I just bought my wife a pair of Nike Cortez shoes for $80! Of course the story doesn’t end there, but as you can imagine I’m not one to shell out a bunch of money for shoes. In fact, my last pair I got for $35 worth of Sears points. So what caused this purchase? Airline miles, it was their fault! It was alright because my wife has been telling me that she was ready for a new pair of these shoes. However, this week is triple miles on British Airways shopping portal. Overstock.com was giving 21 points per dollar, so I’ll get 1,680 which is pretty good. Furthermore, I used 3 $25 gift cards I got using $60 of Discover rewards. So $64.90 with $16.80 worth a points, not terrible for some fancy pants shoes.
Airline miles
I love airline miles and they have enabled me to travel all over for so little cash. I went to Taiwan on miles, came to and will move from Lisbon with them, and just dropped 400,000 miles on a future trip, to be revealed later. Yet, we still have 750,000 of them. I think I need to as good at using them as I am collecting them.
Bonus miles
Every month or so a promotion is announced to earn bonus miles. This week it was triple miles, previously there was bonuses on rental cars, and maybe next week it will be bonuses on pet daycare. And I’ve been so good at earning these bonuses that you can bet I’ll find a stray cat to drop off and pick up my miles. However, maybe it has gotten to the point where I am over doing it. Here are some ways I have got bonus miles:
- Bank account that earns American Airlines miles
- Transferring hotel points
- Online shopping portals
- Spent $1000 on airfares to earn 20,000 miles
Too much good stuff?
However, maybe I have so many miles now that maybe I don’t have to stretch myself to earn more miles. Currently I’m shooting for a bonus 10,000 AA miles which will net me a total of 17,000 miles, a $170 value. However, to reach that I will be spending $40 on popcorn from 1-800-Flowers, $25 in dining, and $42 on wine. So maybe my “free” travel is not coming off as really free, but instead as heavily discounted. I think I can still go for the really easy free miles like 500 miles when you sign up for an email list because that is no money out of pocket.
Conclusions
So what’s the next deal? I’m not sure, but maybe I can resist the temptation to get it. Furthermore, I may consider using my points for less ideal flights, because even at a penny a mile I have $8,000 sitting.
Wow, that’s an impressive points portfolio. You should do a post on how you amassed so many. I’m also really curious to know what you used the 400k for. A RTW?
Oh, and the annoying thing about the AA 10k promo is the purchase has to be at least $50. And AA miles seem harder and harder to use lately.
That is a good idea for an article, but for now this is an overview. The 400k is for two people and something like a RTW and back, but that is a story to tell at a later date. As for the AA miles, you are right, but so far I’ve only been using them to fly outside the US and gotten pretty lucky with the availability.