Looking for the best FF / credit card strategy for my goals

[alenglander]

I am trying to decide on the best frequent flyer / credit card strategy to meet my goals and travel / spending habits. There are so many choices it's dizzying!

Goals:

I would like to earn enough rewards to pay for vacations for myself and my wife. We usually like to go for about one week per year, usually in the United States (especially to national parks). We would also like to visit Israel at some point.

I would like to be able to earn enough to pay for the whole vacation - flights, rental car, hotels. For the Israel vacation this is not necessary because we can stay at relatives, so I just need to earn enough for the flight.

I do not care about getting upgraded seating on flights or getting other amenities.

Travel / Spending Habits:

My wife and I travel 2 or 3 times per year roundtrip from BWI to LAX (~ 4,650 miles direct, up to 200-300 more miles with stopovers). We usually use United, US Airways, Northwest, or Southwest.

We do not frequently stay at hotels or rent cars except on our yearly vacations.

We are not big spenders. We currently spend about $1,500/month on living expenses, with any extra money we make going towards investments.

The approximate monthly breakdown is as follows:
$850 rent & utilities
$230 insurance
$70 gas
$350 groceries

My wife has 32,750 miles with Continental, 11,000 with United, and 10,000 with American. I have 4,800 miles with Northwest and 2,500 with United.

I have excellent credit so I can usually qualify for the best credit card deals.

I've looked at the following credit cards: Individual airlines cards, Starwood Preferred Guest, CapitalOne No Hassle Miles Ultra for Professionals, and a combination of Citi Premier Pass Elite and Citi Dividend cards.

What would you suggest as the best strategy for me?

[sdsearch]

Read these threads (since they're huge, you may want to start near the end and work backwards):

Credit Card Churning

Citicards 60 day/ one application policy

The fact is that getting bonus miles on repeated card apps is the only way (with your low monthly spend) that you'll get to more than one award every few years, especially if you can't put your rent & utilities on credit cards without a hefty "convenience fee". (And how easy it is to repeat varies greatly by airline, as you'll see in those threads.)

Regarding national parks and notels, you need to decide what your strategy is. If you want to stay inside the park itself, then many parks have lodges, but they're not part of any program, so you just have to allow cash for that. Some parks (eg, Carlsbad) only have a Best Western (in terms of chains that have points programs) nearby, but Best Western is very hard to earn sufficient points with if you don't stay with them constantly, so again I think it's only practical to allow cash for that. Many other national parks have only low-end hotel chains at their "gateway" towns (a Super 8 in WynhamRewars, a Quality Inn in Choice Privileges, etc), but while these chains (especially Choice) may have good point-eraning bouses for people who stay in hotels a lot, they still have poor earning ability if you don't stay there much (and you said you rarely have hotel stays).

Thus I would suggest you focus your energy on getting the flights free, as with good credit (and the above threads) that sounds most achievable on an ongoing basis, and just save up money for the hotel stays, and look for the lowest-cost indie hotel with decent reviews (AAA Tour Book or www.tripadvisor.com) and not worry about the programs (since at once a year and with expiration dates, you won't even accumulate enough in these hotel programs to re-use in time).

[Kohoutek]

Nice work by sdsearch.

Kohoutek's thoughts:

A) Mrs. Alenglander should apply for Continental, United, and American credit cards to get the initial bonus miles, assuming she also has excellent credit. Get the business cards, as well. There'll be plenty of miles to cash in for two tickets from her FF accts.

B) Alenglander should get spousal/employee cards on the Mrs.' credit card accounts.

C) Churn American cards. You shouldn't have to pay fees for those cards. Continental and United cards can't be churned for more bonus miles, and might just be a one-time boost to the Mrs.' accounts.

D) After doing A, B, and C, Alenglander with his excellent credit might as well get as many miles as possible with applying for Continental, United, and American cards with their initial signup bonuses. Get enough miles with bonuses and spending to cash in for tickets on his FF accts, and then stop accumulating miles on his FF accts, and concentrate spending on Mrs.' cards.

Kohoutek

[Denverflyer24]

I am the reward cards blogger over at AskMrCreditCard.com

I hope you don't mind, but I wrote up a detailed response to you question here.

Please let me know if that helps.

Jason