My Wanderlusting Round-trip Journey
There’s an old saying about dancing with the girl who brought you… well today I’m going to dance with the girl who brought me.
Almost a year ago, with a ferocious wanderlust, cheapness in my veins, and a diligent-researcher-brother egging me on, I took the plunge into the world of travel credit card rewards. My first date was the Citi AAdvantage Amex.
Almost 12 months and about 505,000 miles/points later, here I am, thirsting for more.
Today I’m applying for the Citi Business Amex for 75,000 more AAdvantage miles , and my only regret is that I’m already a cardholder and I can’t also apply for the AAdvantage Visa to round my winnings up to 150k. Several of our readers logged the 225,000 mile homerun by applying for all three at a time. If you’re wanting to do the same thing, read the instructions on the flyertalk post diligently and don’t go off half-cocked. As long as you use your cards cautiously and follow our Before You Apply rules, I don’t think you’ll have any regrets.
I’ve tracked my credit score with CreditSesame.com and I figure that my score has dropped about 18 points over this timeframe. Much of that might be due to the fact that I was too tempted by 3.6% interest rates in the meantime and refinanced my house. My wife’s score has remained relatively unchanged. I’ve never missed a payment, and never paid a dime in interest.
I keep track of all my expenses and spending with the beautiful tool that is Mint.com. That way I’m never late with my payments and I can always be sure that I have tabs on each and every one of my accounts without having to login to each one individually.
To hoard my points and count them like Ebenezer Scrooge, I use Awardwallet.com. As if the wind and relentless allergies weren’t enough to spur my wanderlust, I can always spend some time looking at my stack to get the juices flowing.
Wanderlust: It’s a healthy addiction, if there is such a thing.
how do flyer miles work? is it a set number of miles to a particular destination or do those miles vary like a plane ticket price? what’s the average miles needed for an international flight versus domestic? thanks so much for your site, love it!
how do flyer miles work? is it a set number of miles to a particular destination or do those miles vary like a plane ticket price? what’s the average miles needed for an international flight versus domestic? thanks so much for your site, love it!
Jamie- Great question. There’s not a set number of miles, but there are categories, or ranges for different areas depending on the airline and the program. Click on Using Air Miles and scroll down to the AAdvantage Award Chart Link. As a general rule on AA, you can get to Central and Northern South America for as little as 30,000 miles RT. Europe will cost you closer to 50,000, but as little as 40,000.
American has one of the best FF programs, and these miles are super valuable. They are pretty flexible on dates and can take you just about anywhere.
Thanks for wanderlusting with us!
I’m in a similar boat. I applied for the personal AA Visa back in June, but since I was refinancing, I decided to lay relatively low. Why didn’t I apply for both personal AA cards? Well, because the application gave me an error message after I submitted it, and I figured that because my re-fi was imminent, I should just give it a rest until it was completed. So I was actually surprised when the AA Visa showed up in the mail. Since things worked out this way, I couldn’t double-up with the personal AA Amex with an eye on the full 225K, but once I get a bit farther along with my Starwood Amex, I’m going to go ahead and apply for the business AA Visa to get to 150K.
American’s program represents the best value in Frequent Flier Mile-ville. It still blows me away that I can get to Peru for 30,000 miles… that just seems so unreal. One of these days I’ll do it, too.
What are your plans with your miles?
Bucky,
I did the same thing. Now we work hard to instruct our readers to do it right! In the beginning I was so new and I didn’t understand how to maximize the miles to the highest. That is part of the reason that we started the blog. We felt like we knew so much, and had done so much research on our own that we might as well share it with everyone else.
I go the personal visa, as did my wife. I also got the business. I guess that my wife will have to get the business to finish us off at 300,000. It’s not quite 450,000, but that is what I’m telling everyone else to get these days.
I’m glad you got the Starwood card. I got the card back when they had the huge spending requirement, so I’m still working on mine. I’ve even had help from family trying to get me to the 15,000, and I’m only at 8,000. I guess if I have to pay 3% as a transaction fee on a few thousand it will still be worth it. My wife got it on the 30,000 deal, so we will have some hotel points to burn.
Thanks for your comment.
Pingback: Avoid Paying Credit Card Annual Fee | WorldWanderlusting.com
Pingback: Traveling with Children | WorldWanderlusting.com
Pingback: From Wanderlusting to Wandering – Hawaii | WorldWanderlusting.com
Pingback: How to Save $4,000 on your European Trip | WorldWanderlusting.com