I can’t imagine having to change my cards with my online purchases so often.
I don't think so. I only churn every few months, so it's not like I'm doing it daily.
That being said, you can go a layer deeper into maximizing different cards that have more points/miles per specific spending categories to accumulate faster. There's an app I use that tells me which of my cards to use for what purchases.
I can’t imagine having to change my cards with my online purchases so often.
It gives me anxiety, if nothing else to end up in a lot of debt fast. We had that when we saved up for our honeymoon, charge it for points, we've got money. Then we spent some of said money on other stuff and earned a lot of interest.
Plus if you don't have good credit (which is a whole other issue). Doesn't taking out new cards too also hurt your credit with every pull?
I know we're getting a bit off topic, but there are risks
I can’t imagine having to change my cards with my online purchases so often.
It gives me anxiety, if nothing else to end up in a lot of debt fast. We had that when we saved up for our honeymoon, charge it for points, we've got money. Then we spent some of said money on other stuff and earned a lot of interest.
Plus if you don't have good credit (which is a whole other issue). Doesn't taking out new cards too also hurt your credit with every pull?
I know we're getting a bit off topic, but there are risks
You have to be disciplined for sure. We pay everything off each month. My credit is over 800 and only dips a few points here and there with a new pull.
I can’t imagine having to change my cards with my online purchases so often.
We try to get a new credit card the same time we have a larger one off bill due- house/car insurance, house taxes, personal life insurance, car registration, vacation, new tires whatever. We then typically add it to Apple Pay and Amazon. We don’t usually change the smaller bills unless the new card requires a huge initial spend to get the bonus. It was super easy when we had daycare fees! We used to let the IL’s pay our daycare bill (and then pay them back) so they could meet the Southwest minimum spend easier.
It gives me anxiety, if nothing else to end up in a lot of debt fast. We had that when we saved up for our honeymoon, charge it for points, we've got money. Then we spent some of said money on other stuff and earned a lot of interest.
Plus if you don't have good credit (which is a whole other issue). Doesn't taking out new cards too also hurt your credit with every pull?
I know we're getting a bit off topic, but there are risks
You have to be disciplined for sure. We pay everything off each month. My credit is over 800 and only dips a few points here and there with a new pull.
It is absolutely not for everyone. If it gives you anxiety - don't do it! Or, if you struggle to keep track of things or pay your credit card balance on time, this is not the strategy for you. Often simplicity is best.
For my H, this is just how his brain works and he enjoys the challenge / game aspect of it. I'm the one in the family who often has to rein it in and remind him that just because something is a good deal doesn't mean it's worth our time or money. We try to be intentional about how we use these perks, and we often share them with friends and family.
Can someone explain exactly what “churning” is? We are doing good with just our Chase Sapphire, but I think we are at a place now where we can manage doing more to earn points.
Can someone explain exactly what “churning” is? We are doing good with just our Chase Sapphire, but I think we are at a place now where we can manage doing more to earn points.
Churning is basically signing up for different credit cards just to earn the new customer bonus. Sometimes the bonus is airline miles, hotel points, or occasionally cash. Usually there is a minimum spend or number of transactions. If you have a little savings to work with, you can often transfer a few thousand from one bank to another and earn the bonus pretty easily. Not all of the sign up bonuses are worth it. Wait for the ones that you know you will actually use. In addition to airline miles and hotel points, these cards will often have other travel perks like free CLEAR or airport lounge access, discounts on certain retailers (not always worth it), or built in travel insurance when you use the credit card. Basically, the credit card companies are counting on customers not paying things off in full, so they're looking for the future interest accrued.
When I posted this question before, not on this board, I got a lot of answers on how their parents or relatives pay for that trip. Since it has only been mentioned in one post in this thread, I thought I would mention it again. If you see a large group family trip on social media, yeah it is possible that everyone split everything evenly, but also equally possible that they drove and then the matriarch/ patriarch paid for the lodging and/ or possibly airline tickets also.
I don't think we talk enough about generational wealth, and not just that generational wealth but also the kind where people graduate with no student debt because their parents paid for college, etc. Since we are in the Midwest, everyone around here has a lake house. But what they don't say is that the lake house is their parents' house that they go to for free, or that they inherited it. No one has actually bought their own lake house. Its all part of that generational wealth that people claim as their own wealth.
Yep very true, depending on how you grew up and quite frankly most likely your race (in general of course).
This is the exact opposite among myself and the rest of my Black and Latino/a friends. We’re able to travel because we make decent money, more than our parents, there’s def no generational wealth and on trips we often pay for things if we’re with family members and not the other way around.
I read the whole thread and did not see our travel hack mentioned. My H got a part time job with an airline specifically so we can fly for free. Obviously that comes with limitations but we’ve gotten pretty good at the non-rev game. Plus, airline employees get terrific discounts on hotels/rental cars/cruises.
We're lucky to have family in interesting places, so our lodging and most of our meals are free. We're willing to fly some not ideal flight times if it saves enough, and lately we've been choosing the super budget bring-your-own-water airlines because it's a significant savings. I will find a lot of free things to do and then plan a couple paid excursions.
We also really focus on local trips and capitalize on weekend travel. We'll drive ~4 hours and only spend 1 night. Arrive by lunch time Saturday and leave later afternoon Sunday. It means organizing my life well to jump right back into work and school on Monday, but doing that a few times a year makes amazing memories for far less money than we'd spend on plane tickets. My whole childhood was made up of day trips. My parents had zero dollars for travel, but they could spare an extra tank of gas and pack a cooler of food a few times a year. I grew up in the most uninteresting place in the US, but I loved those road trips. I wasn't seeing anything you'd plan as a vacation destination, but my parents still managed to instill a sense of adventure.
I don't know. I take advantage of 5% categories on Chase Freedom, put travel on Chase Sapphire, and everything else on Chase Freedom Unlimited and transfer them all to Sapphire to book travel. That definitely helps. But we have mostly traveled to CA in the last several years (from Colorado) and I still had major sticker shock over our trip to San Diego last year. We got some hotels for points but everything else added up so fast.
I haven't gone the extra step of transferring points out to airlines/hotels but I'm so nervous to do that because of blackout dates, committing to am airline, etc. It's hard. I agree with others that the answer really is $$$.
But I see a lot of people talking about churning and points, which my husband does some of, but also spontaneity. I'm here to tout the opposite.
We plan. Like plaaaaan. We have an annual budget for travel and pick where we're going usually around a year out. That means airfare, as needed, is usually cheaper.
We also frequently stay in rentals rather than hotels because with 2 kids that often works out cheaper, ESPECIALLY with food savings. I love the experience of eating at unique and local places, but shopping at local groceries is fun too. And, honestly, one awesome meal plus snack a day is enough. I can eat cereal for a meal. Plus in the post(?) covid area I like have a space that ONLY we are breathing in.
Booking way early means we have a better pick of rentals that are closer/higher rated/have more amenities. And we can take out time to look at what we want to do and take advantage of packages or free/lower cost deals.
And it gives us time to look at different ideas for locations. We went to Montreal last year and I don't know if I'd have selected it had I not been looking up places that are close to our time zone (we were just going for a short trip) and a relatively short flight. I landed on it after reading about their annual mural festival and it's adorable! My kids heard French everywhere and the food options were incredible because it's a city of immigrants.
I was surprised to realize as an adult how often to what extent people’s parents were subsiding their life. That was not how anyone I knew growing up lived. People were often working in high school to pay the family bills.
My parents have never been on a plane. They did some cruises when the port here opened up and you could get a 10 day cruise for less than going to a local beach for a long weekend. They never were going to pay for us to go on a trip!
My in-laws however had professional jobs and really value family travel time and have taken us on two trips where we piggybacked and went somewhere else after they left that made it really affordable and have paid for us to go to family weddings we normally wouldn’t go to.
When we went to Europe alone we picked places that were less popular from the US (Portugal and Belgium) and booked way, way ahead of time. We had great trips that really weren’t much than staying here and going to the beach for the same amount of time. We are also lucky to have never had student loans (my husband went to UT when it was cheap and I got a ton of financial aid, scholarships and lived at home, both of our MAs were free) and no kids. We don’t have debt besides the house.
I know people who put trips on cards or have parents who pay for trips they don’t even go on themselves.
Late to the party, but something I haven’t seen mentioned yet is sites like TravelZoo, Great Value Vacations, gate1 travel, etc. It’s 3rd party bookings so some risks with that but I’ve used them to travel to Europe once (Vienna, Prague, Budapest) and Ireland, both last year. Leaving next week for Paris, London, and Rome via a deal we found on one of those sites. With airfare being so $$$ lately the package deals with flights + hotels have worked really well for us and then we’re free to DIY an itinerary that suits us.
Agree that mixing up bougie stays with cheaper options during a trip is routine for us. We went from a legit hostel one night to an open air treehouse in the jungles of Panama with a private chef the next.
But having two, high-earning partners with super flexible jobs helps a lot. Also, being divorced makes kid-free travel easier, though we do love traveling with them.
I can’t imagine having to change my cards with my online purchases so often.
It is definitely mental energy that I don't have time to devote right now to keep track of canceling cards before the annual fees come due etc. I was definitely more into churning and redeeming pre-kids. I used to do all my research at night before I went to bed. Now I take DS to bed and fall asleep with him. I don't wake up until the next morning when he wakes up.
These days I will apply for cards that suit our travel patterns. I find myself booking on United much more frequently now with 2 kids where EWR is the best option. When I had just 1 kid and could get to all 3 NYC area airports more easily, I used to be more loyal to American and churned a lot of their cards. I saw that United had a 150K offer last year so I'm sitting tight to see if it comes back and will definitely get that to bank United miles. The last time in my working life when the economy was not that great (2010, 2011) - this was when the 100K offers started coming out. Maybe we will see more big offers if the economy stays down.
Post by aprilsails on Jan 28, 2023 20:01:34 GMT -5
Travelling from Canada adds a whole other layer of costs. Our dollar isn’t as strong, we’re limited on options for flights and airports with international connections or direct options, and it just takes longer to get places. Also I don’t have access to many of the more awesome points churning deals because they are not available here. The travel points I do get are enough to generally offset our flights on a budget airline.
DH and I both have high salaries, so we would fall into GBCN standards at this point. However, we’re averaging one to two major trips a year, generally for 4-5 days each. We are currently staying at my parents rental place in Florida for a week (no cost for accommodations). It’s been nice, and my parents are pushing for us to do it again, but to save money they are booking Jan-Feb, and generally not over a school break. We decided to pull DD from grade 2 this year since this has been our first chance post-CoVID, but I can’t see doing it every year (although as luck would have it we pulled her out during a week with a PD day and TWO snow days, so she only missed two days of instructional time).
We’re extremely lucky to have access to two family vacation homes for very little to no cost to us and we spend a lot of weekends and a week of summer holidays there.
DH and I grew up in families with very different approaches to vacations. It’s made it difficult for us to come with a coordinated approach. He also hates travel like his Dad. His parents have boatloads of money compared to my family and the last time his Mom went to Europe was 38 years ago because his Dad travelled so much for work and she was a teacher and couldn’t come along. The second they hit retirement they’ve both been hit with major health issues that make travelling outside of Canada and the US prohibitive. It’s absolutely heartbreaking. When DH complains I tell him I will not be a martyr like his mother to his grumpy nature, and I will go with or without him. I will happily travel with a girlfriend or family member.
My husband’s hobby is churning. Not that we travel all that much but we’re finally in a place where can can take trips. We’re actually waiting for our latest churned card to come in the mail to book our summer vacation 🙄 He’s extremely disciplined and this type of thing is his idea of a good time, lol. We have no other debt so we mostly churn for vacations, big purchases or projects or holiday shopping. It’s easy to make the minimum charge, pay it off immediately and then collect the reward. We don’t move balances around.
In March of 2022, my family of 4 did 5 nights at the Hard Rock Riveria Maya all inclusive. Total cost to us -- $400 for taxes on the airline tickets and ~$500 in tips and extras. We picked the all inclusive because my kids eat a lot and the resort had snorkeling, paddle boarding, a water park, etc. We didn't really need to leave (we did for a tour of Chichen Itza, but it would have been a nice vacation even without that!).
In October my husband went from Pittsburgh to Seattle to visit his best friend. They took a road trip. 5 nights in hotels and his plane ticket. Cost -- $11.20 for the tax on his ticket.
Two weeks ago I treated my best friend to a 5 day stay at Secrets in Puerto Vallarta to celebrate our 40th birthdays. Total cost to me -- $120 for tax on my ticket and ~$200 in tips. She paid for her ticket with her points and tipped about the same amount.
I just finished booking (like 10 minutes ago) a surprise trip for my son's 13th birthday to Universal Hollywood for just me and him in June. Total cost (haven't bought park tickets yet) -- $22.40 for ticket tax, $0 for hotel with free breakfast. I anticipate the whole trip to be ~$700 all in for 4 days in LA. We are flying from Pittsburgh.
Credit card churning is a very valuable hobby for me. Takes me less than 2 hours a week on average (some weeks it is nothing, though I do belong to a few groups and read posts about optimizing points based on where we want to go) and the pay off is enormous for me as we have a fairly tight budget due to one of my son's significant needs. Our HHI is ~$150k (PDQ), so our spending isn't crazy high. We average $3000-4000 a month on our cards, but charge everything we can and are always working on a sign up bonus (we alternate whether it is in his name or my name and then combine points). We NEVER carry a balance and use YNAB to ensure we aren't overspending. Our credit scores are above 800.
I highly suggest 10xstravel.com if you are interested in dipping your toes in. It takes a while to get the hang of it or even figure out what you are reading, but it was a complete game changer to me as someone who just used my Chase Sapphire Reserve for many years. I also have access to many airport lounges, free TSA pre-check and Global Entry, etc. so travel is much more enjoyable even on travel days!
I think you’ve finally convinced me to give this a go. LOL.
I’ve never credit card churned - like you I have just used my chase sapphire reserve (and my husband uses the Amex platinum). Those give us good benefits, but I’d like to be even more aggressive with this.
We are lucky in that my H travels for work a ton, so that provides us with a lot of Delta/hotel points to work with. We end up with free hotel nights a lot. But we could probably be doing more.
In March of 2022, my family of 4 did 5 nights at the Hard Rock Riveria Maya all inclusive. Total cost to us -- $400 for taxes on the airline tickets and ~$500 in tips and extras. We picked the all inclusive because my kids eat a lot and the resort had snorkeling, paddle boarding, a water park, etc. We didn't really need to leave (we did for a tour of Chichen Itza, but it would have been a nice vacation even without that!).
In October my husband went from Pittsburgh to Seattle to visit his best friend. They took a road trip. 5 nights in hotels and his plane ticket. Cost -- $11.20 for the tax on his ticket.
Credit card churning is a very valuable hobby for me. Takes me less than 2 hours a week on average (some weeks it is nothing, though I do belong to a few groups and read posts about optimizing points based on where we want to go) and the pay off is enormous for me as we have a fairly tight budget due to one of my son's significant needs.
charge everything we can and are always working on a sign up bonus (we alternate whether it is in his name or my name and then combine points). We NEVER carry a balance and use YNAB to ensure we aren't overspending. Our credit scores are above 800.
I highly suggest 10xstravel.com if you are interested in dipping your toes in. It takes a while to get the hang of it or even figure out what you are reading, but it was a complete game changer to me as someone who just used my Chase Sapphire Reserve for many years. I also have access to many airport lounges, free TSA pre-check and Global Entry, etc. so travel is much more enjoyable even on travel days!
Wow, this is wild! Thanks for your candor. A couple things I don’t understand though— why isn’t this jacking with people’s credit lol? How long do you keep a credit card before canceling it? Do you have any that are just staple cards that you like and always keep and don’t cancel? Don’t they put a limit on the sign up bonuses that interfere with this? Like, I’m not eligible for another Chase Sapphire bonus for 3 more years over just ONE signup bonus which is too bad because I really did like the sound of the Reserve.
melmaria she asked you not to quote a certain part.
I don’t churn cards but I spend a lot of time thinking about the best card to use for each purpose and what card gets me the most points for that particular purchase. My husband is able to charge a lot of expenses for clients and we both travel frequently. I do read travel blogs to see any promos for redemptions, etc.
I will never use airline points for anything except business or first international, but I totally get that if you don’t travel internationally then this is irrelevant. The point per dollar comparison is leaps and bounds better than anything you could get domestic or in economy on international. The only caveat is Southwest or emergency, last minute trips. I also only use points for hotels where I would get a lot more value than paying cash. It is often more beneficial for me to pay to get more points.
I track all my points on the Points Guy app. It automatically links to your accounts and updated weekly, so once you link once, it’s done. It is helpful to know if you have any expiring points and to be able to see them all in one place. It also gives you a sense of how much they could be worth, though I tend to get much higher value than they say. Like we booked flights to Tokyo for all of us in business recently. They would have cost us $42,000, but I paid $54 for taxes and used just a fraction of my total miles. Here is what the app looks like. I highly recommend it for those considering starting to churn. It also gives you tons of access to articles and other features that are useful.
Wow, this is wild! Thanks for your candor. A couple things I don’t understand though— why isn’t this jacking with people’s credit lol? How long do you keep a credit card before canceling it? Do you have any that are just staple cards that you like and always keep and don’t cancel? Don’t they put a limit on the sign up bonuses that interfere with this? Like, I’m not eligible for another Chase Sapphire bonus for 3 more years over just ONE signup bonus which is too bad because I really did like the sound of the Reserve.
melmaria she asked you not to quote a certain part.
I get all of my strategy from 10xs travel. The little course you take tells you what to keep and what to cancel after a year.
I always have: --Amazon Prime Chase card -- I like those points for Christmas gifts --Chase Sapphires (I have Preferred and my H has Reserve) Between them we get good insurance when traveling, airport access, transfer to partners, etc. -- Marriott Bonvoy (my H has) -- it costs $95 a year but you get a free night annually. We use is to stay at a ritzy Marriott in our city when we want to go to the theater and drink and get a night away that is only a 15 minute drive. Costs for rooms is ~$350 so the $95 fee is a bargain.
Everything else rotates. I follow the 10xs strategy. One thing I never considered was the business cards. Chase has 3 available per person with bonuses of up to 100k points. My husband is a musician and I consult with universities. Neither is particularly robust as a "business" but we can still qualify for the cards. It opens up +550k points for a team of 2. Others use selling kids clothes online, dog walking, babysitting, etc. as a business. Chase doesn't care. I use these points to transfer mainly to Hyatts because Hyatts don't cost as many points as other hotel chains. They own many boutique and AI properties in addition to their Hyatt branded ones.
I also used the personal card and business card strategy to earn a companion pass on Southwest for 2 years after spending $7000 and paying an annual fee of $199. This allows someone to travel for free with me on the same flight until 12/31/24. I don't love SW but it is a good airline for me to get to 2 friends I like to visit regularly, so this little plan resulted in 184k Southwest points and a companion pass making it more like 368K points. I used this to book for my DS and I to get to LA on a total of 35k points. It could have been less but I wanted particular times on the flights. (https://thepointsguy.com/guide/how-to-use-southwest-companion-pass/)
Again, it seems overwhelming, but check out 10xs travel. Join the group on Facebook (the only reason I keep Facebook) and watch and read for a few weeks. You will get the hang of it and it is well worth the investment.
This isn’t super helpful, but I will buy gift cards for travel stuff at Kroger and then get 4x fuel points during a promo
I’ve done it for Disney, Universal, and cruising. I knew we would have these costs, so I figured I could space out the purchases and end up with up to a $1 off each gallon of gas.
You have to be disciplined for sure. We pay everything off each month. My credit is over 800 and only dips a few points here and there with a new pull.
It is absolutely not for everyone. If it gives you anxiety - don't do it! Or, if you struggle to keep track of things or pay your credit card balance on time, this is not the strategy for you. Often simplicity is best.
For my H, this is just how his brain works and he enjoys the challenge / game aspect of it. I'm the one in the family who often has to rein it in and remind him that just because something is a good deal doesn't mean it's worth our time or money. We try to be intentional about how we use these perks, and we often share them with friends and family.
I absolutely agree - especially because some of the ones we've taken on had some pretty big spending requirements to get the bonus. So taking on that debt for the miles or points and then paying interest doesn't make any financial sense. But I'm like your husband and enjoy the thrill and game of it.
Card churning seems overwhelming, but damn, after reading suzubell's post I think I need to look into it.
For us we really only do big trips every 5 years for big anniversaries. This year is our 20th, and is you've seen my random posts and travel planning thread, we're going all out. But we haven't been anywhere except the Oregon coast since 2018. But we're also financially savvy in other ways, and invested heavily as DINKS, which gives us the time and money to do long trips like this.
I'll admit that while I'm always looking for a bargain, I'm way too anxious to do some of the things suggested in some of these posts. Show up in another country with no hotel reservations and just try to negotiate a deal. No thanks. Share a bathroom with strangers? Hard pass, I don't even like having to share with my H.
Card churning seems overwhelming, but damn, after reading suzubell 's post I think I need to look into it.
For us we really only do big trips every 5 years for big anniversaries. This year is our 20th, and is you've seen my random posts and travel planning thread, we're going all out. But we haven't been anywhere except the Oregon coast since 2018. But we're also financially savvy in other ways, and invested heavily as DINKS, which gives us the time and money to do long trips like this.
I'll admit that while I'm always looking for a bargain, I'm way too anxious to do some of the things suggested in some of these posts. Show up in another country with no hotel reservations and just try to negotiate a deal. No thanks. Share a bathroom with strangers? Hard pass, I don't even like having to share with my H.
Ok douche, go ahead and call it mud. My husband DID have halitosis. We addressed it after I talked to you girls on here and guess what? Years later, no problem. Mofongo, you're a cunt. Eat shit. ~anonnamus
I'll admit that while I'm always looking for a bargain, I'm way too anxious to do some of the things suggested in some of these posts. Show up in another country with no hotel reservations and just try to negotiate a deal. No thanks. Share a bathroom with strangers? Hard pass, I don't even like having to share with my H.
I mentioned those things because GBCN tends to live and travel at a high comfort level. Doing so is more expensive.
Post by Jalapeñomel on Jan 29, 2023 13:06:17 GMT -5
Something to think about that I didn’t consider when we got a CC for points: we have service fees for using our CC places. For example, for daycare we get a 3% fee, so although we used our points to book travel to Disneyland in April, we did have to pay through those service fees. Still significantly cheaper, but definitely not free.
Card churning seems overwhelming, but damn, after reading suzubell 's post I think I need to look into it.
For us we really only do big trips every 5 years for big anniversaries. This year is our 20th, and is you've seen my random posts and travel planning thread, we're going all out. But we haven't been anywhere except the Oregon coast since 2018. But we're also financially savvy in other ways, and invested heavily as DINKS, which gives us the time and money to do long trips like this.
I'll admit that while I'm always looking for a bargain, I'm way too anxious to do some of the things suggested in some of these posts. Show up in another country with no hotel reservations and just try to negotiate a deal. No thanks. Share a bathroom with strangers? Hard pass, I don't even like having to share with my H.
Where are you going?
Two weeks in Spain, and then one week in Amsterdam.