Intro to Bougie: How to Get Started in the World of Miles and Points

Bougie Miles Intro Guide

Miles and points are amazing tools. They can allow you to save hundreds if not thousands per year. Best of all, you can use them to do everything from staying at Hyatt Places and domestic flights to staying at the Park Hyatt Sydney and flying Emirates First Class. But, it can be a confusing environment if you are not familiar. From the endless acronyms used to figuring out how to earn elite status, it can sound like another language. Fortunately, you’re not alone! This Bougie Miles intro guide will give you a basic understanding of miles and points, as well as how to earn them.

What Are Points and Miles?

Points and miles are terms used interchangeably. They both refer to the currency created by airline(s), hotel(s), and banks that are rewarded to their customers. Additionally, points usually refer to the currency created by hotels and banks. On the other hand, miles are the currency created by airlines.

Bougie Miles Intro Guide – How Much Are Points and Miles Worth?

What your points and miles are worth are numbers debated throughout the travel community. This also varies depending on the currency. But generally speaking, the transferrable currencies, like Chase Ultimate Rewards, AMEX Membership Rewards and Citi Thank You points have a value of 2 cents per point. Here are some more values:

• The same is true about Hyatt, Alaska, and AA points.
• Hilton has a value of about half a cent.
• Marriott points are worth about 1 cent each (with much higher values possible)
• Most airlines except the ones mentioned above have a value of ~1.5 to 2 cents, but it can be much higher for premium cabin redemptions.

First-Time Tips

It is easy to get overwhelmed. I could easily write hundreds of pages about the topic and barely even touch the surface. But, there are a couple of things that beginners should be aware of:

• Joining a group and going to meetups is very useful and helped me supercharge my time in the miles and points space. You can meet and discuss various ways to improve your spending game, the cards to use, or how to redeem points at a better value.
• The points and miles hobby might not be the best for you if you have bad credit, as racking up card spend is key to amassing a large number of points.
• In addition, if you are not a U.S. citizen, your options are not going to be as great as the U.S. has by far the best card bonuses.
• Tread lightly at first with opening cards. Card issuers may decline you if you are all of a sudden spending tens of thousands on your card. Or even worse is if you get shut down for activities banned by issuers.
• Many co-branded cards offer bad spending multipliers. For many of them, such as Hyatt, Delta, and United, it is possible to complete a signup bonus from their respective partner banks and transfer the points over anyway at a high multiplier.
• Check alliance/airline partner programs. You can often book a partner flight for as much as 50%-75% less. For example, Delta is a partner with Virgin Atlantic. Delta charges 260,000 miles from JFK to KEF (Iceland) for one way in business. But you can book that same flight for only 50,000 Virgin Atlantic points. That’s an extreme example, but there can be incredible savings if the airline you want to fly has saver availability. Saver availability then allows you to book it with the partner airline.

What is 5/24?

5/24 is a very important number that is commonly used. Simply put, it refers to the number of personal credit cards that you have opened within the last 24 months. The reason this is important is that Chase usually does not let you open cards if you have more than 5 cards in 24 months. Chase is also probably the most useful point currency, as you can use them for Hyatt stays which offer incredible, as well as many other airlines.

Bougie Miles Intro Guide – What Credit Card Should I Get?

Several cards are great for beginners. But, the best one is going to be the Chase Sapphire Preferred. It offers a solid signup bonus of 60,000 points (not waived for the first year), and a $50 annual hotel credit. But more importantly, it allows you to transfer points to Ultimate Rewards which is useful for valuable programs such as Hyatt, Air Canada, and British Airways.

What are Transfer Partners?

Transfer partners vary depending on the credit card that you have. Figuring out which cards transfer to which can be challenging. But, here is a transfer chart that shows which cards transfer to which.

Bougie Miles Intro Guide – How Can I Use Miles?

The ways miles and points can be used are endless. They can be used for everything from Emirates First Class to statement credits on your credit card. But, there are a couple of things that, if at all possible, you should never use them on:

• Amazon
• Your Card Balance
• Gift Cards
• Cash + Points flights/hotels
• Merchandise
• Using the Amex portal

The reason that miles shouldn’t be used for these things is that the value is horrible. It is possible to get as high as 10 cents per point with your miles on things like ANA First Class. But, the options above often only give you a range of 0.3 to 0.5 cents per point. Even cashing out Amex points if you have a Platinum Card would give at least 1 cent a point, so the uses above should be avoided at all costs.

Bougie Miles Intro Guide – How Do I Book an Award Flight?

Booking award flights isn’t as easy as you might think. Furthermore, some airlines are better than others. Delta, American, and United have relatively straightforward booking processes. You can simply go onto the airline’s website, check the box “book with miles”, enter origin, destination, and number of passengers, and that’s it.

But for partner bookings, it is a lot more complicated. The US airlines often have more expensive award pricing for the same flight, so you are going to want to use another program (Aeroplan, for example, for Star Alliance) to book it. But to do that, you are going to want to know how many seats are available before transferring points.

So let’s walk through this scenario. I want to fly Lufthansa First next week from Houston, ideally. A great website to search for Lufthansa First space is a site called Seats dot aero. Start by clicking Explore, United Mileage Plus, and then also click the arrow next to First once. That will show all of the first class award space at the time. To filter to Lufthansa First space to just to and from Europe and the US, change the Show Flights [anywhere] to [anywhere] to the US and Europe. The cost for that flight on United is 165 points, but on Air Canada, it is only 100,000, both of which are Chase transfer partners. Air Canada also shows that there are 3 seats left. This means that you can book 3 people on the 3/25 flight from Houston to Frankfurt.

How Can I Earn a Lot of Miles?

There are a few answers to this. For one, it is important to know what cards to use. You don’t want to use a debit card or a card that offers a low-point multiplier. Low-point multipliers are very common on airline credit cards. And for the Big 3 US airlines, you can transfer them from Chase or Amex to them anyway.

In addition, sign-up bonuses are key. While most good cards only offer a max of 5x points in select categories, sign-up bonuses offer often between 10-20x points per dollar.

Another way that can help you earn a lot of points is to use a shopping portal. Shopping portals help you earn points on things you buy online. The most common one is Rakuten, and it offers a $40 sign-up bonus around twice a year. In addition, during the holidays, they tend to offer increased bonuses for popular sites such as Dell, PetSmart, Macy’s, and Nike. You can get a check 4 times a year, but there is also the ability to turn the cashback to Amex Membership Rewards at a 1:1 ratio. Membership Rewards points tend to have a value of 2¢ per point, so this is an excellent value. You can install Rakuten here.

Bougie Miles Intro Guide – What is Elite Status?

Generally speaking, elite status is a classification a company makes that you are a preferred customer to them. This can be found at places such as restaurants, but it is most commonly found throughout the travel industry and will offer benefits to loyal customers. These benefits can range from earning additional points on stays, to free breakfast, late checkout, and suite upgrades. This status can be earned through doing things as little as signing up for a credit card (for Marriott Gold and Hilton Gold), spending $23,000 a year, and staying 100 nights per year for Marriott Ambassador. Furthermore, in the case of United Global Services, Delta 360° Status, and AA Concierge Key, these statuses are only given to those airline’s biggest spenders.

Should I Go After Elite Status?

Deciding whether or not you should go after elite status is a very hard decision to make. But, in the vast majority of cases, you wouldn’t want to go after elite status that you aren’t going to use. So for example, if you live in Minneapolis, have Delta Diamond Status, and fly to Paris a lot, it wouldn’t make much sense to go after AA Executive Platinum status as it would require connecting.

In addition, it wouldn’t make sense to go after elite status if it takes a lot of work for little reward. An example of this is Hyatt’s Globalist status. It takes 60 nights a year or 20 nights for the fast track. If it is a struggle to get it and it is something you won’t get a lot of benefit from, then there is little to no reason to go after it.

Bougie Miles Intro Guide – Final Thoughts

There is so much more to miles and points than what is covered. But, this article should help you with having a better understanding. It is best to use the Chase Sapphire Preferred card as it offers a respectable sign-up bonus and a respectable set of benefits for the price. In addition, it is good to use a shopping portal such as Rakuten to help you supercharge your points balance. After that, you can use your points in countless ways. After that, just keep repeating a similar strategy with each additional credit card, and you’ll have hundreds of thousands of points in no time.

Do you have any questions about miles and points? If so, let me know in the comments!