How to Save Thousands on Travel with Credit Card Points - My Experience
Welcome back to Points of Travel! Before I get into what cards I keep in my wallet and my personal strategies that I use today, I want to spend some time talking about how cashback and travel points/miles have helped me over the years. My hope by doing this is to show that there is no real right or wrong way to use credit card points, but rather you should use them in the way that best fits your situation and your goals.
Time for a little history! Back when I started my journey in college, I was solely on what is known as team cashback. All the credit cards I had gave me some level of cashback for my different spending. One of the main categories I tried to maximize for example was the cashback I got on gas. I went to Cal State Long Beach for college, and between commuting to school and going to work, I spent a decent amount on gas for someone in their late teens going into my early 20’s.
One of my favorite cards at this time was the Costco Citi Visa because I could get 4% back on gas. The downfall was that it would only pay out the cashback I earned once per year, but essentially that cashback was enough to pay for my Costco membership and then some for the years that I was using it. As a young college student, having the cashback once a year from Costco, and monthly on other cards I was using at the time, helped to offset some of my costs that I had to pay for while working part-time. On top of being into cashback cards at this time in my life, I was also pretty opposed to having cards in which I had to pay an annual fee. So, I would always try and find the best cards where I could earn the most cashback without paying an annual fee (or if it had an annual fee the cashback I earned helped pay for it and more).
It wasn’t until I went on a business trip to Ohio (I forget when exactly), that I really started considering the other side, the points and miles game. At this point I had the Hilton HHonors card (yes back then Hilton’s program name had two H’s in it which has since been changed). I stayed at a Hilton out there and I remember feeling at the time that it was one of the nicer hotels that I had stayed in up till that point. After that trip I slowly but surely started working my way over to the points and miles side of things. My goal? Try and travel as nice as possible without having to pay the price tag that comes with travelling in a nicer way.
I’m happy to say that I’ve been able to benefit from receiving cashback from my cards to lower my expenses as a young adult. Then as I moved through my 20’s I’ve utilized points and miles to help cover some of my travel costs. And it really culminated when my wife and I planned a trip to Japan, and we didn’t have to pay for our flights and paid a fraction of what we would have paid for hotel accommodations, had I not had a lot of hotel points / free night credits.
To share some of the details, our flights should have cost us around $2,400 for the two of us round trip to Tokyo. That was completely covered by points and then I chose to pay $300 to upgrade our seats to Extra Legroom. Now we were in Japan for 15 days, the first night in Tokyo was covered with one of 5 free night credits I had on my Marriott account. Those 5 free night credits were a part of the sign-up bonus that I had received on my Marriott Bonvoy Boundless card from Chase. The next day our trip moved us down to Osaka / Kyoto for the next 4 nights. I depleted my Hilton points (around 350,000 points at the time) to book two conjoined rooms for those 4 nights. After splitting the remaining cost between the 4 of us (my wife and my two friends from college), each person only had to pay $100….for the entire stay in Osaka.
The next leg of our trip took us back to Tokyo, and we would stay in Tokyo for the remainder of the trip. We had two places booked. The first was an Airbnb in Ueno. If memory serves, we stayed there for 5 or 6 nights. This was the only thing that we paid fully out of pocket. This was also split 4 ways, as my wife and I were staying with my two buddies. The last 4 nights of the trip my wife and I stayed in a Marriott hotel near Shinagawa station. I used the remaining 4 free night credits I had on my Marriott account to book this hotel, so we paid nothing out of pocket. To date this has been the most extensive use of points that I’ve done for mine and my wife’s travels.
Now I’m aiming to push the boundaries of what we’re doing with our points and miles and I’m currently figuring out a way to fly 1st Class to Japan for our next Japan trip that we’re planning to take in Fall 2026. The second half of the goal is to have enough hotel points where we will not have to pay (or pay a minimal amount) for our hotel accommodations and focus our travel funds on food and experiences while in Japan. I will talk about the details of that in a later post. But first, I think I should tell you our general strategy and which cards we choose to have in our wallets.
To put it simply, the strategy that my wife and I use is set up where we can earn points on all areas of spending that we do….period. Here’s the list of cards in our wallets. I’ve included our referral links attached to each of the card names below. Using any one (or multiple) of our links and getting approved for any of the cards below could generate a reward bonus for us upon your approval for said card. So thank you in advance for supporting the blog!
Kyle:
- American Express Hilton Surpass
- Chase Marriott Bonvoy Boundless
- Bilt Card
- Chase Ink Business Unlimited
Amie
- American Express Hilton Honors
Amie isn’t into the whole miles and points game as much as I am, so we got her a few cards strategically that help support the cards that I have in my wallet. Her two Chase cards support my Chase Sapphire Reserve. And then her Hilton card allow us to earn even more Hilton points that we can eventually pool to book hotels. Over the years Amie has come to appreciate the use of our points for travelling and is an invaluable Player 2 in our points strategy.
Lastly, for my wallet I use the Chase Sapphire Reserve (CSR) for all of our travel. It’s the card I rely on to get us lounge access through either Priority Pass or the new Chase Sapphire lounges. The American Express Gold Card is the primary card I use when I dine out (unless the place doesn’t accept AMEX, then it goes on the Sapphire Reserve) and grocery shopping. The Hilton Surpass card is my catch all and gas card. It’s also the card I use when we stay at Hitlon properties and has earned me tons of points over the years. Next the Chase Marriott Bonvoy Boundless is in my wallet for my work travels. My job utilizes Marriott primarily for our work travel and work lets me charge travel on my own cards. So, the Boundless card made sense to have. Next, the Bilt card allows us to earn points on our rent (they will soon be adding the ability to pay your mortgage in early 2026). All I make sure to do is charge 4 other monthly bills on it to make sure we get to keep all the points that we earn. Finally, the Chase Ink Business Unlimited allows me to charge any freelance expenses or miscellaneous expenses that doesn’t go on any of the other cards. Those points can then feed my CSR alongside the two Chase cards in Amie’s wallet.
If you made it this far, I commend you haha. I’ve become deeply engrained in the points and miles game. After our trip to Japan a few years ago it further solidified my belief that I could “have my cake and eat it too”; be able to travel nicely and pay little to no money to do so. Thanks for reading till the end! Be sure to come back for more points and miles content and let me know if there’s a specific topic you’d like me to touch on.
