For this year, 2014, I have the following goals:
- Spend $30,000 on my British Airways card for the companion pass and the 50,000 miles as part of the 100,000 mile sign up offer
- Max out quarterly categories efficiently to the Chase Freedom Visa and Mastercard, US Bank Cash+, and Discover
- Ensure none of my Visa Buxx cards are charged with an inactivity fee
- I have been snagged multiple times because I have a poor organization system
- Charge something monthly with my Lufthansa Miles and More card (affiliate link)
- Miles expire 36 months after acquiring, but if there is credit card activity every month miles have an infinite lifespan
- Find the best gift card arbitrage opportunities
What I can’t keep up with, but want to:
- Spend $24,000 on my US Bank Flexperks
- Although I just found out the $24,000 spend is the card member year and not calendar year
- Spend $30,000 on the American Express Starwood Preferred Guest again
- Spend at least $3,000/month on my Citi Forward at Barnes and Noble, because I’m not sure if I want all of the Thank You Points
- Spend $25,000 on my Chase United Explorer card for the bonus 10,000 miles while I am still a cardholder
I think the first point is going to be the most challenging because there has not been too many good gift card deals lately and the closure of Plastic Jungle + TCB makes gift card churning a little bit more expensive. I have been very lucky this month and last month finding Vanilla Reloads at CVS and that has helped a tiny bit.
What are your MS goals for this year?
Those yearly goals are significantly less than my average monthly MS. And it will all be negative net cost.
Paul – please give us some insights of your operation. I am at 30K a month and some already believe I work the nightshifts at CWS & WM 😉 My 2014 goal is to increase slowly my MS by factor 10 but I don’t see how to achieve that…
I think your goals are too low. Thats just a personal opinion.
I agree with you and Paul, it is a bit low. My difficulty is not having a car and no easy access to Walmart so everything is mostly done online and generally are negative propositions. I have to balance everything out per program in the year to MS.
Not doubting the commentors above have big MS going on, but it might be helpful to put into context of the number of duplicate MS products they are using (or listing the MS per SSN they are capable of). All I’m saying is that it’s a lot easier to get to big numbers if you have access to multiple BB’s (for example). Unfortunately, I do not have that sort of access right now, but can maximize what I do have to get to some pretty high spend levels and mileage/points balances.
Good point, but did you see MileageUpdate’s Twitter pic? The MS is jaw dropping
Thank you for this idea. When I first started MS I was super excited and I would get a hit of adrenelin whenever I was making a big purchase. As time wore on I started losing interest in MS because it became boring! I was just spending willey nilley with no real objective other than to earn points. Since this post I have made my own goals sheet and am excited about reaching those goals!
Here are mine: 30k on SPG for Gold Status, 25k United for 10k bonus, Max bonus cats on Cash+, Discover, and Freedom, 3k/mo for 8mos on Discover for $500 bonus, 50k on Ink, 6k on BCE, and 24k on Flexperks for a measely 3.5k bonus. A total of 134k MS. I probably won’t hit my goals for Ink and cats but they are there just in case.
Anyway thanks again for your idea and rekindling my MS spirit!
No problem, Thanks for stopping by and sharing your goals!