Hello,

I have been flying with Delta for years. I have a Suntrust debit card, and only have a delta account. I do not own a credit card, and when staying at hotels, I always stay at Starwood because I am an employee at a Westin, so I can get highly discounted rates (but don't get SPG points). I currently have only 35,000 miles. I just graduated, and have a job, but don't have tons of money to spend on. I know I can get credit cards to earn miles, but I was wondering about some other tips than that would be useful. I recently have been reading The Points Guy blog, but wanted to get some other input. I am trying to get 50K so I can take a friend who will be getting out of the Military to Montreal. If I could get 140K miles, I would love to get two tickets to Japan, but I know that would take forever. I prefer Delta, but I really want to get as many points as possible, as quickly as possible. I just recently created a separate Delta account, and will transfer miles between the two accounts if a 100% transfer bonus ever comes up, but you never know when that happens. Any help would be appreciated. I have browed through, and couldn't believe how many miles people have. I love traveling, and love finding deals.

Eric

Welcome to FT! ^

What's your credit score? If you don't have any credit cards/mortgages/etc. it may be harder than you think to get approved for cards with miles bonuses.

Well I just recently got a new car (co-signed it with my dad) and I was told I didn't have a credit score.

Sign up at Credit Karma and Credit Sesame - they will give you an idea of what your score is (and they're free).

what city you flying out of...?

probably should start to apply for some credit card just to build credit

create free profiles at creditkarma, creditsesame and quizzle

see where you are at score wise...

maybe then apply for the chase freedom or a discover card..mainly a free credit card which will help build your history

then you can start thinking bout getting other more travel rewarding cards...

I live in Savannah, but Atlanta is where my family is, so I usually fly out of there since it is the cheapest compared to Savannah airport. I did the credit report, 643. Not sure what that gets me.

Any way your dad (or someone else) will add you to one of his cards? That would improve your credit score significantly, and may enable you to get your own cards.

if you can go for it, I'd consider some of the Citi/AA credit cards. Business and Personal cards should get you to 100K miles pretty quickly. If you're looking to redeem to NRT then AA isn't too bad on that front. Just depends on the class you want to fly in. I'd suspect AA has better availability at reasonable redemption levels than DL does.

I actually have a target visa card, which is actually jointly under my name (didn't realize it until I asked my dad). I only use it for gas, and he always pays it off. I am guessing that helps, but not enough for anything that requires points. Any tricks to earn more miles with the suntrust card? I have been thinking of when my friends offer to purchase large items, ask them to give me cash and just get the points. I doubt it, but does money order work? What if I paid rent using that, or lets say make a money order out to a "friend"?

With credit cards though, wont it hurt your rating if you cancel the cards? I would just hate paying like $100 per card a year if it never gets used.

I would focus on getting your score to a point where your CC apps will be approved. See if your dad can add you to his oldest card with a decent credit limit - that will give your score a big jump.

No, it won't. Having the card for a year, then canceling it, is much better than not having the card at all. And by the end of the year, you will have applied for, and have, additional open cards. You just need the initial kick start to get into the game.

To some extent, but probably not so much that it would otherwise be worth keeping the card.

To balance things out, you can/should/probably will have to start out with some no-fee cards. These will keep your average account history length longer and keep your debt-to-available-credit ratio smaller than it would be otherwise.

When and whether to cancel an annual fee card is a recurring blog topic. Here's the latest post I could find: http://boardingarea.com/blogs/viewfr...-signup-bonus/

Thanks for the help about credit cards so far. I am going to look into doing something like that. Any other good info to get going would be great. I would love to one day be able to have enough airline miles to visit tons of different countries. So far I have only been to Hawaii (my dad once had enough flyer miles for 5 people) and to Europe. What airline is best if wanting to get something like a one way ticket to Europe? I would love to drive to a port, then fly to Europe, and do a trans-atlanic cruise, and then drive back.

Edit: I was looking AA actually has one way fares. Do they ever do a promotion where you can purchase double miles, or other ones to get 40k miles easily? If they ever do, I could get two tickets for 40,000 one way for $550, and then pay for a 14 night cruise and only pay $600 pp for this: http://www.royalcaribbean.com/findac...eCode=GR14T083 I think a 2 week vacation with airfare/food/lodging for under 2k seems quite reasonable for two people.

your probably better off focusing in on delta...but i guess it depends on where you want to go more specifically....

1. Open up a chase freedom or discover card
2. Think about other ways to gain miles: Shopping portals, delta reward network, check ins etc..
3. Think about amex premier reward gold card..u might be able to get it..can transfer the points to delta
4. Just start studying deltas reward chart and partners
5. start reading the frugal travel guy blog..