Technically there are few things in life that are truly free but…. there are certainly ways to accumulate frequent flyer points without having to get on a plane.
I would like to be able to take my family to Europe. Ticket prices to get there will be a huge cost in that trip and one I believe I should be able to remove with some careful planning.
My tips for building frequent flyer points without getting on a plane!
Decide on an airline
Before targeting your spending toward frequent flyer points, it’s a good idea to decide on which airline you would like to fly with. This will help you to direct your focus to the one area.
I have decided for the European trip to book with Qantas. Why? I have had a Qantas frequent flyer membership forever and my credit card that I have currently can convert points.
I rarely fly with Qantas as I do find their pricing ridiculously high most of the time so I have to be strategic in how I can get to the points total I need.
Research ways you can accumulate points with the airline
Do a bit of research on the frequent flyer program of your airline of choice, which can be found on their website. My advice is to consider an Australian airline (if you live in Australia) as I often find that goods and services (including credit card providers) for points accumulation will be in Australia.
Do not look at spending money you otherwise would not be spending
Do not look at the website and think oh look they have a promotion on wine if I buy a dozen bottles each month and you don’t drink wine. Spending money on something you wouldn’t normally spend money on is just costing you more and you may as well just pay for the airfare. The idea of accumulating points through your spending is to feel like you’re getting something for nothing, not having to go and spend a heap more money just to get points.
How many points do you need?
Research how many points you will need to do the trip. For me, I’m going to need approximately 120,000 points per person to do the trip I am wanting.
This is important as it will give you a decent goal in how quickly you can achieve it to set a realistic timeframe for yourself on what you’re hoping to achieve and when you could reasonably do that. You may also choose to cover a portion. E.g. your family of 4 you might try to get 2 tickets for free and pay for only 2, halving the cost.
How do I plan on getting my family of 4 to Europe for free?
I started planning for this a couple of years ago.
One of the local banks had a special on their credit card. $0 fee for the first year and 100,000 bonus Qantas points when you spent $3,000 in the first 3 months.
I already have a credit card through my bank which I don’t pay a yearly fee for. However, even though that bank did also have a promotion, I wasn’t entitled to it because I was already a customer.
So how did I turn that 100,000 points into 150,000?
I signed up for the new credit card…. disclaimer here that this is not financial advice and you of course need to check your own financial situation and talk to professionals should you need financial advice. There is absolutely no point in signing up for anything if you are not in a position for it. You also need to remember that any time you sign up for a new financial product, the bank will run a credit check. Running a credit check also hits your credit statement and if you do this too many times, it may reflect poorly on your credit rating so it is wise to make sure you are getting your own financial advice before deciding whether what works for me is something that can work for you as well.
So, back to the card. I signed up for the new card. Spending $3,000 in 3 months was never going to be a problem for me as I was doing that on my current card so no issues there. In 3 months, the 100,000 bonus points were transferred to my Qantas membership along with the monthly totals that were accumulating for spending on the card.
I also set up a reminder in my calendar to ensure I closed that card in 11 months so I didn’t pay the yearly fee on it once the first year was finished.
To get the additional 50,000 points I called my current bank and asked them what they could do about a new card with points. Naturally they said they couldn’t. I reminded them in the conversation that I had been with them and held that same credit card for more than 20 years. They agreed to just give me 50,000 bonus points to hold the credit card open with them. I naturally did this.
I then continued to spend by putting my expenses to my credit card (reading the fine print to make sure you are spending in the most beneficial way possible – my card had a restriction on BPay. If you paid via this means, it didn’t entitle you to points so I paid for things over the phone and not via BPay to ensure I maximised points for things I was already purchasing anyway).
I closed the new credit card account before the 12 months were up.
So by the end of that year, I had well over 150,000 Qantas points from my credit card/s alone.
STORE LOYALTY CARD
I actually changed the supermarket I shop at as the one I normally shopped at didn’t transfer direct to Qantas points where the other big brand one did. This wasn’t a big deal for me as I do a lot of my grocery shopping online so it was just a matter of a different supermarket making the delivery. I do shop every now and again at the other one when it’s convenient. I won’t go completely out of my way for a point.
I noted down all the stores where this card is also accepted (some department stores and petrol stations) to ensure wherever I could, I would shop at these stores.
PETROL STATION
I discovered that one of the Petrol Station chains also had direct points to go to Qantas so I signed up with their loyalty program as well and shop there whenever possible.
All of these places / stores also have bonus point promotions at times so it’s always worth checking for promotions and signing up for them. At the moment, they have a deal where in February, you get double points the first time you fill up (or partially – it’s worked out on the litres you fill up with), the next time it’s triple and so on until you get about 5 x points. These things are worth paying attention to and filling up when it’s again convenient but where you can maximise points, even if it’s filling up smaller amounts and then trying for the largest amount later when it’s about to expire just to push to the higher point values.
Repeat
For me, a couple of years on and I’ve just repeated the credit card thing with a new deal by another bank. This one will cost me about $170 for the year to have but with the 100,000 points it’s the best deal at the moment and the points are worth between 4 to 6 times the value of the yearly fee (depending on time of year and discounts available to just pay to fly).
So by the end of this year, I will have enough points to take us all to Europe economy class.
Future planning
I am finding that we are more likely to fly with Virgin Australia now a days as their pricing is often quite reasonable domestically. I will still remain a member of Jetstar as they can often have some AWESOME fares that are better than worrying about points. We have some Virgin points accumulated from flights we have taken but my goal is to fly with Qantas who we don’t normally fly with so the above points were all focused around that.
Now that I have my points totals achieved, I will probably look to move toward the Virgin program where I will be able to also use points on flights toward the total which I can’t do with Qantas (only because we don’t fly with them normally as they really are quite expensive).
Summary
- Do not spend money on items you would otherwise not buy just to gain a point
- Remember financial products can come with restrictions, costs and may impact your credit rating. You should always speak to a professional before taking out credit
- Know who you want to fly with
- Research companies that you can get points with and determine where you can switch or who you are already using that can otherwise gain you points
- Never be afraid to put pressure on a provider you’re already using to see whether they are prepared to give you something to keep you as a customer. It’s worth the question!
