(FAQ) Guide to Free Vacation for Newbies

How to get a free vacation while spending $1000 a month

A lot of new folks come to r/churning, read about the fantastic deals people are getting, and can't wait to get in on the action. Some may read the Wiki first, many just get trigger fingers and want to apply for the Best Card. Many are down voted. Some end up unable to meet the minimum spend, or have points that doesn't quite meet their needs.

Here is a step by step guide on how you, as a newbie, can get a free vacation each year, with no drama, no fuss, and improve your credit score. Some may see this plan as too conservative. Some know that you can get a lot more. However, this guide is aimed at folks that haven't spent the last 120 hours reading through this sub or Flyertalk.

This guide reflects my personal thinking. I don't believe in AoRs, and I believe in maintaining a good relationship with each bank. I am not opposed to paying minimal annual fees to help me reach my goals. You are free to disagree.

Recommended reading before you start: The Wiki, and u/dugup46 has a nice write up on Why you should not start churning.

Goal

The goal is to get a free vacation, somewhere in the lower 48 states, with flight and hotels paid for entirely with points. Also with some additional points for the future trips.

If you follow the guide, you should end up with a better credit score, larger credit line, and the freedom to take advantage of limited time offers. You will not be measuring inches on how many points you earned in the last 6 months.

Your credit scores will drop 3-5 points after each application. If you handle credit correctly, the score will recover in 3 months or so. If your credit score drops significantly more, stop and figure out what you are doing wrong.

Pre-requisite

Like all things in life, you have to meet some requirements before you start. Again, some will think I am too conservative, but I want to make this as straight forward with no drama. I also want to make sure you don't dig yourself into a financial hole.

• Emergency Fund. Do you have at least 3 months of living money set aside? If not, don't start until you do. You may need to float money onto a credit card, or have your money tied up in the wrong place.
• If you have Credit Card or personal loan debt, and I don't care what the APR is, stop. Don't start churning until you pay those off.
• Your credit score. Know how to pull your Credit Report, and make sure your score is over 720.
• Your credit history. You should already have 1 or 2 credit cards, for at least 2 years. If you don't, wait until you do, since it is usually harder to qualify for reward cards.
• Know your monthly expense. You should have at least $1000 in monthly expenses. Note car insurance, rent, student loan, health insurance, food, beer money, all counts. Keep track of this!
• Have a spreadsheet ready. You will track each card application date, annual fee, minimum spend. You will also track how much you actually spend.

The Plan

This plan is current as of March 2015. This plan will have to be modified as CC offers comes and goes. When applying for cards, always try to see if there are referrals or better deals on this sub. Using a referral will help community members to earn more points.

• Day 1 - Apply for the Barclays US Airways MasterCard, with 50k miles after the first purchase and paying $89 in AF. Ignoring the other benefits of the card, this one single application will get you 2 RT tickets in the US. Barclays will also give you free FICO score about every 60 days or so, useful to keep track you score on a continual basis.
• Day 2 through 60 - put your everyday spend on the Barclays card. Pay off your statement balance each month. You should never pay less than the full statement balance. If you can't pay the full statement balance for whatever reason, stop. You aren't ready for this hobby. Also, if you find yourself spending MORE money each month for MORE points, stop.
• Day 61 - Apply for the Chase IHG card, with the 70k IHG points. Why this card? If has a small minimum spend of $1000, and there are low cost Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express almost everywhere. This card alone will get you 3 nights in a mid level hotel, 4 if you can get the 80k offer. Use this card the next 2 months and meet the minimum spend. Note that this card has an annual fee, but you also get a free night certificate for the AF, which can be well worth it.
• Day 121 - Apply for the Citi AA Platinum card with the 50k AA miles. Again, 2 more RT tickets, but more importantly, getting a relationship started with Citi. Meet the 3k minimum spend.
• Day 211- Apply for the AmEx Hilton card with no AF. You will end up with at least 40k Hilton Honors points for just spending $750. Mid level Hiltons are about 40k a night. This card also start your history with AmEx.
• Day 271 - Back to Citi. Get the Citi Hilton card for 40k more Hilton points, only $1000 minimum spend. At this point, you have probably 5-6 nights of hotels paid for using points, and enough AA miles to get you there.
• Day 331 - If you want more flights for free, you can now go after the Chase Southwest cards for 50k points. If you want to begin to offset other travel expenses, the Barclays Arrival Plus would be a good choice. If you want more Hotel nights, go for the Chase 70k Marriott Premier.

Note that some of the highly touted cards, such as Chase Freedom or CSP, are NOT on the plan, and this is by design. UR points are great, but redeeming them for IHG, Hilton, or Marriott aren't necessarily the best value. The CSP's 49k sign-up total is not as strong as the 50k offers for US, AA, or WN for domestic flights, unless you want to do BA Avios redemptions. The UR points are great when you are interested in Hyatt, or maybe redeem for Korean Airlines premium flights to Asia.

Note that the plan calls for a new card every 2-3 months, plenty of time to meet your minimum spend. You never have to do MS to try to meet the minimum spend. This plan also gives you flexibility to change. For example, if the Chase Freedom pops up with the $200 offer again, or that the Chase UA card comes back with the 50k offer, you can jump without worrying about too many hard pulls in the last 3 months. Just note that if you add a card into the mix, delay the rest of the plan appropriately so you keep the HPs and spacing in place.

This plan avoid hitting the same bank twice in a row. By moving apps around, you get to build up history with each bank. After you meet the minimum spend on each card, spread the remaining spends across all your active cards.

So at the end of this plan, you have:

• 50k US Airways miles (Which will become AA miles in 4-5 months.)
• 53k AA Miles
• 71k IHG Points
• 82k Hilton Points

Plus one of the following

• 53k Southwest Points
• 71k Marriott Points
• 43k Barclay Arrival Points ($480 worth of travel credit)

At this point in time, you should have already booked your vacation, and start studying up on the next cards to get. Enjoy!