I'm moving to the US in October, and I won't have a SSN for awhile so no credit cards for me until I get one and build up some credit. What I'm looking for is ways to gain points without using one. In Canada I know I can get Aeroplan points while gassing up at Esso, and there are some deals when buying groceries at Sobeys. Are there grocery chains and gas stations in the US that give out points or miles? Anything else I should be signing up for?

Thank you!

No, most airlines don't have a relationship with gas or grocery stations in most areas. The couple that might only do so in a tiny portion of the US, so without mentioning where exactly in the US you will be and which airlines you're interested in collecting (just AA or also others?) it's hard to help you more on that.

(In the US, the deals on gas/groceries is that some points-earning cards, such as the Hilton HHonors Amex, give more points for certain caegories like gas and groceries than for other non-hotel purchases. So unlike Canada, you have to have a specific credit card to be able to earn points at most gas stations and grocery stores. Some grocery chains have their own points programs, but they just earn cash back or maybe discounts on one brand of gas, not airline or hotel points. But they're independent of your payment method, and thus "stack" withi it; ie, you can earn those store-specific points while also earning whatever you earn on your card.)

Will you have an MC or Visa card of any sort (credit or debit, and Canadian is ok)? If so, you can register for the dining program of, say, AA (AAdvantage Dining). Then, if/when you dine at participating restaurants, you earn miles on those dines, even if the card you're using doesn't earn miles itself.

And unlike online shopping sites (which check addresses against cards, and thus may not let you make a US-delivered purchase with a Canadian card), the dining program doesn't care what your address is, just your card number. (It will ask you for your address, but it doesn't check that against the card, it only uses that for marketing purposes. In fact, due to a bug with the dining programs' website, Canadians can only register for the dining program by giving a "fake" US street address!)

Go visit the FT iDine/Rewards Network forum for more on the dining programs.

Also check out this thread and see if you can find something useful:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...-citizens.html

The S.P.A.M. forum has many options to turn your free time into miles and points at painfully slow rates. In particular, if you like to play crosswords, you could earn around 25k AA miles from Club Bing using days of free time.

Poke around in there.

I may be wrong, but SH Greenpoints was linked to some grocery stores and I know you could transfer those to US Air through points.com. It was probably a terrible conversion rate, but I used it for the Grand Slam I think.

Check out the local banks where you move and see if they have miles with use of the debit card.

My First Hawaiin Bank gives me miles on my debit card, as does Mobil gas station using the Smiles Card (that's their card, not a credit card so anyone can get it) and my local cell phone company also gives me miles (I think triple miles).

You will just have to keep your eyes open wherever you move to.