Recently, a co-worker told me he’s planning to visit family in Europe in 18-24 months. We had previously discussed credit card rewards, so he was interested in reducing his costs for the flights. His lodging expenses will be covered since he’s staying with family. He is taking his wife and two kids with him, so he needs a lot of miles in order to get free flights (minus any taxes he would have to pay). With that background in mind, I advised him to accumulate miles via credit card rewards following the path explained below. This plan requires that he and his wife each sign up for the credit cards described to ensure they can collect enough miles for all four people in the traveling party.
The easiest path to accumulating enough airline miles through credit card sign ups is through United Mileage Plus miles. There are a number of credit cards that will earn you either United miles or points that you can transfer into United miles. All of these cards are available through Chase. The only wrinkle in the plan is the new Chase policy of only approving you for a new Chase card if you have had less than 5 new credit card sign ups in the past 24 months. For people just starting out on the credit card churning path, this policy shouldn’t be a problem. For those of us that have been at it a while, that is almost an insurmountable obstacle. We try to sign up for a new card every three months, so we could not execute the strategy that I laid out for him.
Traveling from the mainland United States to Europe will cost 60,000 miles for one round trip Saver Award in economy. One business class round trip Saver Award will cost 115,000 miles. This means economy tickets will cost 240,000 miles for a family of four while four business class tickets would cost 460,000 miles. Once my friend saw these numbers, he was happy to fly in economy class.
The first card to sign up for is the United MileagePlus Explorer card, but only when the bonus is at 50,000 miles for $3,000 minimum spend within the first three months . This card will also give you an additional 5,000 miles if you add an additional authorized user to your account and that person makes a single purchase. The United MileagePlus Explorer card does have a $95 annual fee, but it is waived for the first year. Not only are miles important for getting free tickets, but the card comes with added perks which will be beneficial for travel. The first additional benefit is that this card will provide one free bag each for you and a guest traveling on the same reservation. This counts for award tickets as well as regular fares. The second perk is the most important: the United MileagePlus Explorer card opens up additional Saver Award tickets for the card holder. A flight may have just two Saver Award tickets for MileagePlus members, but might have additional availability for Explorer cardholders. I’ve often searched for flights before signing in to see no award availability at the Saver level. Once I sign into my account which is linked to my MileagePlus Explorer card, multiple award availability was displayed.
After earning 58,0000 miles (50,000 bonus, 5,000 for adding an authorized user, plus 3,000 miles for the minimum spend) per adult for the Explorer card, it’s time to shift to a different award currency. You will want to start earning Chase Ultimate Reward points. I haven’t discussed these in great detail yet, but suffice it to say that these can be directly transferred at a 1-to-1 ratio into United MileagePlus award miles. Chase offers a few cards that will let you earn lots of Ultimate Reward points.
The second card to sign up for, and one that can provide Ultimate Reward points, is the Chase Freedom Card. The Freedom card will give you 15,000 Ultimate Reward points (with one caveat as described below) for $500 minimum spending within the first three months. This card will also give you an additional 2,500 points if you add an additional authorized user and they make a single purchase. These points can be cashed out if you would like ($150 for the signup bonus plus $25 for the authorized user bonus), but they are much more valuable when transferred to United miles. The caveat is that you can’t transfer the Ultimate Reward points without the third card, which is the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card (or the Chase Business Ink card). The Chase Freedom Card doesn’t have an annual fee, plus it will give you a different bonus category each quarter. Spending in the selected bonus category will get you 5 Ultimate Reward points for each dollar spent in that quarter. Anything outside the category will earn you 1 Ultimate Reward point. The spending categories are often very useful, ranging from gas stations, restaurants, grocery stores, and home improvement stores, to online commerce sites like Amazon.com. We can often find Target gift cards or Disney gift cards in stores that fit into those categories.
The third card to sign up for is the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card, but only when the bonus is 50,000 Ultimate Reward points for $4,000 minimum spend over within the first three months. This card will also give you an additional 5,000 Ultimate Reward points if you add an additional authorized user and they make a single purchase. The main perk of the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card is that you can transfer the Ultimate Reward points from the Chase Freedom into your Chase Sapphire Preferred Ultimate Reward account, then into your United Mileage Plus account. The card has a $95 annual fee that is waived the first year. The card does earn 2 Ultimate Reward points for travel and dining purchases, and 1 Ultimate Reward point for everything else.
Here is how the earnings break out:
| Base Earning | Authorized User | Miles from Spend | Total | |
| Chase United Mileage Plus Explorer Card | 50,000 | 5,000 | 3,000 | 58,000 |
| Chase Freedom Card | 15,000 | 2,500 | 500 | 18,000 |
| Chase Sapphire Preferred Card | 50,000 | 5,000 | 4000 | 59,000 |
| Total | 135,000 |
If my coworker and his wire both obtain these three cards and earn points as described above, they will each have enough for two round trip Economy Saver Award tickets (giving them the four tickets they need). Luckily, my co-worker has the time necessary to get each of these cards and work through the minimum spend in order to get all of the sign up bonuses. They also have the luxury of having a fairly open planning window for their trip, so they can specifically look for a time when there are plenty of Saver Award tickets available.
This is one example of a suggested approach to accumulate miles and points to get free airline tickets. Pick out one that works best for you and your traveling party and get started!
* Please follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Email!
