How to Earn Points to Travel – 6 Ways
How You Can Earn Points Daily through Your Regular Spending
Signing up for a new card to earn points does not have to happen monthly. Instead, you can focus your points-earning strategy on boosting your points using your current cards to earn points daily. Follow these so you can learn how to earn points to travel!
Rakuten is a shopping portal that you can add as an extension on your web browser. When you shop on a site that partners with Rakuten, it will pop up and ask you to activate your cash back. Once activated continue shopping and when you check out Rakuten will show a pop-up and send you an email about how much you earned. Keep in mind that you do not get that money, Big Fat Check, right away, they pay out quarterly.
You can also use Rakuten for in-store purchases. To do this, activate it in the store and purchase with the connected card.
Tip: You can change from earning a check or PayPal payouts to earning Membership Rewards!
- Shopping Portals
Many airlines have shopping portals that offer additional points for your purchases. To utilize this, log into those sites before you shop.
3. Chase categories on the Chase Freedom
From April 1 – June 30, the reward categories were Amazon, Restaurants and Hotels. During this time, I re-routed my spending to these cards for these categories to ensure I received my 5x points on each dollar spent.
The Amazon deal was a game changer for a New Yorker who utilizes Amazon subscribe and save to minimize shopping trips.
4. Gift Cards
If you have the Chase Ink Business Cash card, you get 5x cash back at office supply stores, so you could buy gift cards that you would then use to purchase groceries and cover other monthly expenses. Make sure to buy more than just a gift card, add a pack of gum.
Also, when there is no fees on the gift cards you can load up on them.
5. Using Cards wisely
Before going shopping, I review my cards and the offers on my card. I make a game plan on what card to use for each purchase. For clothes, I typically use my Capital One Venture because I get 2x the points but if I am shopping on Revolve, they normally have a deal with American Express for additional points. If I am going to CVS, I typically use my Chase Freedom Unlimited because it gives me 3x points.
Making a plan ahead of time makes it easier to choose the card that will earn you the most points at the moment. I know that some add stickers to their card to help them remember but I have not tried that yet.
6. Offers on your Cards
When you log into your card accounts, many have offers you can utilize when you are spending such as 10% at Dunkin Donuts or $20 off 100 spent at Lululemon, make sure to activate any that you could see yourself using. After my statement each month, I typically go through them and activate all the ones I am interested in even if I am unsure if I will use them.
Conclusion
Whenever there is downtime between me opening a new card for the sign-up bonus and receiving a sign-up bonus, I focus on my regular spending and ways to earn points. I want to make sure I am consistently earning points so that I can afford trips at the spur of the moment if needed.
If you want to learn more about how I fund my travel check out How I Fund My Travel.
| Travel Resources | Information about Resources |
| Airalo | If you need phone service while out of the country, check out Airalo to avoid all the fees. |
| Amazon | Find the perfect items for you next vacation! |
| Booking.com | If you want to book a mix of hotels and houses check out booking.com! |
| Expedia | Need a package that includes flight + hotel or want to add a car? Expedia is the perfect site to book an entire vacation. |
| Priority Pass | If you do not have a credit card, you can still get lounge access through Priority Pass. |
| Ticketmaster | Heading to a concert or event, make sure to check out Ticketmaster. |
| Vrbo | Find the perfect rental house for your vacation and/or staycation. |
| Viator | The perfect place to find all your excursions and things to do in the many cities you visit. |
You’ve really got to keep on top of your credit cards when you switch from one to another. The best advice is to pay off your cards IN FULL each month!
Yeah I pay mine off weekly to help keep track of my spending!
A great way to earn points daily. I’m not focused on it much, since it’s not really something that’s offered in the Netherlands as far as I know. At least not to this extend.
Good tips for earning points for travel!
Great tips! I didn’t know you could use Rakuten for in store purchases, I’ll have to remember that!
Yes!!! make sure to add the offer and use the card you have linked!
I travel a lot and I take advantage of points on all my bookings and I agree on keeping an eye on Offers on your Cards. Great tips