Putting It All Into Perspective – 9 Months In Review

It is hard to believe it is September already!

I restarted FFU on Jan 1, 2012 and I cannot believe it has already been 9 months!

As I start planning trips for Winter and Spring 2013, I thought it might be interesting to look back and see what the last 9 months has brought us. 

So here is a breakdown of all the Cards I have promoted on FFU and personally signed up for in 2012.

March

• Chase Sapphire Preferred – 50,000 Ultimate Rewards Points For $3,000 In Minimum Spend

April

• Chase INK Bold – 60,000 Ultimate Rewards Points For $5,000 Minimum Spend

May

• United MileagePlus Explorer – 55,000 United Miles + $50 Statement Credit Instantly After 1st Purchase

August

• SPG Business AMEX – 30,000 Starpoints For $5,000 Minimum Spend

As you can see my Credit Card Sign Up strategy is fairly conservative (I need to change that ASAP!) in that I spread them out over a few months and only jump in on the really good offers.

Even with 4 new Credit Cards opened just this year and 9 total Credit Cards accounts open (Chase Freedom, Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase United MileagePlus Explorer, Chase INK Bold, Capital One Venture, Capital One VentureOne, Discover Card, Macy’s AMEX, and SPG Business AMEX), my Credit Score according to Credit Karma is still 761!

Simply by signing up for 4 Credit Cards in the past 9 months and agreeing to spend $13,000 on them, I received the following miles (I’ve included the miles earned for completing the Minimum Spend Requirements):

• 118,000 Ultimate Rewards Points (53k + 65k)
• 55,000 United Miles
• $50 Statement Credit
• 35,000 Starpoints

Ultimately I suspect I will transfer all my Ultimate Rewards Points to United, so if I did that I would have 173,000 United miles!

That is almost enough miles for a free First Class flight on United anywhere in the World!

Although the amount of miles earned may seem staggering, the astonishing part is that anyone could easily do this!

Not to mention, as I talked about last week, by doing a simple App-O-Rama, you could easily do this every quarter and earn close to 1 million miles a year!

Not sure if you noticed but for some reason or the other I haven’t signed up for any Citi Cards this year (to be honest, I am not sure why).

Had I signed up for 1 or 2 Citi AA Cards, I could easily have added another 100,000 AA miles to the mix!

While I did have to spend $13,000 in Minimum Spend Requirements to get all the miles, with the help of Amazon Payments, I have been able to transfer $1,000 a month for free, every month, for the last 9 months!

So effectively, I have only had to actually spend $4,000 ($13k-$9k) to get over 200,000 Miles / Points!

Why This Matters

I literally get emails everyday from people asking, “I have a trip coming up next month, what is the quickest way to get 100k miles?”.

Unfortunately, the quickest way is to start planning months ago!

I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH!!!

Airline Miles are not like Hotel Credit Cards in which you sign up for the Card and get 2 Free Nights right off the bat (or in this case 1 Free Fight). 

Instead it may take 1 or 2 Airline Credit Card Sign Ups to get the 100,000 miles you need to take your Business Class trip!

While Credit Card Sign Up Bonuses come and go every month, please don’t write them off because you don’t need any miles at this exact second.

Over the last year, when I signed up for all the above Credit Cards, outside of potentially going to India in December, I had no real use for them.

However I know myself and know that there are many places that I want to visit (for free)!

So even without a specific destination in mind, I went ahead and signed up for all those Cards because I know in a few months, when I decide out of the blue that I want to go to New Zealand or wherever, I won’t be in a panic trying to wrangle some miles because I will already have enough!

At the end of the day, earning miles to travel for free simply comes down to Long Range Planning!

When it comes to earning miles, you are either Proactive or Reactive.

Proactive Mileage Earners always plan ahead and get miles whenever there is a good opportunity, even if they don’t need the miles at that time.

Reactive Mileage Earners wait until they have a destination in mind, and then scramble to try and earn enough miles for their trip, which unfortunately 9/10 times doesn’t work.

Anyways, I hope everyone else has had as good of a year in terms of miles!

Just out of curiosity, I’d love to hear how many miles FFU Readers have earned in 2012?

-Parag