OT: A beginner miles/points trick that got me a free ticket to London!

Only somewhat work-related, but fun!

I’m a travel fanatic, but I’m not a big miles and points person; rather than juggling the annual fees and welcome bonuses, eating at restaurants with Z in the name on the sixth Thursday of the month to get 25x points, I’d typically rather just shop for a deal. And deals exist: when I went to Fiji earlier this year, we paid US $1,500 each for roundtrip airfare and four nights at a five-star resort; the whole trip cost me less than $2,000, to fly (literally) halfway around the world and stay at the Marriott Momi Bay, the only five-star resort I’ve ever been to. Plus I’m one of the weirdos who actually loves every aspect of travel (the people-watching, the tiny snacks, the ill-behaved animals) so I don’t particularly care about lounge access or priority boarding, and not only do I never check luggage, I’ve downsized from a standard carry-on to an under-seat bag, so the free checked bag benefits are of zero interest to me.

I should do more with miles and points, because I’m kind of an ideal candidate: I have excellent credit and no debt, and I’ve never carried a credit card balance in my life. I should do more, I just haven’t. I think there’s also a lot of evidence to suggest that, dollar for dollar, you’re better off using a cash-back credit card and just putting that money into your travel fund. But here’s an exception, maybe of interest to anyone in the US who’s self-employed.

Earlier this year I got an American Express Blue Business Plus credit card for business expenses. It’s no annual fee, and to get the welcome bonus (15,000 Amex points) you only have to spend $3,000 in the first three months. With my usual business expenses plus a few work-related trips (most of which were then reimbursed by clients) I ended up with 22,000 Amex points since I opened the card in May.

What to do with 22,000 Amex points, which isn’t really that many? Well, one day I was listening to the Frequent Miler on the Air podcast, and they were highlighting the best deals when you transfer credit card points to airline mileage programs. Their top pick was transferring Amex points to Virgin Atlantic, where you can get a one-way ticket from New York to London for as little as 12,000 points (which, conventional wisdom would have it, are worth only about $120). This coincided nicely with a plan I was hatching with a couple of friends, to go to London this summer, then on to Denmark and Holland.

Following the podcast’s advice, I checked the award ticket availability *before* I transferred the points (because you can’t reverse the transfer), and indeed I could have gotten JFK-Heathrow for 12,000 points, but I’ve been wanting to try Virgin’s daytime transatlantic flight (leaves JFK at 8 AM, arrives in London at 8 PM) for jet lag avoidance reasons, so I got that for 20,000 points and $108 in taxes, then I booked an award ticket for Denver-NYC on Southwest, using some Southwest points that I had on my personal credit card.

I still feel like the blackbelt miles/points thing is more work than I want to put in (switching all my auto-pays between cards, tracking the progress toward the welcome bonus), but this was pretty easy and gratifying!!

Another entry-level tip in that Frequent Miler episode: if you’re a member of a hotel chain’s loyalty program, see if they ever have points sales, or if you can get some perks by booking with points. We’re not luxury hotel people, but on road trips we frequently stay at places owned by Choice Hotels (Quality Inn, Comfort Inn, sometimes Econo Lodge if we’re desperate!) or IHG (Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, and other, higher-end places). Both Choice and IHG run points sales at up to 40% off, which could be especially appealing if you want to stay at a luxury property for less. My family likes to mock my Choice Hotels Elite Platinum status (big spender…not!!) but there are some surprisingly fancy properties in the Choice family.

Along those same lines, some higher-end hotel chains give you some bonuses if you book with points, and it doesn’t matter whether you earn the points or buy them. NerdWallet travel (BTW I also like their Smart Travel podcast) wrote a blog post about this. For example, Hilton and Hyatt both waive the resort fee if you book with points, and Marriott gives you the fifth night free if you book four nights with points.

I got so excited about this that I’m now planning to get an Amex personal card, hoping they keep this very attractive transfer partnership with Virgin Atlantic! And I’ll report back from Stonehenge!

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