How do you hoard miles?
 

Hello all, first time poster here, long time lurker trying to learn from all of you. I've been able to learn how to collect miles with credit card offers and am very happy to have collected over 200k miles/points from various CC in less than a year. I have a kitchen remodel planned soon and have figured out I can easily double that in the near future.

My question is, how to you amass points without paying credit card annual fees? Is there a "point piggy bank" you can transfer them to? Do you have to use them within the year or lose them once I cancel my CC?

How should I go about holding onto my points that I've accumulated so far?

When I first started understanding the miles/points games, I quickly accumulated a ton of miles. I definitely hoarded for a bit.

Then I was hit with some devaluations... and I understand that miles/points are a fluid currency that have the most value at present time and in the future, they can ONLY be worth less. The value will never go up. No airline/hotel program ever significantly reduces redemption costs.

So I quickly learned to spend most of what I have. Yea, I still keep a reserve of a few hundred thousand miles in case of emergency, but generally, I earn enough to spend and spend what I earn.

It depends.

For airline/hotel CC's the miles will typically transfer every month to the airline/hotel program. You can then close the CC and the miles will remain in your airline/hotel account and their validity will be down to that programs T&C's.

For convertible type currencies (Amex MR / Chase UR etc) then generally you need to keep a CC open or transfer the miles/points to an airline/hotel program.

How do you hoard miles?
 

Points collected on credit cards for airlines or hotels automatically transfer monthly to your account with the particular hotel or airline.
Points collected on cards like Chase Sapphire or Ink must be transferred to a chosen Hotel/Airline prior to closing the account or you lose the points.

Thus you don't lose any points/miles when you close the account prior to paying the AF.
Hope that helps

How hard is it to churn credit cards today with Banks cracking down?

Depends on the bank/credit card.

Are you based in the UK? If so Tesco credit cards give what I consider a generous number of points on all expenditure (plus extra points on all shopping in their stores) which can be converted to BA Avios.

Unfortunately, I am not a UK resident.

Agreed 100%

In the "good ole' days" one rarely, if ever, saw devaluation of points/miles, it just wasn't something to be concerned with. Today is a different story. I don't hold onto much unless I have a very set award in mind & expect to earn it w/in a set timeframe. Gone (for me at least) are the days of feeling like I had a low balance when my primary airline acct dipped below 500k.

Back to the OPs question of how to amass miles w/o paying fees. I follow 2 rules 1) charge everything and 2) always be working on a spend bonus.

You need to spread out cards so almost all of your spending is going towards a sign on bonus. This assumes you do not do manufactored spending (google it). You also need to spread out banks. They do not like having too many application in a short period of time.

I cancel cards at the 10-12 month period so I do not pay the fee. I make sure I get any annual bonus before cancellng. I do pay annual fees when it makes sense (100K AMEX or AA miles).

I charge everything on the card, even the $2 Tim Hortons coffee :) I also keep a number of cards and use whichever would offer the most points for the particular transaction. For example, when I fill the gas tank, I use my AMEX gold because it doubles the points, versus my CIBC Aeroplan card, which only offers 1.5x points for the dollar spend.

I don't hoard. I was going to hoard (Europe!!), but I realized that my household's schedule is too tight to be the kind of household that can save up for a "$12,000 vacation for just $500."

I've decided that instead of being a miles-and-points superstar, I'll just save a few hundred dollars here, a few hundred dollars there by using mid-level award redemptions for the exact dates I want on ordinary domestic visit-the-family trips I was probably going to take anyway.

It's low cents-per-mile. It's not the most glamorous use of the damage I've done to my credit score. If you'd told me it was how I was going to end up spending the miles, I might have thought twice before dinging that credit score. But it makes me happy enough.

Anyway, point is...if you're finding that miles seem to be slipping through your fingers before you can do something really awesome with them, consider doing something really "country-mouse" with them that nevertheless makes you happy.

And if you can't settle for that, ignore me & listen to the rest of the people giving excellent advice here.

I've been hoarding on Capital One. I charge everything I can on my double miles card and I have gotten the fee waived several times. I'm hoping to learn some new tricks here to increase venues, etc. but, right now, I'm saving for a big flight. I get nervous when my sky miles balance goes to zero! Last year I flew to Honduras, California, New Mexico, and Florida on four separate trips from EWR with United miles. I paid a total of $180 for all four flights and got upgraded to first class on one of them. It makes me happy!

Although I love looking at large miles balances, I've realized I enjoy using the miles a lot more than looking at the balances.

charge everything to credit card, the best way to collect miles