Our Top Posts of 2024: The Most Popular Points and Miles Content
New to our blog? Wondering what others have liked? Visited before but looking for the best hits? Welcome! We’ve compiled our top posts of 2024 for you.
We first started this blog in July 2023 to share our experiences with points and miles to help you travel more while spending less. That first month, we posted frequently before running into a few months of three posts or less. Life happens, right?
For 2024, I decided to focus on posting regularly at a cadence I could feasibly keep up. I started the year with a goal of every five days, and then changed to six. And guess what happened? I was able to meet that goal! In 2024, I published sixty-six blog posts, which is an average of one post every 5.53 days. Was every post a hit? Definitely not, but that’s okay. You live and you learn, right? There were some posts, however, that got a lot of traction.To identify the top posts of the year, we reviewed our analytics and looked at which ones received the most page views.
So, without further ado, here are our top posts of 2024!
Top Posts of 2024: #5
Why Marriott is our preferred hotel chain
That title (and corresponding post) might not be surprising to some given Marriott’s wide portfolio, but many in the travel hacking community favor Hyatt for their incredible point redemptions. We do stay at Hyatt hotels from time to time, but we’ve found Marriott more impactful for us and the way we travel. Here are a few reasons we like Marriott.
One, the wide portfolio. Both P2 and I travel for work, and even if it’s in a location off-the-beaten path, there’s going to be a Marriott. Keeping our stays primarily with one provider means that we can rack up the points faster.
Two, the value we get from status. In 2024, we had Titanium status, which means we earned 75% more points on paid hotel stays. Any Bonvoy member earns 10 base points per dollar, so we earned 17.5x Bonvoy points per dollar on paid stays this year. THEN we were able to earn an additional 6 points per dollar when we paid for stay using P2’s Marriott Bonvoy Boundless credit card.
Three, the stay five pay for four promotion. When you use points for five consecutive nights, the lowest point cost night is dropped, so you’re really only “paying” for four nights. While it doesn’t always make the points cost comparable with Hyatt, it’s a way of lowering average points per night cost AND keeping more points in the bank for future stays.
We plan on updating this post in 2025 with some new notes and additional perspectives.
Top Posts of 2024: #4
Shop online? Have an American Express card that earns Membership Rewards points? If you’re not using Rakuten, you’re missing out on thousands of points for future travel.
In 2024, I paid extra attention to maximizing my use of Rakuten. Rakuten is an online shopping portal where you can earn cash back or American Express Membership Rewards points when you shop at a participating retailer. All you have to do is activate the cash back while you’re on the site (it has a nice pop-up to remind you) and shop normally. You’ll receive a payout quarterly, and if it’s points, it’s directly deposited in your American Express account.
Using Rakuten, I was able to earn more than 30,000 Membership Rewards points this year without significant effort. Rakuten frequently has elevated offers of 10, 15, or 20% cash back throughout the year. I was able to use one of those 20x offers at PetSmart, and I shopped a few times on Viator when it was 12x. As with any purchase, don’t shop through Rakuten simply for the points. But with the wide range of partners they have, it’s really easy to add some extra points to your travel hacking bank.
Top Posts of 2024: #3
How to earn 10x points and miles at Starbucks
It’s hard to avoid Starbucks. I certainly can’t resist the convenience. So why not turn that coffee stop into travel? Starbucks has a number of ways to earn points and miles on your caffeine fix.
For starters, use a card that earns a multiplier on dining. The Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Freedom Unlimited, and Chase Freedom Flex are all cards that we have that earn 3x on dining. More of an American Express fan? Use the American Express Gold card and earn 4x on dining. If you use a Chase card, you can stack with the United MileagePlus X app for miles on top of credit card points. A post I wrote this year on MPX is one of the top five if you keep reading.
For the last several years, Starbucks has had a partnership with Delta Airlines to help buyers earn miles on their Starbucks purchases. They did make some changes to the way people can earn Delta miles this year. Starbucks also established a partnership with Marriott in 2024, adding to their already lucrative points-earning opportunities.
With some of the above changes, we’ll be writing an update post on earning points and miles at Starbucks this year.
Top Posts of 2024: #2
This piece was a crowd-pleasing post this year. If you haven’t read it yet, I strongly encourage you to, because I dive into quite possibly my favorite travel-hacking app – the United MileagePlus X app. This app is unique to United Airlines, and I haven’t seen anything comparable from their airline competitors.
In short, it’s an easy way to earn miles on top of the points you’re already earning from the credit card purchase. Here’s how it works: you purchase a gift card to a participating retailer (think Starbucks, Chipotle, DoorDash, REI, Chewy, etc.) and earn a set amount of miles for the purchase. You also earn credit card points for the gift card purchase. Shop as you normally would with the gift card for a really easy way to up your United miles. Not a United devotee? That’s okay, United is part of the Star Alliance, where you can use your miles to book with another provider in the alliance.
It’s really easy to use, and if you shop with retailers on the app frequently, you could earn free flights pretty quickly. I earned more than 34,000 miles through the United MileagePlus X app in 2024. And I definitely did not spend $34,000 to do so, not even close. Places I bought gift cards to typically earn me at least 2 miles per dollar, like Starbucks. Others, like Carters’, where I buy clothes for my baby, currently earn 5 miles per dollar on the app.
Pro Tip: If you’re shopping on the MileagePlus X app, always use a Chase credit card. Purchases on United MileagePlus X that use Chase cards code as the category they are (for example, Starbucks codes as dining). This means that when I use a card that earns 3x on dining, I earn 3x Ultimate Rewards points on top of the United miles. But American Express codes as United and only earns 1 point per dollar on the same retailer purchase.
Top Posts of 2024: #1
And, the most-read post of 2024 was….
Drumroll please…..
In this post, we dove into the quarterly 5x categories for the Chase Freedom and the Chase Freedom Flex cards. The Freedom and Freedom Flex are staples in our wallets, and they’re a great way to add a significant amount of Chase Ultimate Rewards points to your travel hacking stash.
PayPal was a 5x category in Q4, and given the plethora of places that take PayPal, it was easy for a lot of people to earn the maximum amount of points on the 5x quarterly category. If you’re new to this, Freedom and Freedom Flex can earn 5x on a maximum of $1,500 of spend in the elevated categories.
Conclusion
So there you have it. Our top posts of 2024.
Based on the top posts of 2024, it appears that our readers are drawn to the ways they can earn the maximum amount of points and miles for travel hacking. The one exception to that trend being our fifth-most-read post, about why Marriott is our preferred hotel chain.
If you’re one of those readers who likes learning how to maximize points and miles earnings, check out a few of our similar posts:
- How to earn points and miles
- Earn points and miles on pet purchases
- Earn up to 11x points on food delivery
- Stack points and miles with gas stations
- Maximize points and miles with Amazon
Have a topic you’d like to see us write about? Let us know in the comments or email us as points.postcards@gmail.com!
