Looking at your credit card bill balance after a going to two softball tournaments, was your immediate reaction “What the —-?”. And then you thought, “There must be some mistake.” So you go look at EVERY SINGLE TRANSACTION and then realize you made every one of those purchases and yell “Son of a b—–!”.
This is why it’s important to grab every advantage you can to save money, earn points and get free stuff like flights. Here’s one way to earn free flights.
Just to be clear… this article does not constitute any financial advice. Applying for credit cards and carrying debt on your credit cards can affect your credit score. Before making any decisions, talk to a financial advisor or a Certified Financial Planner to assess how this will affect you.
Signing up for credit cards can earn people lots of miles, which might give them one or two free flights depending on how far you’re traveling. Most of them require that spending $2,000 to $4,000 in three months and then they give 30 to 50 thousand points. Depending on which airline travelers use, it could pay for a couple flights.
They KEY to making this work is you MUST PAY OFF YOUR CREDIT CARD BALANCE EACH MONTH or else you lose all the value that you gained from signing up for the card.
Chase Travel Credit Cards offers the biggest variety of travel cards, airline cards, hotel cards and resort cards. The flagship is the Chase Sapphire Preferred card which gives you 50,000 points after you spend $4,000 in the first three months of getting the card. This can be a big spend but if travelers have a big purchase like a car, home improvement or a travel tournament coming up, they can use the card to pay for it and earn a couple free flights.
Pay attention to the Annual Fee because some waive the first year. Some give lots of miles but charge you a $495 annual fee which would eliminate the benefits of getting the points. Many of the cards have a $95 annual fee.
Chase points are particularly good because they are flexible for different airlines. Travelers can even transfer the points to your Southwest Airlines accounts and then use them to buy flights. Cardholders can also get double points for using it on travel and dining expenses. The points can also be used for hotels.
Also in the Chase Cards family is the Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus Credit Card which requires less money to spend. At the time of writing this article, the offer was a special 60,000 points after spending $2,000 in the first three months of getting the card.
Delta Airlines Credit Card is offering 50,000 miles for spending $2,000 or more in the first three months of opening the account. And it gives people an opportunity to earn an extra 10,000 miles if they spend a little more.
Citi also has an offering of travel credit cards which include American Airlines and Expedia. Travelers can earn 30,000 American Airlines points if by spending $1,000 dollars in the three months of opening an account. This offer may not be as attractive as some of the others, but you are spending less money. And if you like American Airlines, it could be a good choice.
While these are great, the downside is managing the bills coming in. It can be a lot of work managing the extra credit card, but you’ll have to judge whether a free flight or two is worth it. The most important thing is that travelers don’t carry the balance on the credit card and 15% – 20% interest can take away all the benefits of getting those free flights.
Good luck!
Softball Nation 