New here, needing advice
 

Hi,

Over the past couple years I keep trying to get the hang of travel hacking. The problem is every time I try to understand all the lingo and various programs, I get frustrated and stop looking. I started looking into it to try to travel to southeast Asia (specifically Cambodia) with my family. But at over $1,200 rt per ticket, for 3 people it is just out of the budget.

So my question is, I know there are a ton of miles programs, but most of what I have seen require several credit cards. As someone who doesn't own a credit card or doesn't want one are there programs for me? Or am I up the creek without a paddle?

I do quite a bit of travel here in the US, but all the travelling has been on the road, which is fine with me, but I can't drive to Asia:rolleyes:.

Thanks for reading this. :D

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.601 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

Welcome to FT!

While there are a few options for getting miles without credit cards (e.g., depositing a large sum of "new" money in an account with Fidelity Investments), for the most part you will be up the creek without a paddle if you are unable or unwilling to sign up for several credit cards (and meet the respective spend requirements).

Dang, that took the wind right out of my sails :). It's not that I am unable to get a credit card, I just don't like the idea of having one, and the debt+interest associated with it.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.601 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

Most of the people on FT who sign up for these credit-card offers pay off the monthly bills on time and in full, thereby avoiding interest charges entirely. If you're not in a position to do that, then these cards would probably be a very bad idea for you.

Welcome to FT. There are many resources for you to look around. If you credit is looking good at the moment, may I suggest the Miles forums for your needs. There are always offers around that give a good bonus on signup.

Welcome to Flyertalk, as you can see I have belonged since 2000. That is 14 wonderful years of traveling after retiring in 1999 from working all over the world. Thanks to credit card offers, we travel internationally several times a year and go all over the USA. I have followed almost every offer mentioned in Flyertalk. Along with my daughter, son in law, and husband we have put those several million miles and hotel points to good use while never paying a cent of interest and all have excellent credit because of churning. I have found that often people are on the up slope of the learning curve in mastering money management. Gotta go apply for the Barclay Arrivals card to pay for the free Hawaii interisland flights this summer. Read everything in Flyertalk and travel the world.....Thank you Flyertalk and all the wonderful contributers who have made my family's dream trips possible.

why not just treat you credit card as a debit card and pay it off each month.

Thanks for the info, I may have to break down and get a charge card if I want to earn miles. Just one question, will one card be enough? I've been reading and watching video tutorials on earning miles and seems like there is about an average of at least 10 cards for a frequent flyer for earning miles. As someone who is hoping to move within the year, I don't think applying for that many cards would be good for my score.

Also would a business card be better? I've been looking into the Chase Ink Bold business card and love the idea of getting 5x points for my cell phone, internet etc... and 2x points for gas and hotels.

You certainly don't have to get 10 cards if you don't want to.

2-3 will not hurt you.

You say you're moving this year. Are you moving to a rental or are you buying a house? If you're buying a house, don't apply for new credit cards.

If you're just moving apartments, you can get a couple new cards without any problem. A credit card application dings your score just a few points in the short term.

In fact, most people eventually see their credit score go up after getting a few new cards. This is because your total credit line goes up while your spending remains the same. These 2 factors make up your "credit utilization ratio" which is something you want to keep pretty low.

I need to wait until 2015 until I play the credit card churn. Reading here has empowered me to succeed. One more year.

Another option, without CC, is the Citi ThankYou program. Let me preface by saying that without credit cards, you will not likely be getting any flights for free--especially $1300 international flights. As far as I know, ThankYou is the only program that gives you a valuable number of points without having a CC. There are probably others, but I'm not aware.

In order to get these points, you must have direct deposit. For each account holder (with direct deposit), you can earn anywhere for 600 to 2100 points a month, which is $6-$21 in travel purchases. To be fair, if 3x $1300 RT tickets is out of the budget, then you probably don't have the cash lying around for Citi's top-tier account ($50K balances), which nets you the most points. I'm thinking about creating a master tutorial for the Thank You program, but if you want to know more in the mean time, let me know.