Ask the Travel Shrink: How Can I Use My Travel Points?
Don’t let those valuable miles go to waste.
Dear Travel Shrink: I’m sitting on 435,023 travel miles in my Chase account, another 673,083 on my American Express card, and some 200K miles on Delta. I’m sure I can trade these miles — these points — for first-class lie-flat seats from LA to Johannesburg for my whole family, but I don’t know where to begin because I’m overwhelmed trying to figure out the smart way to do it.
- Miles to Go Before I Sleep (comfortably in front of the plane)
Dear Miles,
You’re not wrong. The award travel system is (deliberately?) overwhelming, which may explain why there’s a cottage industry of experts breaking down the mechanics of travel points — what they’re worth and how to leverage them to get something great (flights to South Africa) for almost nothing (plus taxes and fees).
On our recent deep dive into the miles world, we’ve gotten the best info and tips from the websites and Instagram accounts of The Miles Couple, Points by J, Monkey Miles, Max Miles Points, Straight to the Points, DailyDrop, and @traveldaddydave. Among their offerings are downloadable guides (especially through their Instagram feeds), newsletters listing deals, workshops, and, most helpfully, step-by-step examples and booking instructions. Some, like The Miles Couple, will book your tickets for a fee.
Here’s what we’ve learned.
How to Earn Points
Earning one point for every mile you fly on an airline is one way to earn — but not a particularly good one. Far more effective is having a credit card that gives you points for every dollar you spend — especially when those credit cards give you multiple points per dollar. So, what’s in your wallet does matter.
Premium credit cards will dangle all kinds of incentives to get you to sign up for cards designed to appeal to travelers. You’ve probably seen the offers: Earn 75,000 points as a sign-up bonus if you spend $4,000 in the first three months (Capital One Venture X); earn 10x points for every dollar spent on hotels and car rentals (Chase Sapphire Reserve).
These cards aren’t free: Venture X has an annual fee of $395, Sapphire Reserve costs $550, American Express Platinum runs to a cool $695. But they try to bake in enough value to offset the price, either in the form of cash benefits ($300 in hotel credits; $120 credit for Global Entry credit; $240 for Netflix, Hulu, The New York Times, ESPN+) or perks (airport lounge access, extended warranties, no foreign transaction fees). If you’re particularly loyal to a company like Marriott or Delta, you can get their credit cards for even more loyalty points and rewards. NerdWallet has a good up-to-date ranking of travel credit cards.
The Value of Your Points
So what is a point even worth?