oliver2002

The shopping portals are no good, as they usually ship to US locations only. In Germany payback has shopping portals that earn °P which can be converted to LH M&M. Payback also has opinion panel surveys that give 50-500°P.

I do surveys with pinecone (5€/survey), which pay out in form of amazon or other online retailer vouchers.

Wayfahrer

There are paid resources which offer me to get lost of miles and points, even if I can't have access to American credit cards.

Of course, you knowledged, smart people can point me to the same free resources the said paid resources will point me to, but I can skip paying to them. I guess we can agree: the best things in life are free, correct?

1st source: https://www.creativelive.com/courses...stephanie-zito
Chris Guillebeau is a NY Times best selling author, entrepreneur, he featured at @ Google Talks (a pretty smart guy, actually) offers me at least 2 free flights and 3 hotel nights, guaranteed (see teaser video on the above page), even if I live outside the States / can's have access anything better than Albanian credit cards with zero mileage potential. so far so good.

2nd source: Scott Grimmer of MileValue.com offers the http://idealme.com/milevalue/ ebook. I quote from the above page:

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Will This Work For People Outside The United States?

Yes!

While many credit cards offer the largest bonuses for people in the United States, all of the tactics outlined in the program will work no matter what country you live in. Free one ways, the five kinds of points and and our redemption / collection tactics work in every country.

So, basically just point me to the same, awesome, free resources these smart businessmen want to sell me if you can. Thanks!

===

Disclaimer: this thread is kind of an actualized version of this old one: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/exter...e-america.html

Dear moderators: Please do not move this to other places, I guess it has its place in External Miles and Points Resources (I'm just a little sick of I open any topic and it gets tossed here and there and meanwhile it gets lost related to what I want to convey. Thanks)

nux

You've asked this question before and had many responses:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/exter...h-america.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/exter...e-america.html

It may help if you stated which country you live in, as the advice will depend on that, otherwise I'm not sure what further advice you're after.

Perhaps you should pay the above people and take their 'guarantee'.

You've also now started 16 threads that have had no replies and a further 23 with under 5 replies, some of which were just you replying to the threads. It may be better to just keep your thoughts in one thread rather than always starting a new thread on the same topic.

Raffles

If you think that Guillebeau has access to any ideas that are not widely discusses on FT then I think you will be sadly mistaken.

He is just a hustler with a nice line in ad copy.

Richklhs

I've lived in Japan the last three years and it has been almost impossible to accrue any significant miles - despite the fact that the Japanese are obsessed with point cards. I've never figured out any significant MS possibilities due to fees, and Japanese credit card sign up bonuses are peanuts compared to the US.

kingstontoon

I've been reading Lucky's blog for a while now and generally find it interesting. But, as a Brit living in the UK, it seems these credit card signup bonuses are only for our friends across the pond. Can we really get in on this game, or do I have to stick to flying A to B via Z?

ESFLYER95

Speak to RAFFLES http://www.headforpoints.com

kingstontoon

Cheers - I'll have a read!

It does immediately strike me however that the really huge (50k, 100k) sign-up bonuses are exclusively a US thing, with 5k, 10k, 20k etc being more common over here.

German Expat

This is unfortunately the case. US has a lot better offers for credit cards. But it also has to do with much higher profits, people tend to rack up large credit card debts and pay high interest rates on them (I don't say smart people do that).
This is the reason most of my credit cards are still US based (and I do get new ones if the offers are really good like Saphire Reserve) and have only 1 Swiss credit card (and you can not get cards without a foreign transaction fee here either so I use the US cards outside Switzerland and sometimes even inside for e.g. 2 points for eating out).

If cards would be as profitable in the UK for the issuers as they are in the US then you would also see better offers.

mikex163

In the EU there's the additional reason that the banks/card issues can only charge 0.3% for CC use whenever you pay with a CC (0.2% for debit cards). With that kind of revenue it's very hard to pay for any nice perks.

kokonutz

More like 'had' a lot of better offers.

The offers are, in general, still better than what Europeans will get, but the heyday of cc bonuses and churning have been mostly shut down via targeting and limits.

84fiero

And we used to have some decent loyalty program-branded debit cards as well, I remember the SunTrust Delta card, the Chase United card, and others. Not always as lucrative as CC bonuses but easy to get, usually no hard pull IME, plus for some people with credit problems or little credit history, allowed them to earn some miles.

Then a few years ago legislation reduced the allowable debit card swipe fees which quickly killed those off.

Raffles

You can still churn Amex cards an unlimited number of times in the UK, of course :-)

ltfly

For e-miles, from their Agreement: "Member must be a legal resident of the United States, Puerto Rico, Guam or U.S. Virgin Islands to be eligible for participation in the e-Miles Service." So it is not accessible for European residents.

Kagehitokiri

noticed there is a blog for singapore