How to Earn Points and Miles Fast—And Travel for (Almost) Free ($0)
If you love to travel but hate spending a fortune, learning how to earn points and miles is the key to unlocking free or heavily discounted flights, hotels, and other travel perks. Travel hacking revolves around accumulating rewards from credit cards, loyalty programs, and strategic spending to make dream vacations more affordable—or even free. Whether you’re new to travel hacking or looking to refine your strategy, understanding how to earn (and maximize) your points and miles is essential.
There are numerous ways to earn points and miles, and the best methods depend on your spending habits and travel goals. Some approaches are as simple as using the right credit card for everyday expenses, while others involve leveraging sign-up bonuses, shopping portals, or loyalty program partnerships. This post will walk you through all the best ways to earn rewards and supercharge your travel plans.
How to earn points and miles: Regular Credit Card Spending
Using a credit card for everyday purchases allows you to earn points that can be redeemed for flights, hotels, rental cars, and more. Since expenses like groceries, utilities, medical bills, and shopping are unavoidable, why not maximize your spending by earning rewards? The key is to treat your credit card like a debit card—put all expenses on your card but always pay off the full balance each month to avoid interest charges.
To maximize your rewards, use the right credit card for specific spending categories that offer elevated rewards:
- Dining: Chase Sapphire Preferred (3x points), Chase Freedom Unlimited (3x points), American Express Gold (4x points)
- Drugstores: Chase Freedom Unlimited (3x)
- Gas: Citi Premier (3x points), United Gateway (2x miles)
- Groceries: American Express Gold (4x points at U.S. supermarkets), Chase Freedom and Freedom Flex (5% cash back on rotating categories, including groceries in select quarters)
- Travel: Chase Sapphire Reserve (3x points), Capital One Venture X (2x miles on everything, 5x on flights booked through the portal)
By strategically using different credit cards based on spending categories, you can significantly increase the number of points you earn.
How to earn points and miles: Sign-up bonuses
Probably the fastest way to rack up a ton of points or miles is through credit card sign-up bonuses. Many travel credit cards offer lucrative SUBs, often ranging from 60,000 to 100,000 points when you meet the required spending threshold within a set time frame (usually 3-6 months).
For example, the Chase Sapphire Preferred card (our number one recommended travel hacking starter card) offers 60,000 points when you spend $4,000 in the first three months. However, always assess whether the minimum spend aligns with your budget. It’s never worth going into debt for a bonus.
This year, I’ve already received two sign-up bonuses:
- American Express Platinum: 150,000 Membership Rewards points
- Capital One Venture: 75,000 miles
Here’s one way I could use those points:
The 75,000 Capital One miles could be used to cover $750 worth of travel purchases or transferred to a partner airline for a domestic first-class ticket.
The 150,000 AmEx Membership Rewards points could be transferred to Air Canada Aeroplan and redeemed for a business-class flight to Europe.
How to earn points and miles: Referral Bonuses
Many credit card issuers provide additional points when you refer friends or family to open a new card. Referral bonuses typically range between 10,000 and 15,000 points but can be higher depending on the card. Some issuers even offer elevated referral promotions at certain times of the year.
How to earn points and miles: Shopping Portals
Major airlines, such as United, American, Delta, and Southwest, have online shopping portals where you can earn miles for making everyday purchases. By clicking through these portals before completing your online shopping, you can accumulate points effortlessly.
We have the United shopping portal installed on our browser, so any time we’re perusing a site that would earn us miles, a notification pops up to tell us to activate. Choose your preferred airline and install the shopping button – you’ve got nothing to lose and only miles to gain!
Shopping portals like Rakuten allow you to earn either cash back or American Express Membership Rewards points for online purchases. Rakuten frequently offers elevated cash-back promotions, sometimes as high as 10-15%, with occasional deals reaching up to 90-95% on select retailers. If you have an AmEx card, you can opt to receive Membership Rewards points instead of cash back.
It’s important to note that you can only use Rakuten or an airline shopping portal – not both. We have Rakuten and the United portal installed, and when we’re shopping on a site that partners with both, we choose the one that offers more points or miles. We’d recommend having both Rakuten and an airline portal as options because some websites partner with only one or the other.
How to earn points and miles: Shopping Apps
Some apps, like the United MileagePlus X app, let you buy gift cards and earn airline miles in the process. You can then use these gift cards at your favorite retailers while benefiting from additional travel rewards.
This app has been a game-changer for our miles earnings. It’s a super easy way to earn free flights with minimal effort.
How to earn points and miles: Linking Programs
Many travel providers partner with other businesses to offer rewards for everyday transactions. By linking accounts, you can passively accumulate points. Some key partnerships include:
- Delta & Starbucks
- Delta & Lyft
- Lyft & Hilton
- Lyft & United
- Marriott & Uber
- Alaska Airlines & Lyft
- Starbucks & Marriott
- Rental Cars: Hertz, Avis, and National allow you to earn airline miles or hotel points when booking through their loyalty programs.
- Additionally, many airlines have dining rewards programs that allow you to earn miles simply by dining at participating restaurants and paying with a linked credit card.
How to earn points and miles: Travel Costs
While travel hacking can reduce costs significantly, there are times when paying for travel makes sense. Or, sometimes, you just don’t have enough points and miles to use so you have to pay for travel. When you do, make sure you’re maximizing your earnings by booking through loyalty programs and using credit cards that reward travel purchases. If you haven’t already, create accounts with major airline and hotel loyalty programs such as:
- Hotels: Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt. These providers frequently offer promotions for bonus points when you meet certain spending or stay requirements. For instance, earlier this year, Marriott ran a promotion offering 1,000 bonus points per night, which led to an extra 8,000 points from work and paid travel for us at no extra cost.
- Airlines: United, American, Delta, Southwest. Similar to hotel promos, United’s targeted Mile Play offers bonus miles for completing specific tasks. Always activate these offers, even if you’re unsure you’ll complete them—you never know when they’ll come in handy.
Since we’re loyal to United and Marriott, we have cards for these providers in our wallets. This expedites our earnings and keeps our status – which is very valuable for the way we travel hack.
How to earn points and miles: Transfer Bonuses
Maybe not earning per se, but we wanted to flag this option as you’re looking at your points and miles stockpile. Sometimes, loyalty programs offer transfer bonuses when you move points to airline or hotel partners. For example, Chase has offered a 70% transfer bonus to Marriott in the past. Here’s how that would work:
This kind of bonus can significantly increase the value of your points, making it worthwhile to transfer strategically during promotional periods. Always check if a transfer bonus is available before moving your points, as it can dramatically boost their value.
Normally, 10,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points might transfer to 10,000 Marriott Bonovy points.
With a 70% bonus, those same 10,000 Ultimate Rewards points would transfer into 17,000 Bonvoy points.
Don’t complete these transfers just to get the extra points, but if you know this is a provider you’ll use in the future, this is a nice way to boost your points and miles.
Conclusion: How to earn points and miles
There are countless strategies for earning travel rewards, and the best approach depends on your spending habits and travel goals. What’s your favorite method? Let us know in the comments!