March 24, 2014

Points & Miles 101: Getting your FREE Credit Report

I like to think the following is not only good advice for those about to get into points and miles but also solid, sound personal finance advice that everyone should be aware of.

In the United States, there are 3 major credit bureaus that report an individual’s FICO score. The three credit bureaus are Equifax, Transunion and Experian. Each of them uses its own database of information to determine an individual’s FICO score. The FICO score is the most commonly referred to metric for measuring a person’s credit score and it ranges from 300 to 850. Interestingly enough, the three bureaus generally have slightly different FICO scores for an individual so your credit score will vary based on what credit bureau it is obtained from.

The biggest factors that contribute towards your credit score is your payment history (35%) and current outstanding balances (30%). The FICO website does an excellent job of breaking down the formula to determine your credit score in more detail. In short however, someone who makes on-time payments, has not filed for a bankruptcy or does not have a massive amount of debt outstanding in relation to their total credit available (the credit utilization ratio), will generally have a high credit score.

While the FICO score ranges from 300 to 850, it is foolhardy to try and obtain a perfect credit score of 850. While it is basically unattainable to begin with, there is absolutely no need for a credit score that high. The range of excellent credit is generally regarded to be from 720 to 850. If you fall within that range, then it makes no difference if your credit score is 750 or 830 as you would qualify for the best interest rate on a loan.

Did you know that by federal law every American is entitled to a copy of their credit report from each of the 3 credit bureaus listed above? Every 12 months, you can obtain your credit report from www.annualcreditreport.com, which is run by the federal government.  These reports will show your complete credit history and show your current balances as the credit bureaus know them. Please do note though, there is a lag of  information so if you recently paid off a credit card or loan, it might not yet be reflected on your report.

FTC_Annual_Credit_Report1

The tieback of this to points and miles is that I strongly recommend an individual obtain copies of their credit reports before applying for a series of credit cards. You will want to get a sense of what your credit report entails and to check for any misstatements. On my credit report, I noticed a Discover credit card which was wrong as I have never had any type of Discover card. While it was slightly annoying to call them and have them investigate it, they did remove that account from my credit report after their investigation a few days later. You could easily imagine there might be wrong information on your credit report which could weigh down your credit score considerably. Don’t let that be you!

The most common complaint I’ve heard about these reports is they do not include your credit score and that’s absolutely correct. The law states only the report, not the score, must be made available to consumers once a year. The credit bureaus will happily sell you your credit score for a nice fee but stay tuned for the next post in Points & Miles 101, as I talk about a few tools that will show you your credit score for free!

March 21, 2014

1,000+ Free American Airlines Miles!

Well this has been a good week for free miles! First Delta gave away 1,000 miles and now American Airlines is giving away 1,000+ miles for playing its Facebook game!

American Airlines created a Passport Challenge promotion that utilizes Facebook to gain some free AA miles. Some of the activities include:

  • Learn and earn. Up to 700 miles (50 to 100 per activity)
  • Be social and earn. Up to 350 miles (25 to 50 per activity like following American on Twitter, watching a video, and sharing a video with friends)
  • Fly and earn. 500 to 2500 miles for flying on US Airways, US Airways Shuttle, a new domestic route, flying international, a oneworld airline partner, and exceeding qualifying points goals for up to 9000 miles

I say its a 1,000+ miles because you earn the miles in increments of 50-100 miles for playing some trivia, flipping plates in a game, recognizing tail fins and watching videos. You can decide how much (or little) you want to do.

In about 10 minutes of clicking through the games on Facebook, I earned 1,165 miles. If you have any plans to fly American or US Airways in the next few months, you could earn even more miles!

Free 1,165 Miles!

Free 1,165 Miles!

1,000+ miles by itself won’t get you a free flight but for a few minutes of your time, it’s worth it to gain some valuable miles. You never know when you will be 1,000 miles short of an award for a free flight

(h/t  One Mile at a Time)

March 19, 2014

1,000 Free Delta SkyMiles…New Members Only

Delta released details of a new promotion today as they are giving away 1,000 free Skymiles if you open a Delta Skymiles frequent flyer account. This is for new account signups only.

This offer appears to be targeted at Hertz customers however 1) there is no way for them to verify this & 2) chances are maybe you were a Hertz customer many moons ago so technically that would qualify you anyway. In my experience, Delta will honor this promotion for anyone who signs up for it.

Now if you’ve flown Delta before, I hope you already have a Delta Skymiles account. But if not, this is a great chance to signup for their frequent flyer program and earn miles for it. Delta Skymiles do not expire so it doesn’t matter if you have no plans to travel on them anytime soon. Additionally, if you apply for a Delta credit card in the future, you will need to link it to a Skymiles account.

Bottom Line – This is a no-brainer for 1,000 free miles. I would have your whole family signup for an account if they have not done so already – mom, dad, even the kids! It’s never too early to start building your points & miles portfolio.

(h/t Gary at View From the Wing)

March 18, 2014

Points & Miles 101: Creating Your Travel Bucket List

Today, I’m going to offer the single best piece of advice yet in my Points & Miles 101 series and it has absolutely nothing to do with points and miles! Additionally, I’m giving my readers some homework or at least permission to take a few minutes out of their day to think about the following:

I want everyone reading this to construct a travel bucket list – that is a list of at least 5 places you want to visit in your lifetime (feel free to share yours in the comments below!). 

Sounds simple enough but I know you’re thinking why – what does this have to do with points & miles? Before we get to that, let’s take a look at some sample bucket list items, including some of mine.

These all sound great with one major problem – all of these places are really freaking expensive!! I would love to scuba dive the Great Barrier Reef just as much as anyone but between flights and hotels alone it could easily cost $2,000 to $3,000 a person just to get there! I’m not made of that kind of money but I do have an easy solution – points and miles (c’mon you all saw that coming!)

Points and miles can allow you to experience trips that would otherwise be impossible for most people. The reason I think this is the most important piece of advice I’ve given yet is by writing down or creating your travel goals, it’s going to make you more interested and inclined to partake in the points and miles game. If I told you 150,000 miles and 100,000 hotel points later you could travel somewhere, that sounds fine and all but without a set goal in mind, you might not appreciate the value of those points and miles.

But if I told you two years and several credit cards later, you could be on your way to Bali, that sounds a hell of a lot better. In fact, I’d be willing to bet your going to work harder and become more involved in this game to take advantage of not only earning miles for that trip but all your future travel goals. And trust me once you get that one big free trip, you’re going to want more.

There is a reason most people consider some of these “bucket list trips” as once in a lifetime – they really are expensive and most people would be lucky to do this once in a lifetime. However, points and miles could allow you to do most, if not all of these trips for almost nothing! 

P.S. Even if your travel bucket list doesn’t have crazy, exotic goals on them, it doesn’t mean points and miles can’t help you. If your bucket list includes going to Disney or driving the Pacific Coast Highway, let points and miles take care of the flights and hotels for you!

March 15, 2014

30,000 United Miles for Signing up for DIRECTV

Updated: See revised post where you could earn United or American miles until 10/1/14 HERE.

If you were interested in switching to DIRECTV, you can now earn 30,000 United miles for signing up with DIRECTV. 30,000 miles is equivalent to one domestic round trip flight (with 5,000 miles leftover) or a one way flight to Europe or South America.

I’m not a DIRECTV customer but the prices seem fairly reasonable (especially if you want NFL Sunday Ticket). I obviously wouldn’t go out of my way to take advantage of this deal but if you already had some thoughts of switching, maybe this is the icing on the cake to do so.