Hi all,

I'm brand new here and have been reading the threads for a few days now but to be honest I'm still not sure how to begin. I apologize if this has been rehashed to death but with so many threads and posts out there its very difficult to find all the answers to the questions I have. Hopefully I wont get trashed too badly for asking but I would really appreciate some help and advice.

My info:
I live just outside Toronto, Canada and would fly primarily out of Pearson (YYZ).
My goal is to accumulate enough miles to take a family of 5 to Disney but also my wife and I like to travel to Europe, Mexico, Cuba etc. I would also like lounge access and travel upgrades to 1st or business class as well as hotel upgrades.

My questions:
1. Which travel rewards credit card combinations are best for us to get our hands on?
2. Is there a preferred reward option out there? Aeroplan? Airmiles? etc.
3. Churning cards seems to be an option but how will this affect my credit score?
4. Do people typically churn cards or is the goal to keep several cards while churning others?
5. Why is it more beneficial to stop in multiple cities when doing a Mile run? Do stop overs net more miles somehow?

Again I appreciate any assistance you can provide and I will continue to read the threads on FT!

Are you a strictly leisure traveller, or do you travel for work sometimes? If you do travel for work, your employer's travel policy may have a say in what frequent flyer/stay programs you should end up joining. For example, my employer prefers Delta and Hyatt, so I am a member of Delta SkyMiles and Hyatt Gold Passport. In addition, Delta operates more flights out of my home airport than anyone else, so that plays into my decisions too.

Not sure I can comment on cards - but you may want to do some reading on some of the many blogs about doing Disney on the cheap.

I'm going to assume you're a U.S. citizen, mainly because I don't know details on card approach for Canadians and you don't indicate otherwise.

1&2. Since you're in the major AC hub city, it's tough to resist using Star Alliance - AC and United. For your trips to Disney (I'm assuming Orlando here), it will cost 25K round trip per person in either program. An alternative would be British Airways Avios. They are redeemable on American and US Airways. For YYZ-MCO, it would cost 24K round trip routing through ORD, LGA, or DCA, or just 18K round trip routing through CLT. For your international travel, United is the best of these options mentioned. Aeroplan will collect fuel surcharges on AC flights as well as many *A partners, but United does not collect fuel surcharges. BA Avios are a bad use for international travel in general (good for Mexico though). AA miles are good, often better, than United miles for international travel, but you will likely have to route through an AA hub of course.

If you can get U.S.-based credit cards, the United card would be a good one. Any Chase UR associated card (Sapphire Preferred, Freedom, Ink) would also be good. AA Executive card is tempting as well (even though you're at a *A hub) since the 100K sign up offer is so good.

3. Credit inquiries lower your credit score by a few points each. That negative effect lessens as time goes by. After 6-12 months, your score will hardly be affected by an inquiry, and after 24 months the inquiry doesn't appear on your report. New credit accounts in general help your credit score because they lower your utilization (the new credit line increases the denominator in the utilization calculation). Closing credit cards is neutral. It is worse than keeping them open, but compared to never having opened them, it is neutral.

4. It's a good idea to have some cards that you keep open. In terms of new cards you're getting for sign up bonuses, keep them if they're worth it. Unless they're your only cards - then you might want to keep them open (and lower to a no annual fee card if you can). Personally, if there's a no annual fee card I can downgrade to, I do that instead of closing unless it's a card that can be churned.

5. Additional stops do not add miles. But, some programs allow you to earn elite status by segments OR miles, so adding a stop does add a segment. I think stops are more often used to get additional miles by going significantly out of the way. For example, YYZ-SFO direct is 2,259 miles while YYZ-IAD-IAH-SFO is 3,170 miles.

www.disboards.com is a good site to learn Disney tricks.

Look into renting Disney Vacation Club points (Disney's timeshare) from an owner. Probably save 50% over rooms from Disney.

This is a big help, thank you for the information. I am Canadian and would therefore be interested in a Canadian credit card, or several. I'm glad to hear the impact to the credit score isnt substantial. I've recently bought a house and I already have an MBNA Smart Cash card which I use for daily spending and I have an AMEX corporate card that I use for business travel. I do travel for business but its fairly infrequent so I wouldnt count on that for much in the way of points.

So far i'm leaning towards the AMEX Platinum or Gold cards as I believe they give good signup bonus's, and someone posted a deal about the Marriott card for Canadian's giving 50,000 signup points.

Welcome to FlyerTalk. I would very much encourage you to first identify a program. Try posting answers to the questionnaire in the http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/infor...help-here.html thread, and see what you get. Then, since credit cards are apples and mileage runs are oranges, pose your questions in the mileage run discussion forum and the appropriate credit card forum(s), where you will get many more views and probably much better advice.

You also should consider adding your home airport to your profile to ensure responders tailor their advice to Canada: Updating Your Profile

Good luck!

If you're with RBC, they have the Avion card which has special redemption promotions every year at around June. You can get 50% more if you convert your Avion points to BA and 25% more if you convert them to AA.

Details: https://www.rbcrewards.com/convert-points.html?tab=ba

You should start with:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...zz-canada.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/credi...uld-i-get.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/credi...canadians.html

Welcome to FT!

Hi Molson

I'm a long time lurker and rarely post here, but seeing as you're Canadian....

There is no "right answer" to your questions necessarily, but here are a few thoughts and a couple questions:

1. There are a few Aeroplan cards that have decent signup bonuses. The same could be said for Amex (non aeroplan) and they would offer you flexibility to transfer to programs of choice.

2. In terms of earning, Aeroplan are pretty easy for non-travel earning (and lousy for flight earning). AA and US Air Dividend Miles are pretty easy to earn on both sides of the border, if you have any travel related expenses (air, hotel, car). For example, AA has a promo with Avis right now - 7,500 AA miles for a 1-wk rental. Can't beat that.

3. Churning is not for everybody. If uncomfortable and not very detail oriented, don't do it.

4. See above.

5. More segments can equal more miles and status faster. Useful if you travel even somewhat occasionally.

Questions:

-For Disney travel, have you considered flying out of Buffalo, instead of redeeming points? Southwest, Jetblue, Spirit and Allegiant (out of Niagara) are very competitive for Florida. Jetblue also has family pooling for points and that can be much more useful for free flights, than having scraps of points across five separate accounts.

Any real advice will come down to your travel objectives, whether you already travel somewhat for work and your monthly ccard spend.

I see points as a long term game, similar to investing and tend to build larger point balances in certain programs, smaller in several others.

Hope this helps