Introduce yourself here!

DrDoctor

Level 2 Member
Hello, I'm DrDoctor - I lived in MA for almost 4 yrs and now we're moved back to Europe, but I still frequently fly transatlantic due to business. We've had to build up credit quickly to start to apply for CCs, including business CCs, but I think we've been pretty successful. We're traveling with two small kids.
 

mlick41954

Level 2 Member
Hello all, my name is Matt. I am just starting out with this fantastic hobby and trying to learn as much as possible. I have always used credit cards responsibly and thought the whole points/miles thing was just a hassle. Until I gave it a try and the bonus points from my first Chase card paid for our flight to Disney World. Now my wife and I are all in and can't wait to see where we go next.
 

Derptrader

New Member
Hi all, I moved to Seattle from Auckland, New Zealand in early 2015 and have been in the miles and points hobby since then.

Always been on the sidelines browsing and learning, but finally decided to sign up on this forum. Looking forward to contribute my knowledge to this forum and learn from everyone here!
 

cheztir

Level 2 Member
Hi everybody, been in this hobby for about a year or so now (got in right after redbird died so I'm sad I missed that). I'm situated in Tennessee, which creates it's own unique obstacles for travel but comes with some other nice perks.

Looking forward to some interesting discussions and learning a lot!
 

Disneydad80

New Member
Hey everyone, my name is Ron and from Conneticut. I'm married with 3 kids (ages 7,5,2) and I love to travel especially the Orlando Area with my family!! Definitely consider myself a beginner but am interested to learn what I can and enjoy some discussions
 

mark.goblue

Level 2 Member
Hi all - I'm Mark. I live in Lansing, MI with my wife and two dogs.

I started in the points & miles game two years ago with a Delta Gold 50K/1k offer and have been digging deeper and deeper ever since. This hobby has allowed my wife and I to take trips we couldn't have otherwise and I'm forever grateful to the folks who have paved the way.

I've focused mostly on hitting sign-up bonuses and trying to maximize points for award travel, but I'd like to shift focus to MS, growing my existing point balances and bank account bonuses. I stumbled upon Saverocity and am looking forward to learning and contributing to this community.
 

mhartman09

New Member
Hi all! My name is Michelle. I'm fairly new to the points/miles game. I'm a saver by nature using other methods to save on things in our daily lives, but only just learned of all the possibilities using credit card and bank account bonuses. I've had some cash back cards for a while now, but I got my very first points card, the Chase Sapphire Reserve, in January and just met minimum spend. Looking forward to seeing my 100K bonus post very soon. Got the hubs on-board this month and he was approved for the CSR as well. On our way to another 100K bonus. I'm excited to really begin our travel journey and learning as much as I can to maximize our savings and returns on available opportunities.
 

mactrader

Level 2 Member
Hello! I have 3 children and a wife that I like to find the cheapest/free-est way to travel and entertain them. Been in the hobby for a few years now and after taking a year off following the Redbird crash am back into it and ramping up my activity again. Somewhere around ~$15K in MS a month and looking to expand even further!
 

dereck062

Level 2 Member
Hi all, my name is Dereck. I live in suburban NYC aka. MS Wasteland. No Walmart; no Kroger. But I do have a couple hidden tricks still alive. I also have Blue/Red Birds alive and Serve alive. Talking about fly under the rader! I stumped up r/churning 1 day late 2014 and never looked back. For the last 3 years, I've been HI, MX twice, Japan, FR/UK, Barbados and Bermuda. I love the feeling of having a million miles in awardwallet and able to fly to anywhere in the World. Travel is about perspectives, I def. gained a lot perspectives in the last fews years. I stuck on 1 CC for the 10 yrs prior to discover r/churing, that card is 1 of a kind. (another thread another day). I would not consider myself a noob, I lived through all those US Mint, VR, & ATT&MCI switching days, just wasn't wise enough to act on it. Now a little bit older and hopefully a little wiser, I'm hoping to gain more knowledge through this forum.
 

Mancolt

Level 2 Member
Hi all, my name is Colt. I live in Pittsburgh, PA (not an MS wasteland, thankfully). I actually just started MSing within the last month. I stumbled upon MS after thinking the CSR promo bonus was an unusually good offer. That thought led me to read more about it, and I learned that 100k Ultimate Rewards is indeed a rare and good offer. So that led to me opening a new credit card, and then after wondering how I'd meet the minimum spend, I fortunately came across MS. In the last 2 months I've been reading a lot on blogs and flyertalk and trying to absorb as much as I could. After about a month of reading, I decided it was time to use my new card. I've done some very simple MS so far. And I've been fortunate that I haven't run into any issues, despite using several different locations already.

I've always been interested in maximizing the value of something. Cashback portals, rewards, discounts...Any opportunity to leverage a system/offer/idea to benefit me or others, and you can count me in. So I'm obviously interested in MS, but also would like to do some churning. If I think a little more about what led me here, I'd attribute much of it to the fact that I finally feel like I've got my personal finances in order. I still need to review the rules of this site, so I don't want to violate anything in my 2nd post, but I found a budgeting tool that has been an absolute game changer for me. With the help of that, I now feel comfortable enough to handle multiple credit cards, MS, and other things that could get out of control if you're not actively tracking/managing them.

Looking forward to learning from all of you, and contributing on the subjects that I'm more familiar with!
 

Raymond Schreiber

SFO traveller
Hello-
Excited to join the forum here. Avid world traveler, been at the MS game for ~ 5yrs now. Been to a number of TravelCons over the years and met a bunch of nice people. Looking forward to learning more from everyone.
 

Sean1234

Level 2 Member
Hi, Matt and Saverocity community,

My name is Sean. Been in the points in the miles game for about 2 years but haven't been part of any community. Excited to contribute and continue to learn. And shout out to Matt for the great work with this forum!
 

dwpinkston

New Member
Let's get things rolling with introductions! I started this thread for people to say hi, and share a little about themselves.

I am Matt, I set up this forum as a place to discuss Travel and Financial ideas. I am originally from the UK and currently live in New York, look forward to seeing you around!
Hi Matt! I'm Dave and new to MS. Looking forward to reading your forum to get smart before leaping in. Can't wait to get to level 2!
 

Ven

New Member
Hello everyone, this is Ven and newbie to this community. Still trying to understand how this forum works. Thank you.
 

Ian

Level 2 Member
Hi, my name is Ian. not new to MS, but new to this forum. Looking to share and get more MS tactics.
 

Genyoung

New Member
Hi everyone,

My name is Genevieve from Northern California. I've gotten into travel hacking the past 6 months and became addicted after getting the CSR a couple months ago after wanting to travel more/stay in nicer places. I've always been interested in tricks for getting the most value and can't wait to dive deeper into this.
 

Josh000

Level 2 Member
Greetings all. Jose here from central tx. Late to this game after yrs of spending tens of thousands of $ annually on travel - like a sucker. Wife and I just Completed our first month of playing, earning 100s of thousands in points and sw companion pass using the basics. Eyes openened and anxious to level up and learn just how much I dont know.

Related background/interests - trading (volatility,seasonality), RE investing, monitizing airbnb rental properties, software businesses, poker.

Better late than never.
 

Paola Zottolo

New Member
Hi everyone, I am Paola, I am originally from Argentina but have lived in the US for about 20 years. I love to travel, and so does my husband, and we are instilling the love for travel to our children.
We have been to a lot of places but there are quite a few more we would like to go (going to Thailand in June). I have been in the points game for some time but never had the need to do any MS. I still don't have the need but I would like to learn and I also would like to learn about any hacks that people know about to be able to travel more.
I started with frugality through couponing, which I still do and helps me save a ton of money, which in turn I use to be able to travel more. My personal reason to play the points game is to be able to travel more with the same money that we would spend anyway, and not so much to travel in luxury, if that makes sense.
We currently live in Florida (3 hours away from Miami and Orlando), and we have lived in Michigan for almost 15 years.

Looking forward to sharing with a lot of you!

Paola.
 

Paola Zottolo

New Member
Greetings all. Jose here from central tx. Late to this game after yrs of spending tens of thousands of $ annually on travel - like a sucker. Wife and I just Completed our first month of playing, earning 100s of thousands in points and sw companion pass using the basics. Eyes openened and anxious to level up and learn just how much I dont know.

Related background/interests - trading (volatility,seasonality), RE investing, monitizing airbnb rental properties, software businesses, poker.

Better late than never.
Jose, no need to cry over spilled milk... At least you got started and are doing better now. If it's any consolation, I missed on getting the SW companion pass when it was easier but, oh well, just moving forward.
 

MaryH

New Member
Hi All,

I'm Mary and I live in Colorado. I'm new to the miles and points game. I love to travel with my family of 4 (2 teenagers), and am really looking forward to learning the game, enjoying the rewards & being a part of this community.
 

seespotjump

Level 2 Member
Hi everyone! I recently took the plunge and officially started my churney this month after doing extensive reading on reddit, FT, and the various public blogs. My first card was the United MPE last week (which I actually very much regret in hindsight), and I just hit minimum spend to get my 70k miles + 5k miles from adding an AU, and $50 statement credit.

Looking forward to meaningful discussions with all of you, and enjoying all the blogs, people, and resources this wonderful site has to offer!
 

CreditDratini

Level 2 Member
Checking in from r/churning and myFICO. 16/24 at this point, 500k+ points in, over $300k cycled through MS for different purposes. Looks like this forum is less active than most but that's probably better for the community! Reddit has gotten overfilled with lazy noobs that it's a little annoying..
 

currid7

Level 2 Member
Hey guys, I'm 29 living in New Orleans with my wife. We've been doing this for about 3 years now done lots of travelling (even before we got into miles). I'm currently holding 24 cards and have cancelled another 13. Not sure total balances, but for 2017, we've redeemed about 1.7 mil to turn $47k (including "$19k" of funny money for Singapore first) of travel costs into about $5,500. I don't put a lot of stock into the $47k number, but we do get a lot of value. For 2017, short weekend trips include Phoenix, 2 Fort Lauderdale, Cabo, and Cartagena, we did 2 weeks in HKG / Tokyo for cherry blossoms (amazing), we'll do Machu Picchu over Labor Day, and 2 weeks in Patagonia to end the year. We try to do 1 or 2 major international trips each year. Our 1 year anniversary is 5/16 and last year we got married in Kauai, honeymooned in Fiji (all on points).

I'm shifting gears from signups / points to steady, every-month accrual and MS. I tried my luck on the WF 5% but got the letter after only 1 month. I'm currently just hitting up GCM and Billpaying at Walmart, with 2% and my SPG (MO instead of BP). Just looking for some other ways to maximize my MS profit, which I'll basically be using as a little fund to offset our travel costs.

Big picture, I'm looking pretty seriously at FI/RE and travel is our only hobby, so net zero on that would be spectacular.

I've been on Reddit and Doc for a while and thought this would be a more pleasant, interactive community so I'm excited!
 

mzc

New Member
Checking in from bay area. Not a heavy hitter as of now but do MS on and off for minimum spend hit on CC. Hope to learn and share thing or two.
 

Taylor

New Member
Checking in from Columbus. Long time lurker, but got into the credit card game almost a year ago. Big into gift card arbitrage, and currently banking the miles/points for a trip to Germany.
 

Felix

Level 2 Member
Hello, I'm Felix I and live in Michigan. I have been interested to MS for quite some time now. One day while I was laying in bed I thought I came up with a genius idea!. I go online only to find out there is a whole community out there!
 

Mauddib6

Level 2 Member
I'm Todd and I began in couponing, but have gotten hooked on miles and points, having amassed over a million the past 9 months. Now, I am enjoying the other side of it- using them for my two kids and wife for our travels.
 

turtlelurker

Level 2 Member
Hello :) Jonathan here from Los Angeles!
20 year old self employed student that has been in the game for roughly a year and half... I have amassed around 2.5 million points in that time between my wife and I! Always love to learn and share new things about this hobby of ours with what seems to be a really friendly forum.
 

MouseStomper

Level 2 Member
Hello, I'm here in Denver, Colorado. I've been this hobby for about 3 years now and am always on the lookout for more ways to earn miles & points. Have several trips already scheduled and a few more planned.
 

kurt9769

awardflights.co
Hello, I'm Kurt. I live in Detroit, Michigan, and have been in the hobby now for about five years. My wife and I have travelled to 15 countries on miles and points, and our reselling business has actually scaled to something where points are no longer our main focus :)

Previously, my main focus was credit card signups, but as I've maxed out most of those I'm starting to shift toward gift card reselling, portal deals, and maximizing business spend. Hoping to learn a ton from the forms, and I'm looking forward to using this an a platform for experimenting with new techniques and reporting back!
 

atravels

New Member
Hello! I have 3 children and a wife that I like to find the cheapest/free-est way to travel and entertain them. Been in the hobby for a few years now and after taking a year off following the Redbird crash am back into it and ramping up my activity again. Somewhere around ~$15K in MS a month and looking to expand even further!
I just had to chuckle when I read, "I have 3 children and a wife that I like." I think a lot of people would be envious of you!
 
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