AwardWallet receives compensation from advertising partners for links on the blog. Terms Apply to the offers listed on this page. The opinions expressed here are our own and have not been reviewed, provided, or approved by any bank advertiser. Here's our complete list of Advertisers.
With the new year well underway, it's time to start making those New Years' resolutions a reality. This year, one of the most common New Years' goals expressed by our AwardWallet community was to travel more in 2023.
Unfortunately, when it comes to travel, the biggest hurdle for most people is the cost. This is where points and miles can make a dream a reality. If you are resolved to travel more in 2023, but you're unsure how to finance your travel goals, points and miles are the perfect vehicle to help get you there.
There are two main approaches to traveling with points and miles:
- Travel based on your current balance — The first option is to look at what rewards you have and choose your destination based on where your points can take you.
- Build a balance based on where you want to travel — The second option is to plan from the destination backward. First, select a destination, and then work out which points and miles can get you there.
Today, we're going to focus on the second option and demonstrate how to build a balance of rewards points around specific travel goals. We'll work backward from some sample destinations. Then, we will run through a practical breakdown of the travel planning, points accumulation, and award booking processes.
First Steps
When it comes to planning any trip with points and miles, you first need to ask yourself a few questions:
- What points and miles do I currently have?
- Do I have elite status with any program that I can leverage?
- Do any of my credit cards offer travel credits or benefits that I can use?
- How much time do I have to plan and book this trip?
AwardWallet can be a great place to track your reward accounts. If you're already a user, then you should be keenly aware of how many points and miles you currently have. Knowing the balances of each of your accounts can help you understand how close you are to booking your trip.
Choosing a Destination
This is the fun part. Where do you want to go? How many people do you need to get there? Regardless of the answers to these questions, your first step is the same. Start from the destination and work your way back.
Determine Which Airlines Fly to Your Destination
One way to start researching how to get where you want to go is by going to the Wikipedia page for your destination's airport. Many Wikipedia pages displays all the airlines that fly to your destination and where they are based. This is one of the best ways to figure out which points or miles you'll need to collect to get to your destination.
In this example, using the Wiki page for Rio de Janeiro's GIG airport, let's assume we're flying from the U.S. The three airlines that fly directly from the U.S. are American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines:
FlightConnections is another tool for finding the flights to get you where you want to go. In addition to showing nonstop options, you can enter your home airport and destination airport to see a list and visual of all connecting options. FlightConnections will even sort the options by travel time, helping you minimize — or maximize — your time in the air.
Once you know how to get there, you can search the airline loyalty program of your choice for award options. Or, consider which partner mileage programs provide better award pricing and the flexible rewards currencies that transfer to those airlines.
Check out our beginner's guide to award travel planning for more details on this step.
If you want to shortcut the process, use Point.me to search for the best way to book an award flight where you want to go. This paid service lets you plug in your origin, destination, and travel dates to show you which awards are actually bookable now on that date — plus the best way to book them:
Can We Use Points for Hotels or Accommodation?
The same strategy applies for hotels. If you have elite status or a great collection of points with a certain hotel group, start by going to their website to see if they have properties where you're traveling. If they don't, do any of the major hotel groups have properties in that location? What about Airbnb or Vacasa vacation rentals?
Depending on your group size and length of stay, Airbnb may be a better value proposition for you. If there are chain hotels at your destination, but you don't currently have status or points with that loyalty program, is there a credit card that would provide elite status and a decent haul of points for the welcome offer?
These are some of the key questions that you'll want to ask as you prepare for a trip funded by points and miles.
Collecting the Points and Miles Needed for Your Trip
There are essentially two ways to easily collect points and miles to use for your trip:
- Credit card sign-up bonuses
- Optimize your current spending for greater returns
Credit Card Sign-Up Bonuses
Credit card sign-up bonuses are the easiest and most lucrative way to earn a lot of points quickly. It is important to have a good credit card application strategy. This is true whether you're brand new to the award travel community or you've been playing this game for years.
This is a huge topic to cover, but it can be narrowed down to a few key points:
- Individual Bank Credit Card Application Rules
- Correct Order of Card Application
- Strategies for Meeting Minimum Spend
- The Power of Business Credit Cards
It's important to remember that these guidelines are all subjective. What may be a great strategy for you may totally be wrong for someone else.
For example, sticking to Chase credit cards while you're still under the 5/24 limit may be important for many newcomers. However, it may not be the most efficient strategy if you need Delta points to get to your destination. And that's okay!
The right answers will be different for different people, depending on your specific situation.
Optimize Your Current Spending
We never recommend spending more than normal just to earn points. Instead, find ways to maximize your points earning on your current expenses. The main ways to do this include:
- Use Credit Card Bonus Categories Efficiently
- “Stacking” your earnings on every purchase
- Taking advantage of Shopping Portals whenever possible
- Utilizing Plastiq to pay bills that don't accept credit cards
When you have credit cards that earn bonus points in the categories you spend the most money, it's surprising how fast the points rack up. Stacking and shopping portals can also have a HUGE effect. It can impact not only your ability to earn points, but also your overall financial health as well.
Book Your Reward
Sticking with the example above, let's imagine you and your significant other live in Houston, and want to travel to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for a week in March. Using the Wikipedia page for Rio airport or FlightConnections, you'll find that United is one of the airlines that flies directly to Rio from Houston.
Since fictional you lives in Houston, it's safe to assume you've flown United a time or two. Perhaps you already have a United credit card and have managed to save up a stash of United MileagePlus miles between flying and spending on your card. So, let's go to United's website to see what their award availability looks like.
Finding Flights
It's a smart practice to take a look at what cash fares are like around the same time you want to travel. This helps you get a perspective on how much it would cost without any points or miles. I usually rely on Google Flights for this.
In this example scenario, the average price for a week-long round-trip ticket is around $900 per person, with the cheapest options are $865 round-trip.
When I select the same dates that I searched for United award availability, I find that while the cheapest option is $872, it includes two layovers and an itinerary length that's almost double the direct route on United. Yuck.
To compare apples to apples, compare the cash fare for the same flight that you are looking to book in miles. In this case, the nonstop flight between Houston and Rio de Janeiro is a whopping $2,560 round-trip.
If you'd pay that price, you'd be getting $2,560 in value from the 61,900 United MileagePlus miles that the award flight would cost. One method of valuing the redemption is to subtract the taxes and fees from the cash cost and divide that by the number of miles the same itinerary costs. This is how the numbers would roll out:
- $2,560 cash fare – $32.95 taxes & fees = $2,527.05
- $2,527.05 / 61,900 = 0.0408 — or about 4.08 cents per mile
Alternatively, if you'd otherwise pay for the two-stop option, you're really only saving $872 round-trip on your redemption:
- $872 cash fare – $32.95 taxes & fees = $839.05
- $839.05 / 61,900 = 0.0136 — or about 1.36 cents per mile
Explore Using Partner Miles for Cheaper Redemption Rates
If you read our award planning beginner's guide, you know that one of the first steps after finding airlines that fly to your destination is to Google the best way to use points and miles to travel there.
In this case, you can redeem ANA Mileage Club miles on this route for only 55,000 miles + $32.95 taxes and fees:
ANA Mileage Club may seem like a completely random program at first. But, importantly, ANA is a transfer partner of American Express Membership Rewards and Marriott Bonvoy points. That makes this award a lot easier to book, as United is only a transfer partner of Chase Ultimate Rewards and Bilt Rewards.
Finding Hotels
Let's assume you love Hyatt hotels. Whenever you travel for business, you tend to stay with Hyatt, you've earned elite status, and you love the treatment you receive. So, naturally, the first thing you do when you're planning a trip is to go to Hyatt's website to see if there are any Hyatt properties at your destination.
Lo and behold, there's a beautiful Grand Hyatt not too far from the city. Even better, it's only 15,000 Hyatt points a night for the nights you're looking at staying!
Earning the Remaining Points to Book Your Flight
In total, you need 123,800 United miles or 110,000 ANA miles to book return flights for two passengers.
One way to earn the points would be through a credit card welcome offer. We recommend focussing on flexible point currencies first. American Express Membership Rewards transfer 1:1 to ANA, so a Membership Rewards earning card could be perfect for earning those miles.
Perhaps, your monthly expenses consist of mostly groceries and restaurants. Due to this, maybe the American Express® Gold Card would be a perfect choice for you, not only for this redemption but also moving forward. In addition to the welcome offer, you could also consider using the Rakuten (formerly Ebates) shopping portal to earn Membership Rewards points instead of cash back on all your online shopping.
With the 60,000 points welcome offer on the Amex Gold, 4X earnings on groceries and restaurants, and your online shopping earnings with Rakuten, you'll earn the rest of the miles in no time.
If you already have a portfolio of flexible rewards-earning cards, you could apply directly for a card that earns United miles and possibly earn all the miles needed with a single welcome offer.
Earning the Remaining Points to Book Your Hotel
You've found a great hotel with a reasonable reward rate, but say that you don't have enough Hyatt points to book the stay.
Rather than earn more Hyatt points by spending a lot of money by staying in Hyatt hotels, or applying for the The World of Hyatt Credit Card, again we recommend focussing on flexible points currencies. Since Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer 1:1 to Hyatt, this would make an Ultimate Rewards earning card the perfect earner for those Hyatt points.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, our favorite travel credit card for beginners, currently has a 60,000 point sign-up bonus after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Just transfer 60,000 Ultimate Rewards points from your new welcome bonus, and you're all set to book four nights in Rio. As a side benefit, Chase Ultimate Rewards also transfer to United — so your remaining points can be used to top off your United account for the flights.
Reward Booking Wrap-Up
Once you've managed to earn the necessary miles for the flight and hotel, there's nothing left but to transfer the points to your corresponding United, ANA, or Hyatt accounts, and complete the bookings. Keep in mind that there's no guarantee that the award availability will continue to be there forever. You need to book your awards as soon as you can.
Once the dust has settled, you'll realize that 95% of this trip has been paid with points and miles instead of cash. In this case, you'll be saving thousands of dollars on flights and hotels!
Final Thoughts
Everyone has different travel goals. Some people want to fly in the most luxurious first-class seats. Others don't mind flying economy but want to travel to every country in the world.
The diversity in goals and experiences is one of the best things travel has to offer. The beauty of points and miles is that they can help facilitate all of it.
If you resolved to travel more in 2023, we hope that we've demonstrated that the large cash outlay typically required to travel shouldn't be the death of your travel goals. With a little planning and a lot of diligence, we think anyone can afford that trip they've been dreaming of.
The comments on this page are not provided, reviewed, or otherwise approved by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
Great post – a lot of information. We recently just went on our honeymoon and were about to book a 4 night stay in Belize + flights on points so I can attest that its possible! Question for the community – I used to be a traveling consultant so it was easy for me to play the points game. Curious how people with infrequent business travel plan and strategize reward stays.
So I’ve actually had to read through this post a few times because it’s a lot to absorb, even though it might not seem like it at first. I think the most confusing thing about this is knowing your transfer partners and being able to figure out which points/miles can transfer to which airlines/hotels/car rentals and how to use those transfers effectively.
Learning the transfer partners of any program is easy enough. A quick search will reveal those. Yes, it’s how to use them effectively and maximize them that is an ongoing pursuit. But, it’s a rewarding one!
La Informacion del post es muy buena para planificar lastima que en América del. Sur no tenemos tantas posibilidades y menos aun porque american rompió su alianza one World
Good post! It’s good to see this. It helps with the planning to get the points needed. If we didn’t have any status for hotel and there was a Hilton where we wanted to go, then would it be a good idea to get the Hilton Surpass card? That way we would have Gold with Hilton and bonus points? I know Hilton often has a high redemption amount, but I figure it might be worth it?
We’re big fans of the Surpass card, and I think Hilton Gold is one of the more valuable statuses you can attain automatically with a card. If you’re flying to your destination, it’s worth considering if airline miles might help you save more on the flight than you could on the hotel. Or even better, have your travel companion go after the points for airfare and you can focus on the points for accommodation.
Often, the travel companions want to come along with the freebies. 🙂