Helping you and your family save money on your vacations to Disney and beyond
I’m taking a break from my Education of a Points Freak to talk about a real life award booking I just made for my in-laws. I find it’s easiest to learn how to book award space by just doing it. I’ve played around with a lot of dummy bookings, but it’s more fun to look for actual awards. Helping my in-laws book their upcoming trip to Asia helped spur me on to write this blog, so hopefully their itinerary will be helpful to anyone reading!
Once I became comfortable with the idea of applying for a bunch of credit cards in order to get the sign up bonuses, I started getting to know the various airlines out there. I don’t have time to travel all the time like the hardcore bloggers, plus when I first started I still was wary of applying for too many credit cards, so I wanted to consolidate miles into one or two programs to being with. It’s generally a good idea to have a lot of miles in one or two programs anyway, though diversity helps provide coverage if you travel a lot. I’ve gotten a feel for the pros and cons of a lot of the big airlines out there, both in terms of the product the airlines provide and their mileage programs. Being based in the US, I’m obviously more familiar with US carriers, so in the first post addressing this question, I’ll be focusing on the US legacy carriers.
When I started reading about miles and points, I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of terms and abbreviations that I was seeing. PNR? MQM? AAoA? I thought I was playing Diablo or something. So I’ve started a vocabulary page which I will try to continually update with new terms and abbreviations.
So if I ever say something or use a term that you’re not sure the meaning of, feel free to check out the vocabulary list here!
When my friend first told me about how he covered the costs of his honeymoon flight through points earned from credit card sign up bonuses, I naturally was skeptical. Shouldn’t that mess up his credit? How is a free flight, even in business or first class, worth that? Turns out I didn’t have a full understanding of how my credit score is calculated. As you can see from the above graphic, my credit score has stayed pretty steady despite all the new credit cards I’ve opened (three in the nine months before that last point in August). In fact, my credit score could probably still be considered excellent. So let’s take a look at how credit score is calculated, and how applying for credit cards affects that – both negatively and positively.
Everyone wants to feel like they are getting a great deal or travelling for next to nothing. That doesn’t mean, however, that becoming a “points freak” (as my wife calls me) is for everyone. Obviously, it’s not for people who don’t feel like bothering, but even amongst those who might be interested, it’s not always the wisest decision. So before one gets too far down the rabbit hole of miles and points, it’s important to ask – is accumulating miles and points for everyone?