How we’re earning an easy 30,000 points for travel

Wondering how to earn points for travel without continually opening cards? In this post, we’ll share how we’re leveraging existing cards to earn 30,000 points in the first quarter.

To accrue the most amount of points for travel, it’s often recommended you open new credit cards every 30-90 days. This suggestion is based on capitalizing on sign-up bonuses, which are the fastest way to accrue tens of thousands of points for travel.

Many people, however, do not want to open cards that frequently. Others also don’t spend enough to achieve the amount required for a sign-up bonus (SUB). In some cases, the minimum spend can be upwards of $5,000 of spend in three months.

Often times, people overlook the existing cards in their wallet when they’re trying to earn points for travel. As travel hackers that definitely don’t open new cards every 30-90 days, using our existing credit cards to maximize points is a key way that we accrue points and miles.

Which cards to use

If you’ve read our previous posts, you may know that we’re loyal to Chase and their Ultimate Rewards points. In fact, if you’re new to travel hacking and wondering where to begin, we recommend a Chase card as your starter card.

This post is about different Chase cards – the Freedom and the Freedom Flex. Neither of these cards usually has a very high sign-up bonus, so they aren’t usually great choices when you need to accrue points quickly by hitting a sign-up bonus. They are a great addition to any wallet, however, thanks to their quarterly categories. The Freedom and Freedom Flex have quarterly categories that earn 5x points on all spend in that category. Typically, spend on these cards only earns 1 point per dollar. In each quarter, you can earn up to 7,500 points on the quarterly categories by spending up to $1,500 on the card.

What’s nice about cards in the Chase portfolio is that any points earned on the Freedom or Freedom Flex can be transferred to a Chase Sapphire to utilize the Ultimate Rewards travel portal.

How we’re doing it

For Q1 2024, the 5x quarterly categories are grocery stores (excluding Walmart and Target), fitness clubs & gym memberships, and self-care & spa services.

We each have a Freedom and a Freedom Flex credit card, which means we can earn up to 30,000 points for travel (7,500 x 4) in any quarter from the quarterly categories. Only one of us has a gym membership, and we don’t spend a lot of money on self-care & spa services. So the way we will be earning our points is from grocery stores.

As a household of two adults, we don’t spend $6,000 ($1,500 x 4) on groceries in a quarter. So how are we going to earn the maximum amount of points?

Gift cards! Near almost every check out lane at a grocery store you will find a display of gift cards. This is a great opportunity to buy a gift card to a retailer that you typically don’t earn elevated points on, like Amazon. You will earn 5x on the gift card because it will code as grocery and then you can use the gift card when you’re shopping at that retailer.

Amazon will likely be one of the main gift cards that we buy at grocery stores this quarter for the reason stated above – it’s hard to beat 5x on Amazon purchases.

As always, we don’t advise that you spend money you don’t need to. Don’t buy $6,000 worth of gift cards that you won’t use just for the points!

What can you do with 30,000 points?

Say you max out your quarterly categories and earn 30,000 Chase points. Great! You can cover flights and / or hotels for your next trip.

Here are some examples of what you could do with 30,000 points:

• Round-trip flight from Chicago to Cancun on United for 13,600 miles and $112
• Round-trip flight from Chicago to San Francisco on United for 22,000 miles and $11.20
• Round-trip flight from New York to New Orleans on United for 21,000 miles and $11.20
• Round-trip flight on Southwest from Phoenix to Seattle for 10,222 points and $11.20
• Three nights at the Hyatt Regency London Stratford for 27,000 points
• Three nights at the Grand Hyatt Athens for 27,000 points

The options are endless!

Summary

Opening new cards isn’t for everyone, but there is a way for everyone to earn points for travel. Knowing the elevated for your existing cards is a great way to accrue points for relatively low effort.

Tell us your favorite categories to earn on!