What is Manufactured Spending? Hint: It’s Not as Crazy as it Sounds

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What is Manufactured Spending?

In the Miles & Points world, there is this thing called “Manufactured Spending” that sounds really crazy and complicated, but it’s neither of those things when you really get to the heart of the matter.  Don’t get me wrong, lots of people go beyond the norm with their ManSpend efforts, but the average travel hacker can do this pretty easily as well. I have a job, kids, and a busy life.  Therefore, I can’t and don’t take it to the extreme.  I do participate in ManSpend to the Level 1.5 degree, I would say.  So what exactly *is* Manufactured Spending?

ManSpend** (as I like to call it when I’m feeling lazy) is essentially buying a form of “cash” with a credit card in order to get points/miles/rewards for said purchase. Normally we would attempt to get as many points/miles/rewards for the purchases we make everyday.  Like using online shopping portals for buying things, and using our credit cards where they get category bonuses.  What if you could purchase money, get your points for that purchase, and then use the money to pay off your credit card bill?  What if you could pay bills that don’t normally take credit cards (like mortgage payments) with your rewards-earning credit cards? That is the essence of ManSpend.

What are some easy ways to Manufacture Spend?

In this post,  I will go into detail about the methods that I personally use.  These are not top secret.  I have not been let in on any secret ManSpend societies (yet), and I pretty much stick with the basics because I am a wimp busy.

       1. Reload Cards

These are plastic cards that look kind of like gift cards and are on the gift card racks at places like CVS and Walgreens.  I like to think of them as the middleman, a place to ‘hold’ your money until you can get it into a usable form.  You purchase the Reload card (with your rewards-earning credit card), and then you have to move on to the next step before you can use your money.

My go-to reload card is called the Vanilla Reload, and I buy them at the local drugstore that starts with a C.  You are allowed to purchase $5,000 worth per day at that store, but I am never that desperate (not that there’s anything wrong with you if you are…or, on second thought…). I purchase them for one of 3 reasons: 1) I want to earn extra rewards on a certain card OR 2) I need to spend X amount of money in X amount of days to get a sign-up bonus 3) I want to pay a bill with a credit card & they don’t take credit cards.  The fee for buying this card is $3.95 no matter how much money you put on it, so it makes sense to ‘load’ the card with the maximum amount allowed ($500 per card).

So I bought my Vanilla Reload card at the store that let me use my credit card (a challenge for some to find stores like this)…now what do I do?

        2.  American Express Bluebird

Ok, so this should really be step one, I suppose. In order to access your credit card company’s money, you need to somehow get it away from the middleman (Vanilla Reload) and into your own grubby little hands (or to your mortgage company).  For this, I have an American Express Bluebird card.  There are 3 ways that you can get your very own Bluebird card (and you should if you are serious about this hobby):

  • You can purchase a Bluebird Account Kit at Walmart
  • You can order one online here (this is what I did)
  • Register through the Bluebird mobile app

You will be asked things like name, address, social security number, birthdate, email, user name, password, etc. Once you do the registration, you will get your card in the mail in about a week.  You then have to go online to activate it.  Note: you can only have one Bluebird account per person, but you and your spouse, parent, etc can each get one.

Once you have both your Amex Bluebird and your Reload Card (that you bought with your rewards-earning credit card), you “load” the money from the Reload onto the Bluebird by going to this website.  There is a scratch off silvery strip on the back of the Vanilla Reload (pretend you are playing the lottery!) with the code underneath it.  Put that and your Amex Bluebird number into that website and, viola! your money is available for you to use.

What can I do with my Amex Bluebird?

  • You can do online Billpay
  • You can send the money to your bank account
  • You can use it at an ATM to get cash (small fee)
  • You can use it as a credit card (why?)
  • You can use the money to pay off the credit card that you bought the money with

I usually withdraw it to my bank account and then pay bills with it (either the credit card or something like a mortgage or car payment).  You can load $1000 per day (up to $5000 per month) onto each Bluebird card, so it is limited.

       3. Amazon Payments

Are you familiar with PayPal? Amazon Payments is a similar concept.  You can send money to other people for goods & services. You can go here to sign up and learn more.  You will need the same information as for the Bluebird (name, address, social security number, date of birth, etc).  You can then set up your account with your banking information (for receiving your payments). You can pay another person using your rewards-earning credit card (up to $1000 per month).

 

          4. Buy and Sell Stuff

This method is definitely not for everyone, and I have only tried it minimally myself.  If you can find a really good deal on some items that you think you can sell for a higher price or break even (after fees), you can try re-selling those items on Ebay, Amazon, or Craigslist.  You can buy those items with your rewards-earning credit card, sell them & pay off the credit card with that money.  This can be somewhat risky because you may not be able to sell the items or make enough money to make it worthwhile.  I am planning to think about this a bit more when I have time, as I have sold thousands of things on Ebay (not re-sell things, but used) and have gotten pretty good at it.  I think I can use this method for some ManSpend when I have the time (wait, when will that be?!?!?!).

 

There are other ManSpend methods out there, and I will write more about them at a future date.  For now, I only wanted to write about my own personal experiences and not just things I have read about.

 

**Most in the Miles & Points world call it MS, but the real MS (Multiple Sclerosis) hits too close to home in my family for me to refer to ManSpend that way, so I just do my own thing, as usual.

The Ultimate Guide to Free Family Travel

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The Ultimate Guide to Free Family Travel – For the Rest of Us

AKA The Wannabe Business Travelers Guide to Never Actually Paying for Flights or Hotels by Earning Miles & Points the Hard Way

If you really wish that you were one of those business guys (or ladies…we are completely non-discriminatory around here) who gets to travel around all over the place on the company dime, putting things on their business credit cards and then getting reimbursed…well, me too.  Too bad for us that we decided to go into a human services field (oh, that’s just me?) and we have to earn our miles & points the hard way.  By not working.  Or maybe it’s the easier way actually.  Here are some non-business-y ways that we can go about earning our rewards so that we can travel for free just like the big guys (and girls).

Oh, and this guide is also to remind me about what I need to write about, so it’s kind of a rough draft.  If you can’t click on it, it isn’t written yet. You’re welcome.

LEVEL 1 Travel Hacking

(aka The Low-Hanging Fruit)

Definition: Targets or goals which are easily achievable and which do not require a lot of effort

 How to Travel for Free :

 Earn Free Travel for Doing Regular Stuff:

 

Stuff About Credit Cards:

 

Using Miles & Points We Earn:

 

 LEVEL 2 Travel Hacking

(aka Stepping Up Your Game)

Definition: improve your skills or talents

Manufactured Spending

I have the Credit Cards….now what?

  • Category Bonuses
  • How to meet Minimum Spend requirements
  • Should I cancel my card or keep it?
  • Retention Bonuses

Booking Travel..Tips and Tricks:

  • Airline Alliances
  • Elite Status

 

LEVEL 3 Travel Hacking

(aka You Are A Pro…You Do Not Need Me…Will You Please Adopt Me?)

 

 

There is a ton more, but we have to start somewhere, right?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to Travel For Free with Credit Cards (Part 2) – Sign-Up Bonuses

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 How to Travel for Free – Getting Miles & Points from Credit Card Sign-up Bonuses

The truth is, for a person (like me!) who needs to earn miles & points without actually paying for flights or paying to stay in hotels, credit card sign-up bonuses are the way to go. You can read the first installment to learn the basics about travel rewards cards (How to Travel for Free – Credit Cards - Part 1).  Once you understand the basic concept of what a travel rewards credit card is & how it benefits the person applying, you can decide how to go about building up your own stash of miles & points to use for planning your cheap trip.  In this second installment, I will discuss how I go about deciding which credit cards to apply for at any given time.

Step One : Analyzing My Current Credit Situation

Is my credit score good enough to support some credit card applications?  See my information here about understanding and checking your credit score and credit report.  I generally want to make sure that my score is over 750, knowing that it will dip a bit temporarily when I sign up for some new cards.

One thing that many people who follow this hobby tend to do with credit card applications is an app-o-rama (or AOR).  An AOR is essentially the practice of applying for multiple credit cards all on the same day.  The reason for this has to do with the fact that a new credit application gets reported to the credit agencies.  You can get turned away (even with a stellar credit score) for having “too many inquiries” recently.  If you apply for a bunch of cards on the same day, each of the credit card companies does not see the information about your other inquiries for that day.  I use this strategy, and it works for me.  Some in the hobby have a set schedule of when they will apply for new cards (something like every 90 days for a new AOR).  I don’t generally do it that regularly, but enough to have the miles & points in my accounts that I want to use.  Which brings me to….

Step Two : Knowing my Travel Goals

I like to keep a running list of places we want to go and dates when we can travel.  See here to read about how I plan our travel, in general.  Planning ahead really helps me to narrow my focus about what types of miles & points I need to work on accumulating.  For example, I knew that I wanted to plan a trip to Hawaii, and I was able to research and find out that British Airways miles would get me there.  I then applied for a British Airways Chase Visa Card, which had a 100,000 mile bonus at the time of my sign up (not right now, but these things change all the time).  That one application was enough to get all 4 of us to and from Hawaii from the West Coast.  I also applied for some hotel cards after researching which hotels we wanted to stay in once we were in Hawaii (here is one example).

Step Three : What are the best Credit Card offers at the time of my application(s)?

It helps to know what the current credit card offers are, and for this I always go to Flyertalk and/or Milepoint for my research.   Those people on the forums know everything there is to know about reward travel.  I like to read this specific Flyertalk thread to learn about the different sign-up bonuses that are being offered.  I also try to jump on any really spectacular bonuses that come along, as many of them are very limited as to how long the applications are available.  For example, last year I was able to get in on a 100,000 point bonus for the American Express Platinum card that was only available for about a day, which was a great deal for us!

Some tips:

  • My husband and I generally both apply for the same offers if they are really good, so we end up getting double the bonus points in many cases
  • We keep a spreadsheet with all of our application dates, how much the bonus is, how much we need to spend to get the bonus, annual fee (usually waived the first year, but I like to know what it is), and when the bonus points post
  • I continually evaluate and reevaluate which cards I have, which ones I’m keeping, and which need to be cancelled before the annual fee hits
  • You can often get the fee waived or an offer for a retention bonus when you call to cancel your card (more on that later)
  • If you are denied, you can call the reconsideration line to plead your case & this works for us 99% of time (more on that later too)

 

Just like we do, you can put your credit to work for you and save thousands of dollars in the process.  Free travel with credit card sign-up bonuses has become a way of life for us at this point!

 

 

 

Vacation Planning 101 : Where Should We Go?

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Vacation Planning 101: Where Should We Go on Vacation?

Some of the questions we are often asked are: Where should we go?  How do you decide where to go? How do you plan your vacations? This is a general process (Vacation Planning 101) that we follow when we are planning our trips:

1. Think about your travel goals and dreams

One person’s dream is another person’s nightmare, so these desires, goals, and choices are highly subjective.  I may say that my dream trip is an African Safari and you may have pachydermaphobia (aka fear of elephants). Just because I love to frolic lay around on a tropical beach somewhere does not mean that it should be a goal for you.  I hate the snow, so a ski trip (even if it involved the Swiss Alps or someplace else that sounds really dreamy) is not on my travel wish list, but it may be at the top of yours.  So start by thinking of the places or experiences (even if they are vague, like going to the beach) that feel desirable to you and your travel companions.  Heck, even get a pretty little notebook (or use a google doc spreadsheet if you are a geek and/or a man) and write them down. My list was too long for an average American lifespan, so I came up with this travel goal.

2. Think about when you can take your vacations

Depending on your work and life situations, hopefully you have a good sense of some times throughout the year that you are able to take a vacation.  In our case, we knew that summer would be a good time for us.  We are also able to take some days surrounding various school holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter) and can also plan some weekend trips as well.  Knowing that we almost always travel during “high” seasons (because kids are out of school and family-friendly destinations are in high demand), we know that we have to plan far in advance for our longer and more specific trips.  In general, we plan our longer summer trips over a year in advance.  We are already in the planning stages for Summer 2015 (I know…I know…).

Sometimes we know WHERE we want to go (like very specific places in Hawaii for 2014), and sometimes we know WHEN we want to go (for example, our 15 year wedding anniversary in the Fall).  With enough advanced planning, those two conditions combine and the WHERE and WHEN come together perfectly.  Other times, we decide on our WHERE based on our WHEN….flexibility with one or both of those aspects is very helpful in this case.

For example, I have not yet planned our 15 year anniversary trip (which is much less than a year away).  We don’t have our exact dates yet, so I will have some destinations in mind and plan the trip around what is available at the time of booking.  I am flexible with my destination, but will probably not be very flexible with the dates.

Another consideration is the weather in specific destinations during the times you are able to plan your trip.  If you want to go to a warm and sunny beach, but can only go on a vacation in November, you will be limited (within the USA) as to where you can travel in order to meet that goal.  Because we have the goal of visiting all 50 states, we will try to match the desired locations, dates, and historic weather conditions to make a trip that is desirable to us.

For me, this is the most exciting part of traveling (besides the actual vacation, that is).  I love looking through travel guides, reading travel magazines, and scouring the internet for ideas.  It helps to have a partially photographic memory, so I can remember most of what I have read even after reading for many hours about various different places. I like to talk to my kids about where they might want to go (New York City is the number one answer) as well.

3. Think about your Vacation Budget

If you are using Miles & Points to fund your travel like we do, then you will want to obsessively check your AwardWallet balances to see which of your programs are going to fund your next adventure.  Sometimes I even choose the vacation destination based on my Miles & Points balances & not the other way around.  For example, I have some credit cards where we get a free hotel night each year (after paying the annual fee, so “free” isn’t totally free).  I recently had a situation where the “free” night was close to expiring, so we chose to plan a weekend getaway based on that hotel night.

If I know that we are going somewhere specific, then I will plan my Miles & Points accumulation strategy in order to gain the Miles & Points that I might need for that specific trip.  For example, I knew that we wanted to take the Amtrak California Zephyr train and needed 25,000 Amtrak points, so I planned my earning strategies accordingly.  This does take prior planning if you have specific goals in mind & lack flexibility.  I booked that Amtrak trip well in advance and planned for the points many months prior to booking.

If you are funding your trip with that other currency, you know, money…then you have to set up a vacation budget and plan your trip within those parameters that are appropriate for your individual situation. Almost all of our travel is funded through Miles & Points, but I do also plan trips that we have to (gasp!) pay for, cruises for instance.  In these cases, it helps to shop around, and in this internet accessible era, this is easy to do.  There are countless websites out there that offer travel bargains.  Here are a few that I like and have used:

Here are a few that I have been planning to use (or have an upcoming trip booked), but don’t yet have first hand experience:

 

TIP:  Do not forgot to check your Shopping Portals as you are planning your paid travel.  I was able to get 7% cash back at TopCashBack for a Hotels.com booking.  There are many opportunities to get cash back for booking travel (for example, on TopCashBack click on the ‘Travel’ tab on the toolbar and you will see various places where you can earn).

Do you have any Vacation Planning 101 tips that you use to plan and dream about your next vacation?

How to Use Shopping Portals : A Tutorial

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Tutorial: How to Use Shopping Portals, Step-by-Step

As I wrote about in this post, I always use shopping portals to earn extra miles, points, or cash back when shopping online.  And I try to always shop online if possible, even when I do the in-store pickup (as you will see below).  I had some questions from readers about using the Shopping Portals, so I am going to give you the following step-by-step tutorial showing how to use shopping portals.  This is a demonstration of a purchase that I am making for my niece’s birthday (don’t worry, she will not read this & it will not spoil her dollhouse furniture surprise).

The Easy (Level 1 Travel Hacker) Way:

  1. Go to Portal Finder (ex. CashBackMonitor) – I start by using a portal finding website to decide which shopping portal I am going to use. I know it sounds like a lot of hoops to jump through, but it does become second nature after a while. I used to use EvReward all the time, but after reading this post by one of my favorite Miles & Points bloggers (The Frequent Miler, definitely check him out) I started comparing the accuracy of EvReward versus another portal finder – Cashbackmonitor.  Although I prefer the look of the EvReward website, I can force my eyes to deal with Cashbackmonitor for the sake of all things accurate.  Plus it only takes a few seconds before you are on your way to spending your hard-earned money at your chosen store.
    CashBackMonitor results for Kmart and Bank Rewards points

    CashBackMonitor results for Kmart and Bank Rewards points

     

    EvReward search for Kmart - was not accurate for UR Mall today

    EvReward search for Kmart – was not accurate for UR Mall today

     

  2. I clicked on Chase Ultimate Rewards – As you can see, Cashbackmonitor gives me choices for Cash Back, Airlines, Hotels, and Bank/Credit Card Points.  Your decision about which you want to earn will be based on your own needs at the time.  Sometimes I am scrambling to add extra miles to top off a particular balance & sometimes I just want to pad my pockets with extra cash.  This time, I chose the Chase Ultimate Rewards (3x per $1 at the moment) just because I felt like it

    Will Chase UR make me as happy as these people?

    Will Chase UR make me as happy as these people?

  3. The Shopping Portal (my example here is Chase UR Mall) will take me to Kmart (my chosen store for this purchase). It will look exactly the same as if I just typed in Kmart’s website, except magically behind the scenes in the web underworld, they will know that you clicked through the Chase UR mall to get your 3 extra points per dollar (don’t worry mom, they are not stealing your identity…probably).  This isn’t a huge purchase (sorry to my niece), so I will earn about 75 bonus points ($25 x 3 points = 75 points).  Plus the 1 point per dollar I would get for putting the purchase on my Chase Sapphire Preferred card.  Total = 100 Chase UR points. If I went directly to the store to buy the dollhouse furniture, I would earn 1 point per dollar for using my credit card, so I get an extra 75 points by doing it this way.

 

 

The Crazier, but still easy, (Level 2 Travel Hacker) Way:

This is what the crazy people (including me) do: In order to earn even MORE points/miles, you can sometimes go through the portal to buy a gift card (sometimes an e-gift card that will be emailed to you) for the same amount of money as your purchase. For the sake of simplicity, I went through the Chase Ultimate Rewards shopping portal:

  1. Went to Staples (2x points per $1) to purchase a $25 e-gift card that was sent to me by email (total = 50 points)
  2. Used my Chase Ink Bold card to pay for gift card because I get 5x points at office supply stores like Staples (total = 125 points)
  3. Went (via portal) to Kmart to make purchase using my gift card (chose in-store pickup, so no shipping cost) for 3x per dollar (total = 75 points). As an extra precaution (usually for a big purchase when I really want those points) I will make the gift card value to be less than the total so that I can pay off the remaining balance with my credit card just, just in case.
  4. The total in this example (which I actually did) is 250 Chase UR points (which I will probably transfer to Hyatt for an upcoming redemption I am planning).

 

 

Some notes & tips about using Shopping Portals:

  • Sometimes the payouts are much higher, and it becomes especially exciting with a large purchase (we got lots of points for our refrigerator from Sears & television from Best Buy).
  • I will usually go to the store website first if I need to browse around before filling my cart.  Once my cart is full, I close the window.  When I go back through the shopping portal, my cart (always, in my experience) has the items in it still.  Then I can just click right on the cart to complete the transaction.  It may be paranoid, but I don’t like to take the chances with all of the random clicking around I do when I am browsing through online stores.
  • It can take several weeks for points/miles to post, so don’t panic.  Just make a note to check your AwardWallet balances several a few times an hour a week to see if your points have posted.  There are times when people have to get in contact with the shopping portal because the points aren’t posting, but that has not happened to me (or I missed it if it did).
  • Sometimes you can use coupon codes (I usually do) and sometimes you can’t, you have to read the fine print
  • If you return the items, you will lose your points.
  • If you are going to order the e-gift certificate before your purchase, make sure you aren’t in a hurry because it can take time before the gift certificate is emailed to you.

Miles for Dining : Free Travel Basics

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Miles & Points for Dining

There is another easy way to earn Miles & Points – The Rewards Network Dining Program.  Similar to the Shopping Portals, you can earn Miles & Points for doing something that you would normally be doing anyway…eating!  In order to earn miles from this program, you sign up and register the credit card(s) you will use to pay for your restaurant bill.   You dine at one of the participating restaurants, and you earn the miles per dollar listed on their website.  You can also often get bonuses from time to time for signing up for the individual programs.

This is how it works:

Join a Rewards Network program

1.  Join.  The Rewards Network has many different frequent travel programs as partners.:

- Alaskan Airlines

- American Airlines

- Delta Airlines

- Hilton Hotels

- IHG Hotels

- Southwest Airlines

- Spirit Airlines

- United Airlines

- USAirways

Decide which of these you want to earn (hint: you can sign up for more than one, but see more info about that below).  Sign up here.  You will want to make sure that you already have a frequent traveler number for the program(s) you want to use (more on that here).  You will sign up by giving your information (name, address, etc).  You will also have to give the information for the debit and/or credit card(s) you plan to use to pay for your dining.

Here is one important part: Only register any of your cards for ONE program.  For example, you can’t use your SPG Amex for BOTH the Southwest Dining and the USAirways Dining.  You can sign up for both Southwest Dining and USAirways Dining, just make sure that you use 2 different credit cards when you join.

Eat at one of the Network Restaurants

2.  Dine.  You can search for participating restaurants by zip code, city, state.  I have found that there are generally lots of choices in my area and also in places where I am traveling.  I have also been surprised by points showing up in one of my frequent flyer accounts after dining at a participating restaurant without even knowing it was in the network.  All of the restaurants within the Rewards Network will be the same, no matter which frequent travel program you sign up with.  Some are available for points earning every day & some black out the weekends or other days.

 Earn Miles & Points

3. Earn.  After you dine and pay with the linked credit card (don’t forget that part, it’s important), you will get your points…up to 5 points per dollar.   I usually get an email right after the payment processes saying “thank you for dining at xyz” and asking me to leave a review.

At different times, the programs will have sign-up bonuses as well, so don’t sign up for every program right away.  For example, at the time of this writing, Southwest has a 300 mile bonus for signing up for their program and completing the dining requirements.

How to Travel for Free – Credit Cards (Part 1)

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How to Travel For Free – Credit Cards 101

This is the #1 question that people ask us.  How do you afford to take so many trips each year?  How do you travel so cheaply? Can I do it too?  Yes, you probably can.  It does take some time and effort to learn the basics, but once you start it can be hard to stop!  In this post I am going to talk this through for you newbies out there in the most step-by-step way that I can.  It will take more than one post to go over everything related to travel credit cards, so I will keep writing installments until I have bombarded you with too much information.  Please feel free to ask any questions & I will answer if I can.

What are travel credit cards?

First things first…what are we even talking about here?  What are these travel credit cards you are talking about all the time?  There are tons of different banks that issue credit cards (ie Chase, Citibank, US Bank, Barclays, and more).  They partner with different companies to offer many different types of rewards.  Do you ever go to a store & the cashier asks “would you like to save 10% on your purchase today by opening our credit card?”  Same idea, except instead of getting $30 off of your $300 TV, you can often get a thousand bucks worth of free travel for each card you get.

As an example, Chase Bank has airline cards from Southwest, United, and British Airways (yes, I have each of these cards at one point or another).  They also have hotel cards from Hyatt, Fairmont, IHG, Marriott, Ritz Carlton and Disney.  One of my favorite types of points to earn are the Chase Ultimate Rewards points & they have cards that earn these as well (Sapphire, Ink, Freedom).  All of these banks have relationships with the various airlines and hotels, plus there are other kinds of ways to redeem for travel as well (I will cover that in another post).

How do I get one of these rewards credit cards?

Finance is not my area of expertise, so I am not going to claim to know exactly how one person gets approved for a credit card and another doesn’t.  Obviously things like your credit score, income, and debts are calculated in some kind of super actuarial formula & you are either jumping up and down for your potential vacation or you are doing the credit card walk of shame.  Luckily we have been on the free vacation end of things.  What we do is pay our bills and have incomes.

Here are the things I should probably say:  pay all of your credit card bills in full, don’t jump in too quickly and apply for fifty million credit cards all at once, check your credit score before you apply, realize that an application drops your score by a few points temporarily; therefore, be mindful if you have something credit-y coming up soon like a refinance, new mortgage, or loan application.

You can find the different online applications for these cards all over the internet.  The important thing to keep up with would be the current bonuses for each of the cards that you are interested in.  They change often, and there are also different links to the same credit cards floating around at times.  For example, there may be a link (the thing you click on to get to the credit card application page) for an 80,000 bonus point IHG credit card.  There may also be a link for a 60,000 bonus point IHG card.  You will get the bonus points for whichever of the links you click on in order to do the application.  Obviously you would want the higher one.  There are some cases when you may want a lower bonus (if there is a lower minimum spending requirement, for example).  This will all be dependent on your individual situation.

What do I have to do to get the Points & Miles?

Sell your first born child?  Not quite.  All of the cards will have some kind of requirement you need to meet in order to get your big bonus.  Some are very easy (like getting your bonus miles after your first purchase of any $ amount).  Others are more difficult if you are not a big spender (like spending $5,000 within the first 3 months).  You have to make the judgement about whether or not you can fulfill the spending requirement, especially if you are applying for more than one card at a time.

Once you complete your spending, the bonus points will appear in the Frequent Flier/Hotel Loyalty account you created and added to your credit card application (see here about doing that) at some point – these can be posted at different points within your billing cycle for different cards.

In addition to your bonus points for signing up, you also get points per dollar spent.  Some cards have a set amount (like 1 point per $1 or 5 points per $1), and others have special categories (like 2 points per $1 for gas, groceries, etc).  Most will also give you lots of extra points for using their card for their own products (for example, my Club Carlson card gives me 10 points per $1 spent at their hotels).

Is this too good to be true? A scam?

We have been doing this as a hobby for over 10 years now, probably closer to 15 years.  While things have changed a lot (bonuses go up and down, minimum spends change), this has been working for my family for ages.  It is a real, legit thing.  The credit card companies are giving you all of these points and miles because they really want certain people to sign up for their cards.  That’s really the bottom line.

This is an example of some of the bonuses we have gotten over the years:

100,000 British Airways miles (redeemed to go to Hawaii)

100, 000 American Express Membership Rewards points

$1100 in free travel from Capitol One

50,000 Southwest Miles (times a few)

75,000 American Airlines miles (times a lot)

2 free nights at any Hyatt

2 free nights at any Hilton

2 free nights at any Fairmont

80,000 IHG points plus a free night every year

and so much more……

Please continue to follow, as I will add more posts to this series with more free travel tips!

 

 

Credit Scores and Credit Reports

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Credit Scores and Credit Reports – Some Basics from a Non-Expert

There may be times when you want to gather information about your own credit scores and credit reports, such as when you want to apply for a shiny new car travel rewards credit card.  I’m going to share some tips here about how to do that:

What is a Credit Report?

  • Your credit history compiled into a long-ass report (well, mine is long because I’m old and have needed a lot of loans to get through life so far)
  • It lists your loans such as mortgages, car loans, student loans, credit card applications, lines of credit
  • It reports about your bill paying history (pay your bills on time or else your report will call you out on this)
  • Has information about any need for a collection’s agency (and now that Victoria’s Secret credit card you opened in college & forgot to pay comes back to bite you in the butt)
  • How much your balances are and your available credit
  • I’m sure there’s more but I can’t remember
  • There are 3 credit reporting agencies: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion

How can I get a FREE copy of my Credit Report?

You should check your credit report every year because you get a freebie each year.  It’s important to check for inaccuracies so that you can have them corrected.

Go to : AnnualCreditReport because this is the official site for getting your free credit score.   There are others with similar names that will try to fool you, but this is the real one.  You don’t need to pay or give them any payment information to get this free report.

“Federal law requires each of the three nationwide consumer credit reporting companies – Equifax, Experian and TransUnion to give you a free credit report every 12 months if you ask for it. They also make it easy to accomplish many credit-related tasks right from your computer. Visit today to learn more”

What is missing from the Credit Report? 

Your actual Credit Score.  The little (or hopefully bigger) number you have been waiting for.  The one that you have heard of & compare with your friends like your SAT scores or your baby’s birth weight.

What is a Credit Score?

This is the number that represents your credit worthiness. From the mouth of the Federal Trade Commission itself:

“Ever wonder how a lender decides whether to grant you credit? For years, creditors have been using credit scoring systems to determine if you’d be a good risk for credit cards, auto loans, and mortgages. These days, other types of businesses — including auto and homeowners insurance companies and phone companies — are using credit scores to decide whether to issue you a policy or provide you with a service and on what terms. A higher credit score is taken to mean you are less of a risk, which, in turn, means you are more likely to get credit or insurance — or pay less for it.”

  • Your credit score will be a number from 300-850
  • FICO is the one most often used by companies, so that’s the one you want to know
  • Your credit score fluctuates constantly

From the research I have done, I have found that the determining factors for coming up with the FICO score are:

  • You payment history = 35%
  • Debt amounts = 30%
  • Length of Credit History = 15%
  • Having different types of credit (a good thing) = 10%
  • New credit = 10%

You will have to pay for your actual credit SCORE if you want to see what that number is.  You can pay for it through the credit reporting agencies (Experian, Equifax, TransUnion), through MyFICO, or through other types of credit monitoring sites (be smart about this though).

I have also found that some of the banks (US Bank specifically) will send me a copy of my score when I apply for one of their cards.

Weird fact: your score will not be the same across the board.  We have gotten scores that have ranged by 50 points depending on where the score is coming from.  Each of the credit card companies (banks) will pull your scores from their preferred agency, so your score will look different from, for example, Experian vs TransUnion.  It is much less straight-forward than you would think, so just make sure you pay your bills on time, have various types of credit, and keep your oldest credit cards open (preferably this would be with no annual fees).

How to get a Free Credit Score

I use both Credit Karma and Credit Sesame to get my credit scores for free (in addition to the above mentioned services).  Some people will argue that these are not as accurate as MyFICO, but they are useful (and free) tools to use for monitoring your credit.  It’s good to have lots of tools in your toolbox.

Does applying for new credit cards hurt my credit score?

Yes and no.  According to the MyFICO site, the drop in your score will be minimal and temporary when you apply for new credit.  If you are planning on going for a big loan like a mortgage, then you should hold off on credit card applications.  Otherwise, your score is just a number and doesn’t necessarily impact your life unless you are in need of a big loan (or you want to have something to brag about to all of your friends).  The benefit (for us…only speaking for ourselves here) of getting thousands of dollars worth of free travel is worth a temporary hit to our credit score when we have no big loan needs in the near future.

Shopping Portals : Free Travel Basics

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Free Travel Basics Painting

Do you ever buy things? How about shopping online? If you answered yes to either or both of those questions, and you are not using shopping portals, then you are leaving miles & points and/or cold hard cash on the table.  After you have signed up for your frequent traveler programs like I told you to do here, then this is your next step in earning miles & points for doing things that you would normally do anyway.

What are Shopping Portals?

Pretend you are shopping for a

very special Monster High doll that your daughter just has to have for Christmas.  You know about stores like Toys R Us and Target because, well, who doesn’t?  So you go to one of those websites and start shopping.  You buy the creepy doll for $24.99.  Done. If you added in just one simple step, you would get rewarded for making that same exact purchase.  This works with almost everything you can buy online!

Shopping Portals are websites that are kind of like online shopping malls.  They have lists of most online stores & you just have to click on the link to the store to get your reward.  The rewards can be, for example,  5 miles per $1 spent or 5% cash back.  You can search by categories in most of these Shopping Portals as well.  So if I am looking for a doll, I can look for “Toy Stores” and will be given a list of several to choose from.  The payout to you will vary from store to store and from portal to portal (a tip to help you with that is below).  The payouts also change frequently.  Sometimes there are amazing deals, like 30 miles per $1, which can add up to a lot depending on how much you are spending.

The Shopping Portals that we like to use give bonus airline points, reward travel points, or hotel points.  I also often use those that give cash rewards.  In fact, I just got an email yesterday saying my “Big Fat Check” for $18.56 from Ebates is on its way to me!  Hey, free money, I’ll take it!  So you go to whichever portal you will be using, find your store, click, and it takes you right to the store’s website.  You must be signed in to your portal (so you will sign up, just like you did for the frequent traveler programs – you just need an email address, mailing address, name) to get your reward.

Here are some of the portals that I use on a regular basis. They have all worked for me & I have successfully gotten my points/miles/cash from them:

Shopping Portals For Travel Miles & Points:

American Airlines:  Aadvantageeshopping

Amtrak : Amtrak Shopping Mall

Southwest: Rapid Rewards Shopping

United: Mileage Plus Shopping

USAirways: Diviend Miles Storefront

Shopping Portals For Cold Hard Cash:

Mr. Rebates: My Link

Big Crumbs: My Link

Ebates: My Link

TopCashBack: My Link

The cash back sites send your money to you in various ways.  Some pay out quarterly by sending you a check in the mail for your amount for that certain period of time & others will send money to your PayPal account.  I have successfully used all of these, some for several years, and have been getting paid (or rewarded with points) for almost every single purchase I make online.

TIP: If you don’t mind adding one more click to your online shopping spree, you should check EvReward first to see which Shopping Portal has the highest payout for each store.  For example, if I wanted to shop at Target I would go to EvReward and type in “Target” in the search box.  It will tell me (at the time of this writing…these things change) that Target is offering 3% cash back from Big Crumbs, 2.5% cash back from Ebates, 3% cash back from Mr. Rebates, 2 miles per $1 from American Airlines, 4 miles per $1 from Amtrak, etc, etc.  Then I can make my choice about which Shopping Portal to use by clicking on it.

 

Happy Shopping!

Travel for Free: The VERY Basics

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Free Travel Basics Painting

How to Travel for Free (or Cheap)

The #1 question that people who know about our travel habit ask is….how??? They know us, so they know that we are NOT rich, do not have a trust fund & have never inherited any money.  And yet we have been able to take month-long vacations to Hawaii, go on cruises, and spend LOTS of nights in hotels each year (I haven’t tracked exactly how many, but I am starting…now!).  How do we travel for free?  Or, more accurately, for a fraction of the cost of actually paying for a vacation? The answer to the question is Miles & Points.  Of course, it is much more (and kind of less) complicated, depending on how much background knowledge you have about credit card bonuses, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty programs, and cheap travel tricks.  I am constantly learning new things, and using old tricks to travel for free that I have been using for many years.  My plan is to have all of the details on this blog so that you can follow them, try it yourselves, or just continue to think that we are nuts (I prefer passionate, but we are OK with being nuts too).

There are tons and tons and tons of great blogs out there that are very detailed and, some would say, like speaking another language.  As you read more and become more familiar with this whole free travel world, it starts to become easy to absorb.  My goal is to start from the beginning and write this for you, my friends who are total newbies (you know who you are) and are just branching into this world of free & cheap family travel.   I promise it is not as complicated as it may seem at first.  You only need a few things: time, an internet connection, and a good credit score.  Ready? Here we go!

Sign up for frequent traveler programs

1. You need to sign up for various frequent flyer programs (ie American Airlines, USAirways, United, Southwest, Frontier, British Airways, etc). There are a ton of them out there, so start with the ones that you actually use, keep it simple until you get more hardcore about your travel obsession.  You can sign up, for free, on each of the websites.  Each of the airlines has a cute name for their frequent flyer programs (for example, Southwest’s program is called Rapid Rewards), so just look for it on the webpage and sign up. If you need help with this part, you may actually need to stop here and rethink why you are reading this blog (except for you Mom, I will help you with this part later).

 

Use AwardWallet to keep track of all of those pesky numbers

2.  But how will I keep track of all of these numbers and passwords? I use AwardWallet to track everything.  It is free and really easy to use.  You can even put your Sephora Beauty Insider frequent shopper number in there to track your points!  Oh, and any other things that may be important to you, like groceries and gas.

 

Use them….

3.  Please, please, please, I beg of you to USE your frequent flyer numbers when you are booking your flights.  We have some family members who will remain unnamed (you know who you are & will probably never actually read this anyway) who take multiple flights per year to visit other family members on the other side of the country & they never even get miles for doing it! I cringe!

 

Rinse and Repeat…

4. Repeat the same process for the hotel programs that you use (Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott, Club Carlson, IHG, etc).

Ok, I’m proud of you guys!  That was a good place to start.

See here to learn about the next step toward your new free travel hobby.