Airline Mile Credit Card Sign-up Bonuses

[bariloche]

Hopefully someone can point me in the right direction, but who has actually had a Barclays credit card in the US? I just never see their banks around...

I came across a credit card offer that gives 50,000 miles for signing up, but have never really flown on Lufthansa. I guess, how do I use the miles if I've never flow on the airline or used the bank before.

http://www.welltraveledmile.com/50000-miles-and-more-premier-world-mastercard-sign-up-bonus/

This stuff is all new to me, but I would like to learn about earning miles!

[seattlecyclone]

I have two cash back cards from Barclaycard US. I especially recommend their Sallie Mae card, because it gives 5% cash back on groceries, gas, and bookstores (including Amazon), subject to monthly maximums.

I applied for their Arrival card but was rejected because they thought my credit limits on the other two cards were good enough. :-)

You don't need to have used the bank before for any credit card offer, or even know where the nearest branch is located. These days all the major credit cards offer an online interface where you can connect to your main checking account to repay the balance.

It makes little sense to get a card for an airline that you would never use. If you don't want to fly to (or through) Germany, don't get the Lufthansa card!

My wife and I each got Delta cards last year, and the sign-up bonuses (along with a few miles we already had from previous flights) paid for tickets to South America. That was pretty nice. Airline cards tend to have annual fees, so be aware of that. Many of them waive the annual fee for the first year. Others don't. Read the fine print.

[arebelspy]

I have several Barclay's cards, all signed up for the various bonuses (40k United, 50k Lufthansa, and Arrival Plus $560 towards any travel). 

What exactly are you trying to accomplish?

Talk to Brad over at http://www.richmondsavers.com/ - he does completely free travel coaching, and can point you in the right direction.

[pidgeon]

Hello,

2 questions. 1, can you buy your airline tickets on the credit card (for instance, the Barclays) to meet the 3,000 threshold?

Second, If I shut down the card before 1 year to avoid the Annual, how much of a hit will this generally take on the credit score. Mine is currently between 713- 733 (I get two different scored on two different sites).

Thank you!

[arebelspy]

Hello,

2 questions. 1, can you buy your airline tickets on the credit card (for instance, the Barclays) to meet the 3,000 threshold?

Second, If I shut down the card before 1 year to avoid the Annual, how much of a hit will this generally take on the credit score. Mine is currently between 713- 733 (I get two different scored on two different sites).

Thank you!

1) On the "reimbursement" ones you can, yes, and then retroactively go back and get the credit for that spending reimbursed after your bonus posts.

2) It shouldn't be too bad, but it depends on a number of other factors on your report (if that's one of 2 cards, or one of 10, etc.). You can also call and try to get them to waive the fee at the one year mark so you don't have to close it.

[hybrid]

I have several Barclay's cards, all signed up for the various bonuses (40k United, 50k Lufthansa, and Arrival Plus $560 towards any travel). 

What exactly are you trying to accomplish?

Talk to Brad over at http://www.richmondsavers.com/ - he does completely free travel coaching, and can point you in the right direction.

Brad, Mustachian Buddy, and I met for breakfast Saturday. First thing you'll want to know about Brad is that he is an extremely nice and helpful guy. Second thing you'll want to know is that he has done all the homework already. He is now working with me directly, and I am confident that we will do far better over time than my Costco Amex, which has provided a nice chunk of cash at the end of the year. Properly played, the travel bonuses will far exceed the cash back from AMEX.

This works if you have three things in place

You use your cards like charge cards and not credit cards (you pay your full balance each and every month).
You actually plan to travel, otherwise just go with cash back cards.
You are organized enough to play the game properly. If you are a bit scatter-brained, this isn't going to work. 

I plan to post later this year with our personal results.

[GoCubsGo]

Please do post back on your progress Hybrid.  Due to reimbursed work travel expenses, materials for flipping houses, and other we often spend 5 figures a month on CC (always paid off).  I'm always wary of damaging my excellent credit rating but know that I'm leaving quite a bit of $ on the table by not playing the credit card churn game.  I stopped using one card earlier this year and got a "use this card for 6 months and get $500 cash back+the monthly cash back bonuses which I did (easiest $900 ever). 

It does seem like you will need to devote  quite a bit of time/research/organization to playing these "churn" games, I wonder if it pays to do it time wise as time is an important asset.  It's definitely something I've always thought about doing.  Posts on this site are energizing me to do it.

[hybrid]

It does seem like you will need to devote  quite a bit of time/research/organization to playing these "churn" games, I wonder if it pays to do it time wise as time is an important asset.  It's definitely something I've always thought about doing.  Posts on this site are energizing me to do it.

Nope, that is what Brad is for! Instead of trying to figure out the best way to play the game myself from scratch, Brad has already done that hard work and research and he mentors you. My part is as simple as keeping a very basic spreadsheet of what card has been opened, when the rewards threshold is hit, when to close the card, and a summary of points to use.

My investment so far has been an hour with Brad, a half hour making a spreadsheet (turns out he had one already, I may use both and see which I like), and ten minutes to apply for the first card. Some folks get very aggressive with the card churning, but I will likely be more conservative.

[HawkeyeNFO]

I have 4 Barclay's cards, and Mrs NFO has 3.  If Lufthansa is a giving away miles that you could use on United Air Lines, I say go for it.  Make sure their points/miles can be used.  I signed up for a British Airways card from Chase for 50k miles because their points can be used on American Airlines (R/T from DCA to MIA for only 9000 miles!). 

I've been very happy with the service from Barclay as well.

[pidgeon]

thank you for your reply :) I signed up for the Barclays one last night...does that particular qualify as a "reimbursement" card? And how does one figure this out? Thank you!

 

Hello,

2 questions. 1, can you buy your airline tickets on the credit card (for instance, the Barclays) to meet the 3,000 threshold?

Second, If I shut down the card before 1 year to avoid the Annual, how much of a hit will this generally take on the credit score. Mine is currently between 713- 733 (I get two different scored on two different sites).

Thank you!

1) On the "reimbursement" ones you can, yes, and then retroactively go back and get the credit for that spending reimbursed after your bonus posts.

2) It shouldn't be too bad, but it depends on a number of other factors on your report (if that's one of 2 cards, or one of 10, etc.). You can also call and try to get them to waive the fee at the one year mark so you don't have to close it.

[nawhite]

It does seem like you will need to devote  quite a bit of time/research/organization to playing these "churn" games, I wonder if it pays to do it time wise as time is an important asset.  It's definitely something I've always thought about doing.  Posts on this site are energizing me to do it.

My wife and I fly a lot because we live a different part of the country than family. So we do a lot of the sign up bonuses to pay for flights. In the past year, credit card churning has paid me about $100/hour tax free. I've gotten about $3000 in rewards and spent about 30 hours doing it (researching deals, 1 trip to a bank for an in-bank only offer, phone calls to support to appeal getting denied, phone calls to cancel cards after 11 months, setting up online accounts to auto pay bills, etc.). My full time job doesn't pay anywhere near that well.

[Richmond Savers]

I have several Barclay's cards, all signed up for the various bonuses (40k United, 50k Lufthansa, and Arrival Plus $560 towards any travel). 

What exactly are you trying to accomplish?

Talk to Brad over at http://www.richmondsavers.com/ - he does completely free travel coaching, and can point you in the right direction.

Brad, Mustachian Buddy, and I met for breakfast Saturday. First thing you'll want to know about Brad is that he an extremely nice and helpful guy. Second thing you'll want to know is that he has done all the homework already. He is now working with me directly, and I am confident that we will do far better over time than my Costco Amex, which has provided a nice chunk of cash at the end of the year. Properly played, the travel bonuses will far exceed the cash back from AMEX.

This works if you have three things in place

You use your cards like charge cards and not credit cards (you pay your full balance each and every month).
You actually plan to travel, otherwise just go with cash back cards.
You are organized enough to play the game properly. If you are a bit scatter-brained, this isn't going to work. 

I plan to post later this year with our personal results.

Thanks to both of you for mentioning me and my travel rewards coaching service -- I really appreciate the kind words and the recommendation to other Mustachians! 

I'm always happy to help anyone here in the MMM community with their travel rewards strategy.  Please either sign up for my coaching service here:

http://www.richmondsavers.com/free-travel-rewards-coaching-program/

Or just shoot me an email at brad (at) richmondsavers.com

hybrid summarized this nice and succinctly and I'll just reiterate:  only do this is you're responsible with your credit cards (I define as paying on time and in full every month and not spending more than you would have just because you have a card).

You just need to be a little bit organized to take advantage of this, but it isn't difficult.  Just some logins for your airline/hotel accounts and a little data on when you opened the credit cards, got the bonus, etc.  I have a spreadsheet and I'll be happy to forward it if you email me.

Make sure you're getting the right points based on the airport you live near and the potential destinations you have in mind.  I always recommend the Chase Ultimate Rewards points (Sapphire Preferred and Ink cards) because of their transfer options and it is hard to go wrong with the low-hanging fruit of the Capital One Venture and Barclaycard Arrival Plus. 

[Richmond Savers]

I have 4 Barclay's cards, and Mrs NFO has 3.  If Lufthansa is a giving away miles that you could use on United Air Lines, I say go for it.  Make sure their points/miles can be used.  I signed up for a British Airways card from Chase for 50k miles because their points can be used on American Airlines (R/T from DCA to MIA for only 9000 miles!). 

I've been very happy with the service from Barclay as well.

I love that you're using the Avios distance-based system to such great effect!  We go from RIC-LGA for 9k Avios RT all the time.  $400+ flight for 9k points is incredible!

From DC you can get to Bermuda for only 15k Avios too.  You can take advantage of the same thing we did:

http://www.richmondsavers.com/our-231-luxury-bermuda-trip-using-travel-rewards-points/

[Richmond Savers]

thank you for your reply :) I signed up for the Barclays one last night...does that particular qualify as a "reimbursement" card? And how does one figure this out? Thank you!

 

Hello,

2 questions. 1, can you buy your airline tickets on the credit card (for instance, the Barclays) to meet the 3,000 threshold?

Second, If I shut down the card before 1 year to avoid the Annual, how much of a hit will this generally take on the credit score. Mine is currently between 713- 733 (I get two different scored on two different sites).

Thank you!

1) On the "reimbursement" ones you can, yes, and then retroactively go back and get the credit for that spending reimbursed after your bonus posts.

2) It shouldn't be too bad, but it depends on a number of other factors on your report (if that's one of 2 cards, or one of 10, etc.). You can also call and try to get them to waive the fee at the one year mark so you don't have to close it.

The main "reimbursement" (fixed value) cards are the Barclaycard Arrival Plus and the Capital One Venture.  You just use these cards to pay for your travel and then you go in after the fact and apply your points to that travel expense to "erase" the expense.  These are the easiest and most straightforward cards in the travel rewards game. 

Arrival gets you $506 free travel after hitting the $3k spend and the Venture gets you $460 after the spend.  Tough to go wrong with that!

You have up to 120 days for the Arrival (90 for Venture) from the date of the expense to go back and retroactively apply your points.  So as arebelspy said, you can open this card, use it initially for your travel expense (before you've earned the bonus), subsequently complete your spending requirement and then apply your points to erase that expense.

I have a video here (among about 40 others) explaining how to redeem Arrival points:

http://www.richmondsavers.com/travel-rewards-coaching-video-training/

I'm really sorry I can't give out the password in an open forum, but just sign up on that page and it will be mailed to you immediately.

[Zoot Allures]

Second, If I shut down the card before 1 year to avoid the Annual, how much of a hit will this generally take on the credit score. Mine is currently between 713- 733 (I get two different scored on two different sites).

My understanding is that your credit score takes a temporary hit when you apply for cards, not when you cancel them.

[HawkeyeNFO]

Second, If I shut down the card before 1 year to avoid the Annual, how much of a hit will this generally take on the credit score. Mine is currently between 713- 733 (I get two different scored on two different sites).

My understanding is that your credit score takes a temporary hit when you apply for cards, not when you cancel them.

It depends on how long you've had the card.  Closing one within ayear of opening it won't hurt your score a bit.  Part of your credit score is based on the average age of your accounts.  The higher the average age of accounts, the better your score.  So if you've had a card for 10 or 15 years, I'd recommend keeping it unless there is an annual fee.