Planning for vacations take time and effort. It also takes time to accumulate rewards points for you to use if you want to try and save some money. Although this summer is just starting, start planning for next year’s summer vacation.

The quickest way to accumulate rewards points is to open credit cards with a promotion and meet the spending qualifications. For example, at the time of me writing this article United has a credit card that is offering 100,000 miles if you meet the spending qualifications.

100,000 miles from United can give you multiple round trip domestic flights, possibly one or two European round trip flights, and potentially a round trip flight to Asia. Typically, credit card companies will give you 3 months to meet the spending qualification. Great, you have your flight covered.

Great, now what about hotel? The same thing applies. The quickest way to accumulate points is to open a credit card with a promotion. In this example, Marriott is offering 100,000 points after you meet the spending requirements. Depending on the category level of the hotel, this could give you 1 to 3 nights. Although it doesn’t cover a week long vacation, it will help reduce the amount you’ll spend.

If you are planning to travel with another person such as your spouse, he/she can open a credit card separately as well to get the promotion. That way you will have, not just 100,000 points but 200,000 points to use. Now you have the potential of staying 2 to 6 nights depending on the hotel category.

Both of these credit cards allow you 3 months to meet the spending requirements. Unless you are comfortable opening up two at the same time, you will likely open one after the other hoping the promotion is still there. Just right there is 6 months of time which means half the year has already passed.

There are many travel credit cards out there with different promotions. Be strategic about which credit cards to apply for. Things to watch out for

• Opening too many credit cards at once or close to each other makes it difficult to meet the spending requirements
• Opening too many credit cards may affect your ability to get approved
• When you open up a credit card, do not put your spouse as an authorized user. They will not get the promotion. They would need to apply as a separate account
• Make sure you pay off the entire balance each period
• Some miles and points expire if there’s no activity on the account. Know the policies for each travel card you have
• Start planning now for next year

This technique does require good credit. For this to benefit, you do need to pay off your balance in full so no interest is applied. This will beat the purpose of trying to travel free minus taxes and fees. As you can see that accumulating points can benefit you being able to travel affordably. I’ve been able to travel using miles and points for many years and it has helped reduce the burden trying to afford it. I plan for the following year knowing that I know it will take time to accumulate miles and points. Start planning super early. If you are interested in following my journey, email subscribe to get alerts of latest posts or follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.

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