Using Oceania's Air

[JimandStan]

Hawaii Dan:

 

"for Air......United Explorers, ( you can rack up 2 ot 3 oth them over a 6 mos period and get 110000 miles…"

 

Sorry, but could you explain what you mean? Rack up two or three of…what?

 

I have a United Plus Explorer card and would love to know your secret for getting 110K miles in six months without actually having to spend $110K.

 

TIA

 

He's talking about opening two or three credit card accounts, and accumulating the miles that are offered as incentives for doing so.

[Hawaiidan]

Hawaii Dan:

 

"for Air......United Explorers, ( you can rack up 2 ot 3 oth them over a 6 mos period and get 110000 miles…"

 

Sorry, but could you explain what you mean? Rack up two or three of…what?

 

I have a United Plus Explorer card and would love to know your secret for getting 110K miles in six months without actually having to spend $110K.

 

TIA

 

There is a little known technique known as "churning" . Presently Chase still permits it however as of August 2013 Citi prohibits it

 

Churning is where you do one of 2 things Get use and cancel the card and request a new one. or where you every 90 days apply for a new card. You can, presently request a new card ( there are presently 4 levels in Chase UAL one of which is an explorer card.

These cards carry a 30,000 mile each sign up. You can get an additional 5000 miles for adding a name to the card. and 10,000 if you charge 25,000 in 12 mos . If you are married, then you and your spouse each apply separately for a card and then place each others name on the card. Result for round 1 60,000 miles total plus 10,000 miles bonus. you can apply every 90 days of one of the cards each time repeating the process. At round 2 you get another 60,000 miles +10,000 At round 3 you get another 60,000 + 10,000

 

So together in 90 days, with just charging $1000 on the cards you will have 210,000 miles in 6 mos. AND, the 6000 in charges will earn you 6000 more miles !!! So now we are at 216,000 miles ! are you with me?

 

But wait, timing is everything .because if you charge $25,000 in 12 mos you get a 10,000 bonus for each card that you hit $25,000 with. Using you card for all you do : gas food, tax,cruise, air, vacation, clothes gum.. telephone, cable, water,electricity..... each of you picks one card to do the $25 k on ( $50,000 should be easy in a year for normal cost of living..

So now at the end of the first year you chave used the cards for $54,000 in charges ( paying it off in full each month)

This give you 20,000 miles bonus plus the 50,000 miles earned from the actual charges. So that is altogether another 70,000 miles

 

So 12 months from the start you are now sitting on 286,000 miles or 146,000 each... having only spent $54,000 in normal routine expenses. And this is if you do not fly one mile !!! Then each year still spending $50,000 in charges for your normaly do will continue to add 50,000 miles a year And it gets better and better as each year you get a renewal of 2000 to 5000 mile bonus per card. Using just 2000 per card ( and you have 6 remember between you two) that's another 12,000 miles a year

SO......24 months after getting the original cards you have 298,000 miles total. and If you charge a couple of cruises and air...you can add another 20,000 miles !!!!

 

You have to pay about $190 per year for the cards x 6 or $1140 a year.

Not bad to get almost $300,000 worth of miles doing nothing more than sitting around the house.

THe secret 1 brand credit card...no others... fly only UAL or star alliance and quit paying cash for anything.....

 

And I didn't even get into hotel cards such as Marriott where you can easily between 2 people 6 to 10 free stays a year !

 

Ball is in your court

[Hawaiidan]

at present there are 3; Miage plus Business, UAL club card and Explorers card. each of which you could churn every 90 days so if you were gutsy in 30 months you could rack up 500,000 miles.... never having flown !!!

 

For those who shop for flights, pay cash, write checks, you are loosing tens of thousands of real $$$$ a year.

Having a credit card doesn't mean racking up a debt. It just means your switching from cash and checks to using the card in place.

 

How is the real pay off? Well last year I used miles for $27,500 in free stuff. In real money at 3.5 cents a mile you earn 300,000 miles is worth in real cash $10,500.00

 

You dollars.... spend and use them to your advantage:D.

[rallydave]

Great and informative posts Dan. Churning is a GREAT way to get free air, hotels, cruises, etc. Yours is but one way to earn lots of points. While the UAL Cards have good features, there are other Chase cards that earn more points and are transferable to other airlines, hotels, etc. And they can be used in conjunction with each other to accumulate Ultimate Rewards Points with some of the cards requiring no annual fees. One advantage of Ultimate Rewards is many more airlines, hotels, etc. to transfer points than simply using the UAL cards which only transfer to UAL.

 

There are websites such as Dan's Deals and The Frugal Travel Guy to name two sites that provide great recommendations and rate the various cards and the promotions. With the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card, you get double points for travel (hotels, cruises, rental cars, etc.) and every year get a 7% bonus. Lots of specials come out to improve these bonuses. Then there are several different Chase Ink cards that are for businesses but, simply provide a name for your business and good to go. They pay double points for gas and 5 times value for purchases at Business supply stores like Staples and Office Depot. They also pay 5 times spent for internet and cell phones and those are monthly charges most of us have and all of these easily pay the annual fees and more. Chase Freedom and Chase Sapphire have no annual fees and points can be all moved into the Ultimate Rewards Program which under the Sapphire Preferred have much better redemption features. Ultimate Rewards also allows you to get a check in the mail for the value of the points. True the cash is at $.01/point but, think of a cruise at $20,000 and that is $200 cash and if you spend say $300/month on internet or cell, that would be a check every year for $180 per year ($300 X 5 X 12 = 18000 points) Simply setting up auto payments and nothing else would net you $85 per year after paying the $95 card fee.

 

It's free money as long as you always pay your bill on time and in full. Great programs and there are many others. Choose the cards that work for you.

[Hawaiidan]

I know there are other ways I just described my plan. Here in Hawaii UAL is the card to have because of their network in the pacific Asia and Europe and south America.

 

Nby the way I made a small error with 3 cards each, 6 cards total paying $1140 a year in fees. your 24month mileage total will be 356,000 total or 178,000 pp.

 

Now, how you spend those becomes important. if we value a mile a 3.5 cents and it cost 40,000 miles to fly rt to Hawaii then you spent $1400.00

If the regular ticket cost $670 then you over spent $730 !!! So for me the value of the miles dictates whether I spend miles of money.

ALL coach deals are rip offs. Domestic first is the next biggest loser but then it comes to international first and Business where it pays to use miles.

Example flying from Kona to LA coach will cost me one way 20,000 miles or $700. ro fly 2500 miles to get a ticket that would have cost me $400

 

Spending 35,000 miles or $1225 worth, will get me Kona to Hong Kong or Tokyo Business class which is a $3600 ticket for flying 3800 miles

So using miles to LA and I loose $300 in coach with miles However flying to Hong Kong I save $2375.00 using miles.

 

DO the math , know the prices before you spend the money or miles.

Nothing in life is free.... and miles are one. The have real value no matter how you got them.

[DrHemlock]

Roger all of the above. Clear, understandable and actionable for those comfortable with the churning concept.

 

Thanks for the explanation and the suggestions!