Originally Posted by
joer1212
My problem is not that I don't earn enough money (I made 76k last year), or that my credit isn't up to par (my score is over 800), it's that I am quite frugal, and I just don't consume as much as the typical American does. Instead, I invest my my money (over 42k/yr). Now, if I could earn miles for every dollar I invest, I would be in Business Class in no time!
Earning miles for real spending will never pay off. Look first at card applications that have $0 minimum or low $1k minimum spending. These are low hanging fruit, you should get as many as possible.
Next step is manufactured spending, spending on items which can then be turned back into cold hard cash. For this I'd suggest setting up accounts just for the purpose of meeting minimums. You can deposit your "investment capital" and churn a $5k spending requirement, and then deposit the cash back into your account. Net spending $0, net gain 40,000 or more miles.
With the exception of the incredibly wealthy and businesses that push all expenses through their cards most of us here don't spend $100,000 to get 100,000 miles.
One of my absolute rules to this game is that I must
NOT spend more money than I otherwise would. I hold to my budget and try to gain as many miles as possible through all the schemes and app-o-ramas I can.