Ultimate Travel Points Thread
 

Lets hear your loop holes guys!

I have a ton of RBC rewards points thats not eligible for avios however I can transfer them to other places.

whats the best value?

Anyone do Cathay Pacific business class with points before?

I used to be hardcore into aeroplan. Since I bought a lot of stuff at Costco, there Amex program was the best. You can apply for cards every two years and there bonus on cards was crazy good. I combined it with what was the cibc aeroplan card at the time for other purchases. Went on a few business class overseas trips with it. You could have 2 layover connections for the flights online, but if you called in, you could get 3. Last time I used it, I went to Thailand, Korea and Japan.

Sadly those days are over so I mainly use capitalone aspire now

Looks like we can't churn amex cards anymore?

Looking into a new cc with travel rewards, been hearing that it's possible to get the minimum income requirement waived as well as the yearly fee. Are they pretty strict on the latter, since I think it'll be easy to get the income part waived.

I have a Cathay first class flight booked in avios next week

Take ur rbc reward card and upgrade to an infinit Avion
Pay the AF. Get ur bonus points and ur existing points should transfer to Avion points

From there u can transfer ur Avion to avios points but wait for the bonus promo...used to be 50% but only 30% this year due to low dollar

And from there spend ur avios.

I use my amex gold card for all travel grocery and gas...about 30 to 40k spend on that a year yields me 60to 80k points since those cats gores earn at 2x.

Then on my amex plat I spend about 40k a year so that gets me abother 50k MR points. Since everything is 1.25x

So that's 110 to 130k Mr points a year
Convert that to avios or aeroplan. ...wait for a promo where it's 25% bonus. And that's usually enough for a round trip in J every year.

How far in advance do you need to book it?

Last year I booked the following trip 6 months in advance
Yvr to nrt J
Nrt to hkg J
Pvg to Nrt J
Hnd to sfo F
Sfo to Yvr Y

Total cost was about 225k avios points

This Cathay trip I booked about 2 months in advance
Jfk to Yvr on Cathay F
50000 avios points

how many points do you guys accumulate per year? and how much is that in dollar spend?

from my experience, you hear the stories of people earning lots and lots of points to do all these business/first class trips every year. This doesn't happen to everyone.

The reason I can do it is that I own a small business. I put roughly $250k of expenses on my card a year so that yields a lot of points. Next year I'll be running 3 business so obviously I'll most likely have 3x - 4x the points compared to the previous year. For the average person, I think signing up for a card that has a bonus short haul flight is already a win. You could save 10 years average spending without getting that business class overseas seat.

Just my 2 cents

^ curious, which card are you putting your business expenses on? Some of the most common ares are of course the Amex ones. But for your BBT business, does your vendor/suppliers accept Amex?

My suppliers do not accept Amex due to the higher processing cost. I should be happy they accept any credit cards at all because I'm dealing with Asian suppliers.

I also expense a lot of stuff from places that only accept Mastercard (Costco being one) so I focus on using only my CapitalOne now.

Best bang for the buck card for an average Joe? I've had the CIBC aventura visa infinite for the past few years and at $120 annually, I'm curious if I can find a better travel points card cheaper.

^The CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite cards should give you FYF (First year free), you just have to wait for the right moment.

Right now I am using the TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite card and I am also trying to find a new card to churn/collect.... I haven't had any problems with Aeroplan at all and I just came back from a double F class trip to Asia with ANA!

I have been hearing people talking about how you can't churn Aeroplan anymore, but I haven't researched it that much, can anyone give a quick tl;dr on what they did? I know they took out things such as referral bonuses etc...

Amex points (and some other awards programs) could be redeemed for aeroplan. When you sign up for Amex, they always have like 25k or 30k bonuses. Also 10k referral points. They may also have bonus times to transfer from Amex to aeroplan points. I think it was every two years you can cancel and apply for another Amex which gives you the sign up bonus. Also first year fee is waived. To get the bonus points you have to spend $1500 in the first 3 months.

Also for aeroplan, you still have to pay tax when redeeming your points.

bingo

Yeah, I was surprise you're able to accept credit card for a lot of your suppliers for the business you're in.

Churning Amex eliminated post July 1, 2015.
Referring Amex eliminated post Jan 11, 2016.

There's limited exception, like a few Biz card that still works. But most of it is gone with it's once-a-life-time signup bonus policy.

Man that sucks. About 5 years back with my first business, I would have a personal Amex, fiances Amex, business Amex x 2, parents Amex x 2, inlaw Amex x 2, all with referral points + cibc aeroplan visa signup bonuses too. Then every 2 years I'd have them cancelled, rinse and repeat.

Man I milked it good haha

what are avios points as opposed to avion?

Avios = British Airways points, redeemable on the OneWorld network.

Avion = RBC points = economy tickets at cash redemption value, or convert to AA points (American Airlines) or Avios points (see above).

I am heading off on Singapore 77W First and A380 Suites in a few weeks, SFO-NRT-SIN-DEL. I will be returning BOM-AUH-JFK-YVR to try out the Etihad A380 'apartment' First Class and Cathay Pacific first from JFK-YVR.

Mark

^You got all that on reward points? Care to explain :sweetjesus:

I have been collecting points for a long time, a combination of paying for some via AmEx promotions (ie Platinum = 60k AmEx points for $299 after 2x $200 travel credits), referrals, and lots of old fashioned spend.

The Singapore F is decidedly unusual in that I managed to find a guy on one of the forums who wanted Aeroplan points, so we were able to transfer his points into my Krisflyer (SQ) account and vice versa into his Aeroplan. I paid a 25% premium IIRC so my 125,000 KF cost me 156,250 Aeroplan for the one way. This is admitted a "bucket list" item for me.

The return is via AA points which I have used a combination of SPG points and my RBC Avion to generate, over a few years, mostly via spend. It was 90,000 AA points which is 90,000 RBC or 75k SPG points.

Mark

What's a "ton"? 100k? 200k?

Your best redemption by far is to suck it up and get the Avion card and convert to AAdvantage, NOT Avios.

Cathay pacific business class = 100k return to Asia
Cathay first class = 125k return to Asia

This is assuming you can get your shit together and book everything before March 21, 2016.

Do your Asian suppliers charge in CAD or in forex currency? If the latter, you're doing a disservice to your profits by charging to a CapitalOne. Easy to save 2.5% right off the bat with a chase card.

Depends on the airline. Generally, either when they're first available (33x days) or close in (2 weeks).