The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: Sukotto on July 16, 2015, 01:28:22 PM
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Seeing as how airplane tickets and hotels are usually the biggest travel expense I've been trying to offset that. So I've been thinking of getting a new credit card that has travel miles and other rewards but there just seems to be so many options, do I go with an Airline card? A bank card? Any suggestions? Capital One Venture seems decent, with a 40k mile sign up bonus if you spend 3k in 3 months and 2miles for every dollar spent.
I'm also looking to possibly use my credit card for monthly expenses like groceries, gas, restaurants, etc..to take full advantage of the reward system. I've never done something like this before, paying for everything on credit, so I'm kinda scared to have a bunch of money charged to my card. I've always been told 'credit cards are bad and are a last resort' growing up. But since I'm here on these forums, I'm halfway decent with handling money. So as long as I can pay ALL off at the end of the month, using it for normal expenses shouldn't be a big deal?
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Anyone?
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Head over to www.reddit.com/r/churning (http://www.reddit.com/r/churning) and check out the wiki. There are a lot of variables to consider, but they have a template that you can follow. Make sure you do your due diligence and keep a good record. It can be very rewarding, but the banks have crunched the numbers and normally come out on top. Just make sure you aren't spending extra just to meet minimum spends and you should be on your way to free/reduced cost travel.
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There is no best card, which one/s to get depends on how you want to use the rewards. I read the credit card forums at FlyerTalk to help me figure out which ones to get.
Credit cards are great if you pay them off so you never pay interest, and if you don't spend more because of them.
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There is no best card, which one/s to get depends on how you want to use the rewards. I read the credit card forums at FlyerTalk to help me figure out which ones to get.
Credit cards are great if you pay them off so you never pay interest, and if you don't spend more because of them.
+1. It all depends on which hotels / airlines you want to use, and whether the card(s) support those choices. Primarily 1) sign-up bonuses (bulk of the miles) + 2) category bonuses (i.e. "5x points on purchases at office supply stores"). Lots of info on frequentmiler.boardingarea.com - also TPG (the points guy) has a neat mobile app that tells you which of your cards has the best category bonuses for the stores near you. A couple of frequent forum posters (Alexi & Brad) have started an on-line course over at http://www.travelmiles101.com/. They send a daily email, and there's a Facebook group to ask questions of your peers. I took the course in June, and the June group is still very active on FB. Highly recommended.
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Barclaycard has probably the best 2% rewards for travel of any card. I got a big 40,000 mile bonus when I signed up last year, not sure if they still have it.
You also get 10% back when you redeem your miles. I.e. Redeem 20,000 get 2,000 rewards.
Also, they are the easiest rewards points I've ever seen. You use your card for any flight, gas, hotel from any site, and then redeem it from your card. No booking from certain sites, airlines, etc.
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Thanks everyone for the replies. I guess I should has said that I'm not necessarily looking to churn, just looking for a decent general use card that I can rack up point easier than with my current card.
Trixr: I'll definitely look into Barclaycard! Thanks!