasm for parlaying every dollar spent into maximum points. When others took note of the family’s adventures–like their flight to Singapore complete with an 11-course lunch and a double bed suite for an out-of-pocket cost of $35 each–business was born.
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The guiding principle of Swanson’s success is quite straightforward: there is no one-size-fits-all approach, no single credit card that best serves all. Individualized planning, he says, yields maximum results. So what does that mean, what are his top tips, and can he help you?
The Four Questions Lead the Way
Getting the best trip out of your points requires getting the right points in the first place and then knowing when to book, says Swanson. To do that, you need to address four questions: Which continent are you going to? How many are traveling? What class of service do you want? What time of year are you going? The answers determine which credit cards you should be using.
Destination Matters Most
Above all, “the destination drives everything–the planes that fly there, which loyalty programs are partnering with the operating plane, which bank issues the points,” says Swanson. As a starting point, “figure out which airlines fly to the cities you want to go to. Different routes give you more options to use your reward points.” Try Flightconnections.com and Google Flights to see all the ways to come and go from a city.
All Points Are Not Created Equal
Understanding the difference between the two types of credit card points is critical. They are either bank points (like American Express, Chase, Citibank, and Capital One) that can be transferred to specified partner airlines, or airline points, earned on credit cards afflicted with a specific carrier.
To travel on a certain airline, you have to earn the currency–points–of that airline’s reward program. “The two ways to do that are through the airline loyalty programs and the banks that transfer to them,” Swanson says. For example, you can earn with a Delta SkyMiles Amex credit card. Or you can earn straight Amex points with a green, platinum, or express gold card and then transfer them into your Delta account. In general, bank points are the wiser choice, offering more flexibility with numerous airlines.
However, many people have a strong allegiance to a certain airline, particularly if the city where they live is a hub, and therein lies a common misstep. Accumulating points tied to only one airline is often a mistake, says Swanson. The airline might not service your intended destination, for one thing. Or it might not be getting you the most bang for your buck.
For example, most Delta Amex cards earn one point per dollar spent, he explains. “Even if you wanted to fly Delta all the time, you could put that Delta Amex in your sock drawer and instead use an American Express Business Blue Plus card. Every dollar you spend on that earns two points, and you can take those and transfer them to your Delta account. Suddenly, you’re doubling your stash with zero effort.”
Schedule in Advance, Even Last Minute Trips
“The best time for most people to redeem the award and book travel is at the very end of the award inventory release schedule, which is between 11 and 11 and a half months in advance,” says Swanson.
Last-minute deals, where the top luxury experiences reside–think caviar and Dom Pérignon in a private suite complete with shower–likewise require a willingness to commit to a certain time frame. “Airlines release premium cabin inventory between zero to three days prior to departure,” he says, noting that this is the biggest growth area of his trip booking service: “customers wanting to fly the very best first class.”
Earn Before You Burn
But before you can consider booking, you need points to work with. “You have to earn before you can burn,” says Swanson.
While credit card sign-up bonuses are a common way to earn points, Swanson points to online shopping portals as an often untapped source of heavy-duty points. He recommends cashbackmonitor.com to find bonus miles offered for every dollar spent.
A recent scenario demonstrates the no-brainer reason to portal shop. When Kagan needed new contact lenses, Swanson discovered that the Capital One portal was offering 40 points per dollar spent. He purchased the year’s supply she intended to get anyway, but doing it this way resulted in 40,000 Capital One points he can transfer to an airline account for a future trip.
Help Is on the Way
If you’re intrigued but want some guidance in revamping your points strategy, Swanson can help. Along with sharing the latest deals and hacks on MilesHusband social media, Swanson can work with your existing points to book your trip, finding ways to get you where you want to go when you are struggling. He also offers a coaching package that includes four strategy consultations and one international trip booking over the course of a year. Notably, unlike most points bloggers and marketers, Swanson has no affiliate partnerships, preferring to recommend only what he considers optimal. His online tips are free; his individualized services are fee-based.
The time to start is now. As Kagan says, “Planning doesn’t start the day you’re booking the trip. It starts the day you start dreaming about the trip.”