Our strategies for easily earning points for travel

There are hundreds of different credit cards on the market to earn points for travel. When you have a lot of expenses, the travel points will follow by themselves, even without optimization and strategy.

In fact, if you have $100,000 in purchases per year, you can easily earn 100,000 Aeroplan Travel Points without any strategy.

However, how can you easily accumulate so many travel points when you don’t have a large volume of spending?

Here are some strategies to consider when optimizing purchases in the right categories on each credit card (restaurants, grocery stores, gas, travel, etc.)

• the fewest credit card applications ;
• the lowest annual fee ;
• the minimum spending required.

This list is not exhaustive! Come and share your credit card travel point strategies in the Milesopedia Facebook community!

This strategy earns 108,000 Aeroplan points.

You can earn Aeroplan Points for individual or group travel, depending on your destination. In a family, each parent could subscribe to the same cards and collect double the points!

Caroline found plenty of places to travel with 55,000 Aeroplan points! Then, I found many short getaways for 25,000 Aeroplan points or less!

This strategy earns 158,000 Marriott Bonvoy points.

For those who don’t like to be tied to a specific program, a travel points strategy can provide a lot of flexibility. In fact, many trips are more accessible with Reward Points.

• Activities (theme parks, food tour, museum, etc) ;
• Cruises;
• All-inclusive;
• Car rental ;
• Any flight or hotel;
• Airbnb, etc.

The strategy for a family of two adults and two children: each parent could use these cards to pay for the family’s all-inclusive trip under the sun !

Another example of a travel points strategy would be for a single person who would like to take a cruise to the Galapagos Islands.

Prices for week-long tours in the archipelago start at $3,000 with G Adventures. The cost of travel will be greatly reduced with this travel points strategy!

For a variety of reasons, many people prefer the strategy of arming themselves with a good portfolio, without too many cards, to keep for the long term.

The credit cards with the highest rewards rates often have an annual fee. Indeed, the annual fees may seem high, but they are all justified with the benefits provided.

There are also a number of offers available from American Express, which puts the annual fee into perspective! Over time, the American Express Cobalt^MD Card has become the best credit card for earning points for travel.

Then, as a paying strategy, I advise you to subscribe to credit cards in order to cover and optimize each category of expenses.

*Gift cards for these businesses can be purchased at grocery or convenience stores for 5 points per dollar.

With this strategy, we can calculate the withdrawn values as follows:

• 51,800 Aeroplan points ($1,036)
• 1 free night Marriott ($150)
• Annual travel insurance for the whole family ($500)
• Unlimited access to the National Bank Lounge ($150 for 2 visits for a couple)
• National Bank Travel Credit ($150)
• American Express Canada Travel Credit ($100)
• Free checked baggage ($120, for 2 round-trip trips for 2 people)
• Savings on conversion fees for foreign currency transactions
• etc.

For a total of around $2,200 in annual savings (the calculations were based on Milesopedia’s valuation and a monetary value was given to the benefits related to the credit cards in the portfolio).