How we earn between 1.7-2.2 million points per year
Points and miles helped us travel to over 9 places last year, including Portugal in October!
Background
As we’ve talked about before, we’re firmly in the middle of the middle class. We’re aren’t living paycheck-to-paycheck, but we aren’t rolling in the dough either. We aren’t just frugal by nature, we’re also frugal because we have to be! However, our love for travel has always been deep, so we had to find a way to take money out of the equation. Well, that’s not really possible, unless you want to go full-on hobo-style travel. However, assuming that’s not the brand of travel you’re interested in, you are going to need some money for travel. However, we discovered over a decade ago, because of points and miles, you don’t need as much as you think you do, when you make your two biggest travel expenses - airfare and lodging - virtually free!
Over the past 4 years, we’ve earned between 1.7-2.2 million points each year. Come find out how we do it each year!
Credit Card Sign-up Bonuses
The vast majority of our points come from credit card sign-up bonuses and it’s not even close. For example, we earned 1.2 million points last year from sign-up bonuses, by opening the following cards between both Courtney and me (and even one with the help of my dad!):
2 AMEX Business Platinums (300k)
Citi AAdvantage (65k)
AMEX Hilton Business (165k)
AMEX Hilton Basic (100k)
US Bank Business Leverage ($750/75k)
Capital One Venture X (75k)
Barclays Aviator Red (75k)
Chase Ink Business Cash & Unlimited (165k)
AMEX Marriott Business (125k)
AMEX Delta Gold Business (70k)
Our typical velocity (how frequently we open up cards) is a new card for each of us every 2-3 months. However, with both of us opening cards, that can range between 8-12 new cards each year total (so, were a bit higher in that range last year). We’ve already slowed down a bit so far in 2024. You have to go at a speed that is comfortable for you!
Spending on Credit Cards
Although our primary source of points each year come from credit card sign-up bonuses, that doesn’t mean we don’t value the points we get from actually putting spend on those cards! The last 2 years, we have averaged earning 300k points each year this way. Although a majority of this is everyday spend (any expenditure that doesn’t incur a fee to use a credit card is going on one!), we also do a decent amount of purchases for buying groups to supplement.
Referral Bonuses
There are a lot of credit card issuers (like American Express, Capital One and Chase) that reward you for referring their credit cards to friends and families. We earned almost 400k points this way in 2023. Although we are at a definite advantage, since we have several referral links on our Recommended Cards page, the reality is that almost half of our referral points actually came from Courtney and I referring each other (the biggest being the 80k points that came from referring each other to Chase Ink cards!), so don’t discount the value here!
Shopping Portals
We’ve talked pretty extensively about the power of shopping portals before, so I won’t rehash that again. However, further evidence of that power is in the fact that we earned over 140k points from shopping portals in 2023 alone! Our largest sum of points by far was the American Airlines Shopping Portal at 100k miles, and then Rakuten with just over 20k AMEX Membership Rewards points, with the Wyndham & Southwest Airlines shopping portals following closely behind.
Actual Travel
I know. What a novel idea. :)
Although we use points and miles for a majority of our travel, we do earn the occasional points for work travel and any travel we book using the 35% benefit for Pay with Points that comes with the AMEX Business Platinum, or flights booked with a travel portal, when the cash price is a better deal than the award price.
In 2023, we earned about 53k points this way, primarily from American flights and Hyatt stays (benefiting from their dual accrual partnership as well!) as well as maximizing special bonuses (like Hyatt’s Bonus Journeys offers).
Miscellaneous
There are some random ways that we earned another 13k points or so.
For example, we earned about 5k AA miles using the Simply Miles platform for purchases that we were already planning on earning. We earned a little over 1k miles from various dining programs. We earned 4k Bilt points from playing trivia and our Lyft rides throughout the year. In addition, we earned 3k points through connecting our Uber app to Marriott, booking Airbnb’s through the Delta/Airbnb website, etc.
Totals
Last year we earned approximately 2.1 million points/miles. This was about on track with what we earned in 2022 (2.2 million).
Your travel goals, budget and time investment are different than ours, so your miles accumulation will look different than ours. Just use this as a tool to help you open your eyes to other potential ways you can earn more points and miles each year! However, it’s always a beneficial exercise to tally the points you’ve earned and make sure it aligns with your earning strategy and travel goals!
