International Wedding
 

We are getting married both in the US and in Hong Kong because our families are in both places next year, so we'd like some thoughts as far as how to maximize points with the minimum amount of $ spent. We are starting to do some mileage runs, but are looking for other new ideas. We haven't signed up for many credit cards, so any good sign up bonus or easy way to get cash back/airline tickets would be appreciated!

Thanks!

:-: I'm also putting out a similar request in Hotel Programs > HHonors http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...2#post10512932. Please let us know if you have thoughts on these other areas.

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My thread in UA forum is closed, but I am still looking for ideas on how to quickly bank up UA miles to help with our plane tickets.
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I guess the part that I do not understand is why do you need credit card points, hotel points, airline miles or status to have an international wedding??
There are no programs that I know offering free points or miles for having an international wedding.

I am assuming they are trying to get miles to offset the costs of flying to their wedding destinations. If they are spending money anyway, why not get the miles and possibly fly for free.

Yes, we don't really have much $ so is trying to get points/miles/?? from various sources so it can offset our costs for travelling and hotels. I've been looking at forums etc, but there are still so much more to read.

First, congrats on the upcoming nupituals.

2nd, you need to choose 1 airline and 1 hotel program to concentrate on, otherwise you'll never accrue enough points to get anywhere.

Pick the airline that flies between the destinations you want and concentrate on that airline/alliance. Remember, if you fly any partner airlines, accrue all the points in just one program. For HKG, I'm assuming AA/OneWorld. Make all your mileage runs on AA or OW airlines and accrue all your points there. You can get the Citi AAdvantage MasterCard. Search on that for the latest sign-on bonuses. Check out the AA wiki for all other ways to earn miles quickly. Especially remember AA shopping and dining

For hotels, Starwood is often cited as the best program. Plus you can transfer your miles to AA if needed to achieve that reward level.

Finally, if you are trying to get J or F rewards from the US to HKG, you will need to book well in advance, especially if you are not flexible in terms of dates.

If you go to AA, please read the fine print about which mileage classes earn miles, many BA and CX classes earn little or no miles. AS, however, has better earning classes and more US partners.

Provided that you're responsible about credit card use, put everything you can on your airline mile or hotel point-earning credit cards. If Amex isn't widely accepted in the Milwaukee area, a good second choice might be a Marriott Signature Visa card (if you qualify), or the lower level Marriott card. A Citi Thank You Points-earning card can also be useful (TYP can be used to book travel with Expedia as well as for hotel gift cards with certain chains).

Consider boosting your mile/point totals by making purchases through the internet "earnings malls" established by some programs (e.g. Thank You Network, Marriott, Hilton, Amex). Simply by clicking through the program's weblink to the internet retailer you were going to purchase from anyway can generate hundreds of points per purchase (usually between 1-10 points per $ spent). Of course, you have to keep in mind that there may be delivery charges for internet purchases, but if you were going to buy from an internet retailer anyway, why not earn extra points while you're at it?

Not to sound like an ... but be careful on who you marry. I'm 26 and most of my friends have married girls that did a complete 180 after saying, "I do." They seemed to be good, highly motivated women and then turned out to be nothing more than full-time breeders leeching off their husbands money and never lifting a finger for anything other than to buy more crap using you know who's money (hint: not her's)!!!!!!!!

A question that's right up my alley. I spent the last few months booking 20 trips in Business class to fly our wedding guests to Tuscany next May. The average out-of pocket expense for each US-EU Business class ticket was $130 for the ticket only, or slightly above $300 including tax. :D

I've been collecting miles for a few years; for this particular project (i.e., the wedding), about 600,000 came from credit card churning, 300k from "purchases," a million from Budget car rentals, and the rest (as well as some hotel points) from coupon connection trades for TYP ticket "credits." I can't, of course, give away all the tricks of the trade, and in any case the game has changed; the TYP ticket avenue is now much less profitable than it was until last July, opportunities for "purchasing" and churning have become more limited, and large-scale car rentals are no longer allowed -- but, I have no doubts that you can generate a few hundred thousand miles with very limited expense. The key is doing some research. Nobody --I hope-- is going to spoon feed you. Keep in mind that deals, once posted on FT, die very quickly. Read existing threads about churning and TYPs. Identify the remaining churning options, and understand how to obtain "flight credit" from the Thank You Network (TYN). Keep your eyes open for opportunities to generate miles through shopping, car rentals, magazine subscriptions, etc. People generate miles for less than a penny per mile (= $1000 for a US-EU Business class ticket) all the time, and occassionally, there are opportunities to obtain miles for much less. Good luck!

Thanks for ALL your response! :)

We are both United 2P members, so we are kinda thinking of staying with UA. Neither of us have the UA credit card, so I'd like to see how the UA credit card sign on bonus (I saw 40,000 miles somewhere?) will help. If we each sign up for a card and then get a joint card together, shouldn't we get 40,000 x 3 = 120,000 miles together which is good for 2 RT saver tickets to Asia? Has anyone tried that before - would that work?

Just out of curiosity, I googled "wedding credit card" and here it is:

http://weddings.theknot.com/amex/kn_amex_home.aspx

I'm not familiar with AMEX card, but this looks like JUST another card to me.

Some side information...

I'm the bride :) but no, I don't plan on spending my fiance's money (he doesn't have much anyway) or quit my job. I actually suggested a courthouse/city hall wedding here in the US so we don't have to bother that much stuff and to stay cheap, but my sweetheart insisted on having a more personal ceremony so now we are looking at getting a picnic area in a park.

Wow, very impressive! Did your future spouse work with you on that? My fiance is quite passive even though he agrees with me that this is a great way to cut down our wedding cost. If I tell him to do something that takes more than 3 minutes (i.e. visit FT forum to read about posts, apply for credit cards and keep track of them), he loses interest. He is also bad with credit cards so he is not using them now (as far as I know), which of course is a loss of earning points/miles.