ma91pmh

shoot me down in flames if need be!

been reading this and frugaltravelguy (big thank you Rick what a great blog) for a few months now and it has significantly changed my mileage accumulation. there seems to be a lot of interest in what is the best way of getting miles etc and i just thought a little about where the miles are coming from. just wanted to compare notes mostly for fun and to see how much some people are making from some sources. so let me kick off-

1) I get about 10k per month from actually flying on AA. This is what I used to get before all this

2) I get another 5k per month of Amex MR points for business expenses

3) I'm now getting about 25k AA miles per month from card churning. This is by far the best. It's knocked my credit score down about 25 points but that's a cheap price to pay. 25k/month is based on churning 3 cards per quarter

4) I'm now getting about 5k per month for my spend with Amex SPG. This I will switch to AA at 1.25 times. This was an interesting choice as I was using Amex Blue which gives about 5% cash back but I am figuring with the right international F/J redemption I can beat that rate. Still this one I may revert back to Blue given cash is king.

5) I'm about to set up with Bank Direct for a quick boost and then an average 5k AA points a month based on my average bank balance

6) I am doing the mint deal. Just finished my first batch at 2.5k and ordered next batch at 5k. Due to credit limits I'm doing this on Citi card not SPG so getting 1xmiles. I'm not enamoured with this deal... it's nice, but dealing with such big chunks of change, literally, is not easy. And as you can see from above if this vanished tomorrow it would not impact massively overall (unlike for example if citi stopped you churning cards). I can see this is a good gig for someone with lots of time on their hands etc but for me 5k a month is about all I want to handle for this gig

So basically I've gone from being a frequent flyer earning 10k a month on AA to being a monster flyer earning by my count around 50k per month! As well as boosting other accounts like Amex MR. So just shows what an amazing resource this place and Rick's ftg are.

So how does everyone rack up their monthly miles??

Gamecock

Thanks for posting that!

I was, until last December, an infrequent flyer. Thanks to a huge uptick in business and personal travel, as well as a MR during the BOS3X, I am at 325K miles.

Your post gives me hope that once I am living back in the US, some 7 months from now, I too will be able to rack up some points. I have a goal of having enough points to fly my wife and I around the world in F when I retire from the military in about 3 years. Lifetime status would be nice as well.

CMK10

Excluding flying here's where I earn my miles from:

AA: Dining (restaurant rewards), Hotels (all my hotel programs are set up to give me miles instead of points), Citibank Mastercard, car rentals.

UA: Chase Visa card, Dining with afformentioned card.

US: Bank of America Check Card.