Can you move this to the appropriate forum?

May I suggest:
Trash Can
Closed
and if not, at least to OMNI

I'm just a journeyman...

2 for me (1 AA, 1 UA), one for spouse (UA). Total of 60K miles altogether for the year. I only go for it with no annual fee and 20K or more miles.

I buy one tank of gas, wait for the miles to post, and CANX the card. My wife and I are going to Hawaii next year thanks to the airlines carpet-bombing us with these offers. I earn 'real' mileage, too by actually flying, but I'd say the run rate of 'real' miles versus 'credit card bonus' miles the past 2 years has been about 50/50.

The customer service reps (Chase/UA I think) were a bit snarky when I cancelled a card last time. They gave me the warning about my cretit rating getting dinged etc for opening and closing cards.

It's not MY job to worry about the profit margins of the airlines and big financial companies, so my response was, "As soon as you stop sending me card offers in the mail every week I'll worry about my credit score!".

"just" a journeyman? don't sell yourself short.

excellent answer by the way.

Well, I could have an SSN even if I didn't live there nor being a US Citizen, I could also possibly have a Foreign Taxpayer Number (9 digits), also if I was a US citizen living abroad.
One can get this while being a student/seasonal worker, etc. and it was more liberal pre-9/11.
In this case I was asking on behalf of a non-FTer.

Too bad however, this annualcreditreport.com doesn't work when your ISP is outside US.

Do not know if this is the right thread, but here is what they said on my last inquiry;


3. You have too many recently opened bank credit card accounts:
Opening too many new accounts can be a concern to potential creditors since it does not yet show a record of responsible use. Allowing the accounts time to mature before applying for more may allow creditors to better understand how you pay these debts.



4. Too high a proportion of your bank credit card accounts were opened recently:
Having too high of a proportion of accounts that are recently opened can be a concern to potential creditors since it does not yet show a record of responsible use. Allowing the accounts time to mature before applying for more may allow creditors to better understand how you pay these debts.


Note: In addition to the factors listed above, the number of inquiries on your credit report has
adversely affected your credit score.

[who did you receive this information from?

TransUnion

I was able to get about 220,000 miles in a year using just 2 Citi cards.

I got the PremierPass Elite level with 15,000 bonus points, and bought about 6 tickets to Europe for friends. I ended up with about 75,000 Flight points and 5,000 purchase points from that.

Then I got the Diamond Preferred Rewards card with a measly 5,000 bonus points. This was when they still gave the 5x points for gas and groceries though. I was still in college last year, and I volunteered to buy all the alcohol for my fraternity. At about $2000 a pop for each party or football game, I got about 10,000 points per trip to Safeway. I did this about 10 times in the year and got 100,000 points.

I know many people say this doesn't/isn't supposed to happen, but Citi matched my PremierPass flight points to my Diamond Preferred purchase points, which gave me full use of my 80,000 flight points, bringing my total to 200,000. I think something may have slipped through the cracks when they did that transition to the new ThankYou rewards system. Maybe it was because I consolidated the two cards on my ThankYou account?

Then, with rent and other daily expenses, I racked up another 20k, for 220,000 points in a year although my annual income was only about 20,000.

Those are not miles in a FF program, per se. That's a closed program--specific to citibank, right?

Yea, but I think they beat airline miles hands down. No blackout dates (just book 14 days prior), I can travel on any airline, and the airlines don't count it as an award flight so I accrue miles from the trip. I was skeptical, but I just booked a peak season holiday flight for 50,000 miles going from Oakland to Athens on KLM. Orbitz was quoting similar fares at $1200, so I got about 2.4 cents a point on it. I don't even think the flight I booked was the cheapest fare either, as the travel agent helped me get a rather odd mileage maximizing routing going from Oakland to Seattle to Amsterdam to Athens. With my elite mileage bonus from Delta I may get over 25,000 miles just from this trip, which I can leverage for about 2 cents per mile. Since with my elite status, I can generally get 1/2 of a flyer mile for each point I redeem, that brings my total point value to 3.4 cents each.

While I've never done an official tally, I doubt I've spent more than $40,000 on the cards. If I call it $40,000 for 220,000 points, that translates into 5.5 points per dollar. 5.5 times 3.4 =16.5, so I basically got 15% back on my purchases. I don't think you can do that with standard FF cards.

There are other benefits on a true FF program that the TY network does not offer - how about changing travelling date? stopover? open-jaw? all these are allowed in a decent FF program such as AA, and UA too. They dont have blackout dates pe se, but of course there are dates no award seats are available simply because someone else is ahread of you to grab that seat.

The flight to Athens is in Summer or Winter when you said "peak season holiday flight"? If it is winter, it costs 40K using AA I believe, as winter is considered Offpeak in AA's book.

Would like to see how many pts they want for a premium seat such as J or F.

It is great that you can offer to buy tickets for your friends and they pay you back cash, ditto the fraternity drinking parties - most other folks dont have such opportunities to use leverage though.

Good points. I'm leaving right after Christmas and coming back mid-January. I didn't realize that was off peak. But, considering my 50,000 point redemption will leave me with 25,000 SkyMiles, it seems like a good deal.

Alas, my college days, along with the 5 points on groceries and frat parties, are now over, so I'll need to find a new strategy. I'm going to Egypt with some friends on this same trip though, and it has given me some unique leveraging opportunities that I think most people could take advantage of.

I'm doing my friends a "favor" by offering to book their flights and hotels. I'm using my PremierPass card through Expedia, which is now linked to the Citi ThankYou program. If you book a hotel with a flight, you get double the dollar value in ThankYou points from Expedia. So, for each friend I do a "favor" for, I get the initial dollar value of each itinerary as standard PremierPass purchase points, I get that same dollar value times 2 credited directly to ThankYou network via Expedia, and then I get 1 point for each actual mile flown. My friends are flying from LAX to Moscow to CAI, which is around 15,000 miles RT. The cost is about $2,000 with hotels. So, I get 15,000 flight points + 2,000 PremierPass purchase points + 4,000 Expedia ThankYou points, for 21,000 total points per person. I have booked 2 friends, so this turns into 42,000 points for being a nice guy.

I do of course still need to match the 30,000 flight points with purchase points...any suggestions?

Restricted Ticket (Coach) - US 48 and Canada 25,000
Restricted Ticket (Coach) - Mexico and Caribbean 30,000
Restricted Ticket (Coach) - Central America 35,000
Restricted Ticket (Coach) - Hawaii and Alaska 35,000
Restricted Ticket (Coach) - Europe 50,000
Unrestricted Ticket (Coach) - US 48 and Canada 50,000
Restricted Ticket (Business) - US 48 and Canada 60,000
Unrestricted Ticket (Coach) - Mexico and Caribbean 60,000
Restricted Ticket (Business) - C. America 60,000
Restricted Ticket (Business) - Mexico and Caribbean 60,000
Restricted Ticket (Coach) - Asia 60,000
Unrestricted Ticket (Coach) - Hawaii and Alaska 70,000
Restricted Ticket (Business) - Hawaii and Alaska 75,000
Restricted Ticket (Coach) - S. America 90,000
Unrestricted Ticket (Business) - US 48 and Canada 90,000
Restricted Ticket (Coach) - South Pacific 100,000
Unrestricted Ticket (Business) - Caribbean 120,000
Unrestricted Ticket (Business) - Mexico 120,000
Unrestricted Ticket (Business) - Hawaii and Alaska 150,000
Restricted Ticket (Business) - S. America 160,000
Restricted Ticket (Business) - Asia 165,000
Restricted Ticket (Business) - Europe 165,000
Unrestricted Ticket (Coach) - Continental Europe 180,000
Unrestricted Ticket (Business) - Continental Europe 300,000

Hmmm, you also get cash reimbursement upfront from your friends too. Let's hope your friends never learn about the game of miles and points, and continue to be lazy and naive.

Also thanks for posting the pt requirements on J seats - there lies the big value of the regular FF programs vs the TY pts. For those usually redeem J or F seats, a real FF program beats TY pts hands-down. A friend just redeemed an AA business ticket to Russia for May travel, for 90K miles - domestic portion AA metal, European portion BA and SwissAir. From your table, it looks like 165K or 180K requirement.

My guess is, for the coach seats, Expedia (now the provider of TY program) would have inventories that they contracted with airlines at undisclosed prices, but the J and F seats they have to pay close to the same prices as the general public, hence the big requirements on premium seats.