Quickly accumulate rapid rewards or companion
 

Hi,

I have a family member that I'll need to visit very frequently as she battles an illness. It will be frequent trips between the Bay Area and Southern California and on many weekends its possible that I'll need to buy 3 tix.

I've never been a big RR accumulator. For a newbie, what are the fastest ways to buy or accumulate points at a good cost in order to defray the $195 each way ticket.

I do charge a lot on my BA visa, Amex Business Rewards, and SPG Amex. Probably 100K-150K total each year.

Thanks!

Quickly accumulate rapid rewards or companion
 

Snag a WN Chase card at the current promo- 2 roundtrips w/ $1000 spend I believe. Also sign up for the business version of the card and do the same.

Apart from RR, grab the WN iPhone app and enable Ding alerts. Every few days they push ding only deals out. I'm in Sac and 90% of the time the Ding includes LAX/SNA/BUR AT $50-$80

If you need to rack up points in a hurry, nothing beats the sign up bonuses for the two cards. The Premier annual fee is higher, but the bonus points cover the cost in WGA fares and there are extra benefits. Just make sure you use a promotion for 50,000 points that is currently on. Here is the link to the personal card.

For things you are going to buy anyway, using RR Shopping can rack up some points. I do it all of the time with primarily Lowe's, Sears, K-Mart and Wal-Mart but there are others. Sears and K-Mart allow you to buy online gift cards, turn around and use them at the store and you get points for buying the card and spending at the online store, plus the 1 point/$ if you use the WN card.

The neat thing about the stores above is that you can buy online and schedule store pickup (others will as well, but these are the ones I use). Sit at home, decide what you want, pay for it, and go to the store. They will put the order together and bring it to you.

Watch for promotions and be aware of the exclusions that you can find by viewing the Store Details. Right now, Sears and K-Mart are doubled to 6/$. If you had the WN card under the promotion, buy a $100 gift card, as soon as you get the code, buy $100 in merchandise and plan pickup. 600+600+100 or 1300 points for a $100 purchase. 1300 points will buy $21 of WGA fares.

Do you do any hotel stays?

Marriott for another month or two has 3x "miles" (ie, 1800 points) for every stay after the first stay, if you register for MegaMiles. (Normal 600 RR points for your first stay.)

WyndhamRewards for another couple weeks has 4x "miles" (ie, 2400 RR points) for your 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th stays. (Normal 600 RR points for your first stay.)

Also check out the sticky thread in this forum about Southwest car rental promos, if you ever need to rent cars.

All hotels and car rental partners so far do a minimum of 600 RR points per stay/rental. This makes earning very quick with many short stays and many short rentals, and amazingly quick if you can get 3x or 4x (or sometimes even 5x) promos. But that only works if you "naturally" need hotel stays or rental cars...


But be careful . That $195 ticket cost is today's price: It may go up by the time you accumulate the points, and Southwest points cost is more or less proportional to cash cost! So beware waiting to accumulate points while the cash costs goes up! That could end up costing you more than purchasing the ticket outright (further in advance).

thx
 

Great! Thanks for all the replies! I'm on it!