Many people ask me how I maintain and obtain, a high point balance. I use my AMEX as a debit card and charge everything I can on it. Once a week I log into the account and make a payment. You would be surprised at what you can charge, and more importantly, what earns you the most points!! I get 2 points per dollar on every purchase, which increases to 5 times the points for flights and hotels. If you shop through the Delta Sky Miles link you will get additional points. So keep that in mind for the next big purchase. If you have to spend the money you might as well benefit from an airplane ticket or two:) You can view the Amex benefit card comparison by clicking here.
Last year my son and I flew to Italy, stayed at the Waldorf and then continued our journey to Egypt – all was done via points & miles. The roundtrip from NY to Rome was done on Delta miles by transferring points from my AMEX account. The hotel was booked through our Hilton points, and the travel from Italy to Egypt round trip was done through my Chase Sapphire Preferred Card – on the points I accumulated using the card.
Once you get used to the system, how to navigate through the booking, transferring points, etc you will be able to easily book these reward trips. Is it worth the effort you ask? The entire itinerary cost me about $400 (taxes on the tickets, landing fees) – if we had paid for the flights, we were looking at over $3000. The hotel would have cost for three nights over $1000. So, we saved more than $3500 on this trip!!!!!!!
My son loves to travel which has forced me to be super resourceful booking tickets. As tempting as it can be, I need to be smart with the points and stay away from looking at business class or premium on flights – the thing we do for our kids! (haha). While you may not have a full lay down seat you need to look at the bigger picture – saving points/miles on one trip probably means you can take another trip.
So, look at ways to maximize those points/miles. Here is a sampling of the usual expenses we have that instead of sending in a check or using our ATM, we now pay through a card that will give us a return:
- Down payment on a lease
- Daughters college tuition and expenses
- Son’s High School tuition
- Church monthly donations
- Car Payment
- Utility bills
- Gas
- Food Shopping
- Everything on Amazon
- Property Taxes!
- Phone Bill
- Cable
- All app purchases
Just based on getting 2 points per dollar to spent, I will accrue about 125,000 points a year. I am not shopping per se, but paying my bills smarter. And if you are a business owner, just imagine how many more points/miles you will get with your work expenses.
You would be amazed at how many points you can rach up just on your family expenses! Venmo now takes credit cards so I actually want to show my daughter’s landlord how to use it so I can get points on her college lease!
I cannot say enough good things about the Amex Platinum! However, when shopping for groceries and dining out I would use the AMEX GOLD card.
AMEX Platinum– I book everything travel using this card simply because you get 5 x the value in points. I also search AMEX offers and they have a great one with Amazon hence all things Amazon get purchased on these cards.
AMEX Gold- When dining out and on all supermarket purchases you will get 4 x the value in points. This is way better than the 2 points offered on the platinum.
You don’t automatically get the extra bonus points – when you log onto your account you must apply the card to the deals they are offering. There are some great bonuses here so spend some time taking a look. We found an offer for Waldorf Astoria and received a $300 credit in addition to gaining 5x our points on the stay!
In the end, there are a ton of necessary evil expenses and why shouldn’t you benefit! I am definitely not the best at this whole points world but I am learning. SOOO if you know of a great way to earn extra points please share in comments. I truly hope my tips help you with planning a great vacation or two;)
I challenge you to sit down and create a list of your monthly expenses. Do the math and see how many points you can accrue in a year. I would love to read about your findings so please leave in comments or head over to Instagram @comeflywithmenyc. I will share with my readers.
