How Does it Looks so Easy When You Do It? An Introduction to Miles and Points

Why Does it Looks so Easy When You Do It? An Introduction to Miles and Points

My lovely sister-in law violently lashed out at me today that I make the miles and points game look too easy. Okay I am embellishing quite a bit as she does not have a violent bone in her body and is one of my favorite people on the planet. Let me try and help her and y’all out with this primer.

What Are Miles, What are Hotel Points, What are Credit Card points?

Miles are the rewards airlines give passengers for flying with them. Passengers need to create a membership account with the airline to earn miles on each flights. Typically you can also earn miles by applying for the airline credit card and using it for purchase.

Points are the same thing as miles, but for hotels. Hotels also have credit cards you can earn additional points on.

Credit Card Points are rewards you get from non airline/hotel branded credit cards.

Which are the best kind of rewards?

I will give you my consulting answer, it depends. However, this post is geared towards my beginners which means you likely do not travel too frequently, which is okay! I would suggest going with a bank card such as Amex Platinum, Capital On Venture X or Chase Sapphire as your points can be used in a variety of ways. Airline miles or hotel points can typically only be used for that specific brand.

How Do I Use Bank Rewards/Points

There are two ways to use Bank Rewards/Points. You can book directly through your credit card travel portal. The benefit of this is typically there are no blackout dates or anything and you can book on any airline. Bank points usually convert like this;

I recommend instead transferring your bank points to an airline miles program. Please read my post dedicated on that to understand why and how it works, but you can get so much more value doing it this way. But by transferring to an airline partner, those 98,332 Capital One Points above can become 98,332 miles on Air Canada or something like that.  I just looked and on June 23 I can fly both Matt and I in business class one-way on-Air Canada to Rome for less than 98,000 miles. You see how transferring can be quite the steal? 980 dollars will get one of you there in cattle class!

How to Earn Points

Spend spend spend. Put everything on that credit card and you will see your points grow. However be sure to pay off your card at the end of each billing cycle as interest payments are crazy and will ruin your credit score and just not worth it. Only spend what you can pay off right after!

How Do You Get Such Good Redemptions

Be flexible on the dates and destination. Matt and I prioritize business class over the destination as all places have nice architecture, good food and pretty scenery.  I have a post on that too. If it is cheaper to go to Athens instead of Stockholm, we go to Athens.

Hope this primer helps everyone! Let me know if you have questions.

Bon Voyage,

Andrew