In addition to airlines CCs and bonus sign ups pointed out by others, if you get 2 Chase Hyatt cards (you and your wife) you'll get FOUR FREE nights at Hyatt anywhere in the world (like Hawaii). Then get 2 Marriott card with 70,000 points each and a many more Marriott FREE nights (like in Hawaii).
Does that sound good so far? Keep reading here on Miles Buzz and do what we all do here - fly for free in business and stay in premium hotels for free

Sign up for the FF program for whatever airline you flew to Hawaii on this trip. You can still get credit for this trip - just give the airline the confirmation numbers. If you took a trip over the summer, you can probably get miles for that trip as well. Go to the airline's website and look.

Better late than never!

Do the same for the hotel you're currently staying at.

Nobody has asked an important question: do you want to take the easy path of having 1 (or possibly 2) all-purpose credit cards, or are you willing to expend a small amount of effort to use 3-6 cards for different categories, and thereby substantially boost your earnings?

Chase Sapphire Preferred is a good card -- I just paid the annual fee to renew, and I almost never keep a card with a fee past the complimentary first year -- but anybody using that without also using the Chase Freedom for rotating quarterly category spend is leaving a metric ****load of money on the table.

For a variety of perspectives on these questions, read through the comments in http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...et-2012-a.html

And welcome to FlyerTalk, OP!

If you're (lazy), then Chase Sapphire + SPG should have you pretty much set.

For hotels: Hilton Surpass Amex gives Diamond status with $40K annual spend. SPG Amex gives Gold with $30K spend (but you can usually get that in other ways). Marriott mentioned above. Also Priority Club, etc. have their own cards, but likely of less value.

Club Carlson (Radisson) has been making a lot of noise marketing of late and may roll nice something out.

Delta Amex ($450 a year version) gives status points up to $60K spend.

And others. Go to the websites of the hotels/airlines you use and click on the CC offers and start reading.

And you should get a gas card returning 5%. That would be $1000+ a year alone.

Thanks for the additional information. It looks like the major US airlines fly from either GRR or ORD to OGG, so any should be able to service your Hawaiian needs. My suggestions would be as follows:

1. Get Sapphire Preferred and Ink Bold (both from Chase).
2. Get Starwood AmEx (American Express).
3. Get 2X AAdvantage Personal cards (Citi).

Put your spend on Sapphire / Ink Bold in categories in which you earn multiple points and put the remaining spend on Starwood. Spend enough to get the 50K bonuses on Citi.

Then, check back on MilesBuzz occasionally and a few times a year apply for cards with big signup bonuses, Hyatt, Marriott, United, etc. Churn AA Business cards every 6 months or so and Personal Cards about every two years. That should net you ~150K AA miles a year for little cost, enough to get two of you to/from Hawaii in Business class.

If they are 18, I would get your kids credit cards, preferably a no-fee card from AmEx (like the Hilton card). That will help them with establishing credit and all future AmEx cards will show the earliest membership date and help with average age of cards.

Do the above for as many of you as wish to. Not too complex but will earn you lots of miles and points, enough to enjoy some free vacations. If you want to get more complex, you can certainly get Chase Freedom, a Chase checking account, and churn 5-6 cards every 3 months. Up to you.

- AA offers free upgrades from any fares for EXPs to/from Hawaii including flights from DFW and ORD. Other AA Elite would have to use their 500 miles stickers.

For OP it could be more cost effective to get Business/First awards using FF miles than using miles for upgrades.

You should seriously stop doing this....

Create memorable passphrases or number sandwiches. Like catseatrats or 20vision20, but more memorable to you.

+1 agree completely

You know if we want a bit flexibility when planning your travel needs, I would suggest getting credit cards that offer points/miles independent of any loyalty programs, at least initially. Like you I don't mind paying for some of my travel expenses, so what I have done is used a combination of points/miles and money to pay for some my trips. I have use my Chase Sapphire, CitiBank ThankYou, Capital One, and AMEX points and miles to "subsidize" my travel expenses. In the long run you may end up accummulating loyalty points and miles with any hotel or airline chains and even status, but you can still have the flexibility to use your credit card points to pay for part or all of the trip anytime you want to go, not just when a airline or hotel opens up award space. It is good way to stretch your points/miles and be able to take more trips (and even fly in C or F depending where you want to go). Last year I traveled to Europe and used LH miles I had accumulated through flying with United to upgrade to C (one-way outbound). I used my Cap One CC to pay for two upgradeable tickets and afterwards I partially reimbursed myself through Cap One's rewards program. In all, I paid about $1500 for the RT (C class out, Y class in). And I even got some of the miles back from LH for flying.

OP mentioned that he likes Marriott and Ritz.... don't overlook the Chase Premier Marriott Visa....

Since you spend a lot at Costco get the Citi AA Visa & AmEx both on same day. AA will probably be your ticket to Hawaii as it's off-season there is long.

Personally my go-to is Virgin Atlantic cc from BofA. 1.5 miles for every single dollar spent and an AmEx so good at Costco. VS gives 1100 miles for every Hertz or Avis rental. VS is partners with Hawaiian Airlines and inter-islands are just 6K rt through VS. They're also partners with US.