The Basics of Points & Miles
Let’s use points and miles to get to Hawaii
Earn points and miles that will help you offset the cost of future travel. In this case, travel to Hawaii! Instead of needing to travel extensively to rack up points and miles towards a free trip, you can use credit card sign-up bonuses and rewards points to help you reach your travel goals faster.
Once you get the hang of it, it’s a simple concept but there is some strategy involved to get the free (or nearly free) trip of your dreams.
Want to really master these strategies?
Download our free guide that walks you step by step through our strategy to earn points and book our favorite Hawaii hotels for free.
Take Advantage of Credit Card Sign Up Bonuses
The cornerstone of using points & miles is taking advantage of sign up bonuses that credit card companies offer. With these bonuses, they’ll give you a set number of points when you reach a minimum spending amount.
For example, a credit card company might offer 60,000 points after you spend $4,000 in the first three months.
These sign up bonuses are gold. They are where you can really see your vacation dreams come to life because some of our favorite hotel stays in Hawaii can be had for as little as 25,000 points per night. That’s right, 2 free nights just like that. But we’re not done yet. There is so much more you can do.
Meet the Minimum Spend Requirements
Once you’ve signed up for your chosen credit card, it’s time to make sure you actually qualify for the bonus! We like to sign up for a new credit card when we know that we can meet it with our regular spending (with groceries and other bills) or we sign up for a new card when we know we have a big purchase to make (like a new couch!).
We don’t want to sign up for a new card when we aren’t absolutely sure we can meet the minimum spend requirements to get the bonus. And we also don’t want to increase our spending just to get the signing bonus. So being strategic with your timing is important.
Accelerate Your Points
Getting a card with a sign-up bonus and meeting the minimum spend is a great first step that can earn you a couple of free nights at a luxury hotel in Hawaii. But there are ways that you can accelerate earning points to enjoy 5+ nights free at one of Hawaii’s best resorts.
Here are some strategies to help you rack up those points so you can sip mai tai’s poolside sooner:
1
Wait for the highest sign-up bonuses
Not all welcome offers are created equal. At different points throughout the year, credit card companies will offer a higher sign-up bonus. These sign-up bonuses can be an extra 20k+ points. For example, a sign-up bonus might usually be a standard 60,000 points, but during a higher sign-up bonus period, they might offer a bonus of 80,000 points.
We just signed up for a card that offered us 100,000 bonus sign-up points. An extra bump could be enough to get you an additional free night or two.
2
Start a two-player strategy
Do you have a partner? You can dive into two-player mode to double your points.
Let me walk you through how Jordan and I used to use our credit cards before we started maximizing for points. I’d open a card and add Jordan on as an authorized user. We’d both have a card, and all of our transactions would come through on the same account. This didn’t help us rack up the points faster.
Now I’ll get a card, and even if Jordan wants to open the same exact credit card, I do not make him an authorized user on the card. Instead, he applies for his own card and earns the sign-up bonus himself. Once we started doing this we saw our points skyrocket. This summer we were able to fly our family of four to Europe using my points and fly home using his points.
3
Use both business and personal cards
Business credit cards can come with even more lucrative sign-up bonuses. After adopting the two-player strategy, our points really took off once we started adding business cards to our wallet.
While you might not run a big business, you might still be eligible for a business credit card. If you have a side business that brings in any extra money throughout the year, that might count to qualify for a business card. So tutoring, dog sitting, freelancing, or selling things on eBay could be considered a business to a credit card company. This article from our friend Zac at Travel Freely dives into the details and helps you answer: “Am I Eligible for a Business Card?”.
Start with the Right Card
Once you have the basics down and you’re ready to start earning some serious points to fund your Hawaii vacation dreams, you can just pick a card and you’ll be on your way, right?
Not quite. All credit cards are not created equal when it comes to using points. While we get into specifics in our ultimate guide to points and miles, some points are considered more valuable than other points. In general, we like to recommend that people start with a credit card program that uses transferable points, like Chase, Capital One, or Amex. The points you earn here can be transferred to a travel partner so you have flexibility when using them. You can book a hotel or flight or even a vacation rental.
Of course if you know you’re getting the card for a specific travel purpose, like staying in a Marriott hotel (Hawaii has great Marriott properties) or flying on Southwest, you might want to get a credit card that specifically earns points to get you to that goal.
What about the annual fees?
You’ll probably notice that most of the cards that offer great travel rewards and perks also come with an annual fee. The fee can be as little as $75 or as much as $695! Some credit card companies do offer to waive the fee for the first year, but others won’t.
When we determine whether a credit card is worth the fee, we look at the benefits we’re receiving. If the benefits (points included) are worth the cost of the card, we get it! But sometimes, the benefits you’ll get after you earn the sign up bonus aren’t worth keeping the card for more than the first year. In that case, you have a couple of options:
1
Downgrade the card
Call the credit card company and ask them to downgrade your card to a card that doesn’t come with an annual fee. For example, I downgraded my United Explorer Card to a United Gateway card to avoid paying an annual fee.
2
Cancel the card
Call the credit card company to see if they offer any retention benefits (like waving the annual fee or offering you additional points to keep it open). If they don’t — or if you don’t like the offer — you can cancel it.
How long does it take to earn enough points to get your dream Hawaii vacation?
Now that you have the basics down, you want to know how long it will be until you’re sipping Mai Tais beachside. It depends on how long your vacation is and how much you want to offset your cost with points.
If you want to get a few nights free at a luxury resort, you might be able to do that in as little as a few months! For a bigger trip (10 days and multiple islands) you might need to plan things out a little more and start working on building up your bank of points almost a year in advance.
In our ultimate guide to points and miles for Hawaii hotels, we walk you through exactly how to book some of the best resorts, show you how many points are required, and how we’ve booked our free stays at these hotels.
Keep track of everything easily
When you have one card to keep track of things are easy. You know when you need to meet the minimum spend, when they’ll charge you an annual fee, and when your payments are due.
But when you start opening multiple cards, things get a little more complicated. And you don’t want to miss out on meeting your minimum spend or miss a payment due date. For this, we use the free app by Travel Freely.
Want to dive deeper than just the basics? Our ultimate guide shows you step by step how to earn and use points to book 3 different luxury hotels in Hawaii.