Resources and tips for travel-reward newbie?
 

Hi!

I am new to the world of travel rewards. I did a bit of research a few months ago and opened a Sapphire Chase preferred card a little over 1 month ago and have about 7,000 points and am on my way to getting the 50,000 point bonus.

I also opened up a rewards account through AirFrance but I don't have any points yet. I am planning on booking a flight in Europe for me, my husband, and our baby through AirFrance and the 7,000 points should help cover the cost of some of it. My trip abroad will help rack up points but eventually, I would like to be able to have my reward points cover the majority of airline costs. In a perfect world, I would be able to go to Europe once every 2-3 years with my husband and child and afford it on a middle class income. (I know, these are high goals!!). Putting $4,000 on a card in 3 months is a little on the higher end of what we spend...we are fairly frugal to be honest and we don't eat out a ton and we don't regularly travel a ton (but love vacations!!).

What tips or resources can you share with me that would be helpful in reaching these goals? I would love some resources about understanding all of the travel reward jargin as it seems like there is really a lot to learn!

Thank you and I apologize if this has been asked (a lot). I'm assuming that everyone's plan to accrue points is different based on finances and goals so it is pretty individual.

Welcome to FT, OP. Let's break some bad news first.

Miles/points (UR in this case) does not worth anything unless you use them in bulk.

This is exactly why you should not use that 7K. It is more powerful to use almost 60K altogther.

This goal is achievable, but only if you are single. 1 person doing this is simply not enough.

Be realistic. Like wealth, "free" travel takes time and proper planning.

Having a plan is good. But having a realistic plan is better.

(You can dream about going to Europe each year. But first you must be able to afford domestic travel first.)

Reading the blogs helps. But be careful most of their comments are inflamed (they are paid to write).

Also read and ask before you act. I don't know detail about your coming trip. But I kind of sense that you may not earn as many miles/points as you think.

Most jargon are easy as they are simply abbreviation of words. In short, you can guess-timate the meaning.

But you will have to watch out - not all jargon means the same. For example, in this part of forum, AF=Annual Feel, while at Flying Blue Forum, AF=Air France.

Thanks for your response! Which blogs would recommend checking out?

If my husband also gets his own card, would that help? Right now he is just an authorized user. We have a joint account so it would be the same pot of money just divided up.

It seems like there is a lot to learn about this! I'm ready to learn and get to saving!

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

"I am planning on booking a flight in Europe for me, my husband, and our baby through AirFrance and the 7,000 points should help cover the cost of some of it."

:confused:

A flight in Europe, or a flight to Europe?

For travel to Europe, from what U.S. city will you be starting? Where in Europe do you want to go? Same city each time, or a different city?

What time of year do you want to travel? During the Summer, cash fares to Europe tend to be higher, and award flights might be tougher to come by -- especially if the three of you must travel on the same flights.

Given the amount of your annual spend, you do not want credit cards that will charge a hefty annual fee after the first year; that means you will probably not want to keep your CSP card after the first year, and will have to decide where to move your UR points before you close your card -- unless you open a different Chase card that lets you keep your points.

Well, we will be flying to and from the United States but we already bought our tickets for that trip. I looked into getting open jaw tickets but it was really significantly more expensive so I just booked the tickets to and from Paris CDG.

So the tickets I still haven't bought are from Florence-Paris on the day of our departure. We leave CDG at 5 pm and could get the 7 am or 10 am flight from Florence-CDG.

I was thinking of using the 7,000 points to help with the cost of those tickets.

I don't anticipate any other major travel plans before February 2017 which would be the one year make of having the credit card...maybe we'll go to the beach for a weekend or go camping but uh that's it besides visiting family.

It sounds like I'm hearing I should save my points and somehow try to transfer them??

I have begun thinking about taking a short getaway with just my husband in March or April 2017 (it could be just a few days at a B&B or at a local cabin or could be a little longer at the beach somewhere south) and maybe another big trip in October 2017 or March/April 2018 but that is all very much in the air...no idea on location except either US, Canada or Europe Europe...we'll avoid tropical climates until Zika is more understood but we'd need 3 tickets.

Who knows really after that! Like I said, we'd like to take trips to Europe every 2-3 years or so if we can and our flights don't have to be entirely covered but if a big chunk could be covered, that would help tremendously.

For starter, many @FT read those from Boarding Area. Also, FT's affiliated Frugal Travel Guy also attracts a lot of traffic.

It is going to help, as each of you can get your own tickets.

Although too early, you should keep in mind that it is not wise to book award travel when to have babies as babies will be usually charged 10% of the full fare ticket for traveling with a parent in award travel.

What if you are delayed at FLR?

I understand this is probably own preference, but I prefer putting the city of my return flight at last. In short, I would have done Florence (and other cities) first and placed Paris as my last city. In this case, the worst is I would miss some what Paris offers, but not my flight.

Yes for saving the points. Maybe for trying to transfer them.

It is very personal when it comes to how a person disposes his/her miles/points. So it is up to you how to do it. But as I previously said, your 7K points will do nothing significant by comparing when you use 60K points at all once (transfer or redemption).

Given the baby situation, how about road trips instead?