I have a friend who is married and has triplets. She, her husband and the kids are trying to get from Newark, NJ or Philadelphia to Honolulu some time next year. She asked me for advice as to which credit cards to get in order to get enough miles to pay for the r/t tickets for five people.

I was thinking that she and her husband could apply for the Alaska cards but at 40,000 miles a person for the rt that would require a lot of churning. Better ideas anyone? Thanks for any help.

Wow, well the good news is it can be done.....it just depends when their trip is and how flexible their dates are.

If they are going during "off peak" they can do it on American for 35K each in economy. Off peak dates are: Hawaii: Jan. 12 - Mar. 8; Aug. 22 - Dec. 15

During the peak times it is 45K each round-trip. These quotes are for economy seats. The good news is that a very quick search of AA did show 5 seats available for some off-peak dates.

If both the husband and wife use the "two browser trick" sign up for both the Amex and Visa version of the Citi AA 50,000 mile cards, they will each get 100,000 miles, so their 200,000 combined today will be more than enough if they are traveling during off-peak times (assuming they can get seats). They need to pay attention to their spending abilities to time the card applications appropriately. Depending on their ability to hit the minimum spending requirements for the bonus, this may take a little while.

Hope this helps!

That's probably the best option. UA/CO has availability and will take 40,000 miles (200,000 total). A combination of sign up bonuses and Chase Sapphire Preferred can get you most of the way there. But Citi AA is easier.

Million Mile Secrets has a good write up describing the "Two Browser Trick."

Both husband and wife would need to apply for both an AA Visa and AA Amex at approximately the same time, then meet the minimum spend ($2500 each card), resulting in 105,000 AA miles each. Then book 3 off peak tickets to Hawaii on one account and 2 off peak tickets to Hawaii on the other account (you can book flights on Alaska using AA miles which helps). Then consider applying for hotel cards such as SPG Amex, Hyatt Visa, Marriott Visa, or Chase Sapphire Preferred to help cover hotel costs.

As for the hotels, the Hyatt card and Chase Sapphire Preferred are a great option. There is an amazing Grand Hyatt on Kauai and a nice Hyatt Regency on Maui. Using 2 Hyatt cards and 1 Sapphire card I am staying 7 nights at the Grand Hyatt (which is over a $3000 value). Each Hyatt card gives you 2 nights free and additional nights are 22,000 points. The Sapphire Card gives you 50,000 points which can be transferred to Hyatt. That leaves me 16,000 points short but by the time I reach my minimum spends, I should be almost there. I will transfer the rest over from an old Chase Freedom I have.

I thought the $2500 spend only is on the version of 45K bonus?

Could you provide a link on the 50K bonus that is only 2500 spend instead of 3000?

The key to OP's friend is the family has to be able to put in close to $10K spend in order to earn all the bonus miles they need. $10K spend in a full year is not too hard but if all in a 3 to 4 months period, that could be beyond the family's ability. Just a thought as this is a stickier point than getting new credit cards.

I agree that 10k in 3/4 months might be a bit steap but this can be done in 2 phases.
husband gets 2 each aa cards right now with 6k spend and 100 k bonus miles.
Then in 3 months the wife applied for the two aa cards if they are still around with 50k bonus. if they are not arround then both wife and husabnd get one sapphire card each at 50k and transfer to UA/CO then get 5 one way with AA and 5 one way with UA/CO. i currently booked a trip for 3 like this in may it was easy to find outbound on AA and the return was easier to find on UA.

Thank you all for your help. I will pass this along and one family will be very happy!

The Million Mile Secrets post I linked to had links to the 50K bonus for $2500 spend. His links appear to work, although the landing page with the offer information is not there. I have not applied under the current offer, so check his comment section.

You're right, 10K in 4 months is a lot. I agree with the suggestion to do it in phases, adding a spouse as authorized user to help spend $5k in 4 months. When that spend is done, the other spouse can apply for two AA cards, or both spouses can apply for a Chase Sapphire Preferred (but spending $6k in 3 months would be a bigger stretch than $5k in 4 months. If United would just release the rumored 50k miles for $1 spend, it would be much easier).

After the second phase is complete and miles are attained, then consider a third phase for hotel points to cover at least some of the nights (A Hyatt card offering 2 free nights for spending $1k in 3 months for each should be easier, and hotel free nights often can be booked with shorter notice than flights).

Hope it helps them! Let us know if we can help further. I also agree that once they complete phase 1 for the spending requirements to get the flights that it is time to focus on the hotels! Chase Sapphire Preferred and/or Chase Hyatt would be great places to start. Good luck to them!

I agree with doing this in phases... so one spouse applies for the two AA cards and gets 100,000 miles. But right now, both spouses should sign up for United Mileage Plus and Continental OnePass accounts, if they don't have them already. There are reports of some people (yours truly included) having accounts with UA/CO, with zero miles and zero activity in the account, getting targeted for the "50,000 miles on first use" cards. So I'd echo the advice above, with the added point that, if they open UA & CO accounts, they might get lucky and get targeted for one or even two cards.