Points for Business Travelers is a new weekly series aimed at helping business travelers maximize miles and points without a lot of effort. Have a suggestion or question? Email roadwarriorette @ gmail.com.

It’s easy for business travelers to get lots of points without doing much extra work. So far we’ve talked about setting goals and loyalty programs. This week the topic is credit cards.

Credit Cards

There are about one million credit cards available, all with different hooks. Cash back, bonus points, airline affiliations, charitable giving, and more. If you are looking for the easiest, fastest way to get points, the answer is credit card bonuses.

(Note: Before you start applying for credit cards, check your credit score and credit report. If you plan to utilize credit card sign-up bonuses as part of your strategy, make sure your report is accurate and your score is as high as it can be.)

The strategy. I’m not going to tell you which card to get—there are tons of blogs that do that already. What I will say is that you need to be strategic about it and look for the card that aligns with your goals. For example, if you are saving up points for an international first class trip, the Southwest Chase card is not for you (since Southwest does not fly internationally). But if you want the Companion Pass, it’s a great card! If most of your travel is in the car, you want a card that gives bonus points for gas. If you have lots of airline points, you may want to diversify—look into a card tied to a hotel, or get a non-specific card like the Chase Sapphire.

Sign up bonuses. Bonuses are the best way to easily get lots of points very quickly. They almost always have corresponding spend requirements, so watch those carefully. (I didn’t realize there was a minimum spend for my first reward card, and so didn’t get the bonus. So it does happen!) However, even if a spend sounds like a lot ($2k or $3k in a few months), it can be attainable if you plan for it. We have transferred all of our spending to credit cards—bills, groceries, gas, etc., so that we can maximize the number of points we get. With the Southwest Chase cards we had to spend $4k in 3 months, which we easily did. Read more of this article »

Points for Business Travelers is a new weekly series aimed at helping business travelers maximize miles and points without a lot of effort. Have a suggestion or question? Email roadwarriorette @ gmail.com.

Last week I talked about setting goals. Once you know what you’re trying to gain, it’s much easier to map out a points strategy. This week, before I start talking about credit cards, challenges, and other strategies, I want to cover a few things about loyalty programs. For those of you who have been around for a while, you probably know most of this stuff. But anyone who is brand new to accruing points should read ahead.

The first step to maximizing points is, well, to sign up for them! Loyalty programs are available for all aspects of travel. Each time you fly, stay in a hotel, or rent a car you should get compensated by points or miles. The best way to know which ones to sign up for are the ones you use. It’s pretty simple: look back over your travel and see if there is a pattern for which brands you use the most, then sign up for those programs.  (If you’re new to business travel, look at the programs you think you’ll use the most.)

If possible, stick to one or two programs. This way your points are concentrated in a few locations instead of spread out over a bunch of different places.  In my case I almost always use Southwest and American for airlines, Hilton and SPG for hotels, and Hertz and Budget for car rentals. Obviously sometimes you have no control over who you use, but do your best.

(If you don’t have any say over what hotel you stay in, I’ve heard good things about the Hotels.com loyalty program. Any readers have any experience with it?)

Keep in mind that hotel rewards programs encompass all of their brands, so for example Hilton, Hampton Inn, Embassy Suites, Doubletree, Conrad, Hilton Garden Inn, Homewood Suites, and Waldorf Astoria all fall under the Hilton Hhonors program. It took me two years of frequent travel to realize this, and made it way easier to find Hilton Hhonors hotels that were located where I needed them and priced within my company’s budget.

If you are just now signing up for rewards programs, don’t be sad about the points you’ve missed in your past! While I knew to sign up for American Airline’s Aadvantage program right away, I didn’t know to sign up for hotel programs until I had been traveling for months. There’s nothing you can do, so just vow to get the most points you can moving forward.

Next installment: credit cards!!

(Also, check out Mommy Points’ Guide for Beginners if you haven’t already. It’s a very helpful overview!)

Follow Road Warriorette on Twitter!

Points for Business Travelers is a new weekly series aimed at helping business travelers maximize miles and points without a lot of effort. Have a suggestion or question? Email roadwarriorette @ gmail.com.

One of the perks of frequent business travel is accruing miles that you can use for fun trips. After all, what’s the point of being on the road all the time if you don’t get anything out of it? And of course, the more free trips the better! The problem is that traditional mileage runs and other points accruing techniques can take a lot of effort, add stress, or mean more time away from home. This series will focus on the easiest way for business travelers to get the largest amount of points and miles with the least amount of aggravation. I’ll cover a range of topics, including loyalty programs, credit cards, challenges, and other strategies.

But before starting to chase miles, you really have to figure out—what are your goals? Do you want status? Upgrades? Free vacations? Lounge access? For your family to go on trips with you? Your goals will really set the parameters for your overall strategy. In my case, I want my family to be able to come on some trips with me and free vacations most of all, then status and upgrades. This made the first step easy: the Southwest Companion Pass. This allows my husband and baby to fly with me for free on business trips where it makes sense, plus gives us a lot of options for low cost vacations. After taking advantage of the Chase Southwest credit card bonuses, flying a bit, and some strategic shopping, I have the Companion Pass until the end of 2014. Hooray! Now to figure out a strategy for the status goals…..

On that note, I will be co-hosting a Twitter chat this afternoon focused on accruing points and miles. It’s sponsored by TripIt (an awesome app!) and the other hosts are super cool: @earthXplorer, @LandLopers, and @ThePointsGuy. This is your chance to ask your points-related questions! Not only that, but we will be giving away TripIt prize packages to two lucky people that include a one-year subscription to TripIt Pro and a bunch of other goodies.

How to win? Make sure you are following me @RoadWarriorette and @TripIt, along with the other hosts. Then join us today, Thursday January 31 at 5pm EST/2pm PST and follow the hashtag #TripItChat and join in the conversation! Active participants who use the hashtag are eligible to win the prize pack. I’m honored to be in a group with these guys! Should be lots of fun.

Readers, what are your points and miles goals?

I am not a points blogger. This makes me a little different from a lot of the blogs on Boarding Area, but I just don’t have any experience with it. Honestly, it’s never been a huge interest of mine, as I’ve been very focused on helping people travel for work with the minimum of stress. And it’s been about as much as I can handle to be on the road all the time and blogging regularly. And the points scene can be so intimidating! If you go on to FlyerTalk or other frequent flier message boards, there’s a lot of discussion of churning credit cards, intricate mileage runs, and advanced reward booking techniques. Where is a beginner to start?

Recently, however, I’ve begun to realize that with a few relatively small changes and some strategic planning, I can accrue points and status far beyond what I currently have. This realization coincided with my trip to Blog World this past weekend, of which I think a lot of points newbies would be super jealous. I was surrounded by many great points and miles bloggers, who were happy to share their knowledge with me, and who were also incredibly patient with my rookie questions. With them, I’ve developed a plan to maximize my miles, and I only have to go out of my way a little bit.

The plan:

1)      Apply for a couple of key credit cards when the bonus is right. Pay attention to which ones give 2x or 3x points for gas and groceries, and use accordingly. I plan to get the AmEx Platinum, which has a great bonus and gets you into lots of the airline clubs.

2)      For trips with two or more nights, consider changing hotels to maximize stays during promotions.

3)      When it makes sense, look for flights with two legs instead of direct flights. (If I had done this during 2011, I would have had Executive Platinum in six months. Sigh.)

4)      If it’s available, and it won’t make me lose my mind, let them bump me.

I will be expanding on this plan in upcoming posts. Just know that you can get a lot more points with only a little more effort, and you’ll be that much closer to elite status or a free vacation!

My mom asked me this weekend, “Why do you love Hiltons so much? It seems like you are always staying at a Hilton or a Hampton Inn. I like Holiday Inn better!” People like hotels for all kinds of reasons; comfort, location, amenities, food can all play a part.  I have a different reason for staying in Hilton hotels. Sure they are comfortable, their amenities are just fine, and they are located all over the place. But the main reason I stay in Hilton brand hotels are because of the Hilton HHonors program. Not only do they give me a lot of points for staying in their hotels, but I also get those points deposited into my American Aadvantage account. They reward me in both places, which I LOVE.

I used to stay primarily in Marriott properties, which, to be honest, I actually like a little bit better. The Marriott Rewards program would either give me points for them, or points to my Aadvantage account, but not both. And in fact, Marriott doesn’t even allow that anymore–you only get Marriott points. Lame.

Hilton properties encompass many brands–Hilton, Hilton Garden Inn, Hampton Inn, Embassy Suites, and more. They are located in virtually every town I have ever stayed in. My favorite Hilton was the one in downtown Charlotte, but they are nice everywhere. However, regardless of who your favorite hotel is and why you love them, make sure you register for their reward program and then consistently stay there. Points are one of the perks of business travel, and we all need to take advantage!!