This is how the travel hacking world works in a nutshell:
- Get a credit card with a huge welcome bonus
- Scour reward ticket calendars for amazing deals, which are often last minute
- Take advatange of transfer bonuses to get extra points
And the hard part of all this, beyond the spending, is that it requires a lot of work.
Or you pay for a service to help you find it.
And while 90% of the benefits can be captured doing those three steps, there are still a lot of different ways you can earn points and miles without a credit card.
If you don’t have time to read it all, here are the top three:
- Make sure you’re shopping through a shopping portal to maximize your miles and points
- Join the dining programs so you earn points for restaurant visits
- Sign up to their emails so you learn about new promotions
Here are the rest:
Table of Contents
If You Rent, Use Bilt
The Bilt Mastercard is a card that gives you points when you spend it on rent, up to 100,000 points a year. You will earn 1 point for each $1 spent on rent and it’s the only credit card that lets you do this and it has no annual fee. If you rent and aren’t using this card, you’re leaving points on the table.
You can transfer your Bilt points to a variety of other loyalty programs and sometimes there are even transfer bonuses. Our Bilt review discusses this program in much greater detail.
Shopping portals are websites that you visit first to ensure you earn miles and points for your purchase. If you’ve ever used cashback shopping portals, like Rakuten/eBates or Topcashback, you’re familiar with these websites. You click through to your intended website from a portal and get a small percentage back as cash.
With travel shopping portals, you don’t get cash back but points and miles.
- American Airlines – AAdvantage Shopping
- Delta Airlines – Skymiles Shopping
- Southwest Airlines – Rapid Rewards Shopping
- United Airlines – MileagePlus Shopping
- Wyndham – Wyndham Rewards
Just search for “[loyalty program] shopping portal” and you’ll probably find it. The exception to this are hotels, it doesn’t appear many hotel loyalty programs have a shopping portal.
Car Rentals
The major car rental companies have partnerships with airlines and can earn miles and points if you enter in a loyalty reward number when renting.
For example, Avis has a partnership with United MileagePlus in which you earn miles based on the rental and your membership level:
- General members can earn 500 base miles per rental.
- Chase card members can earn 750 base miles per rental.
- Premier® Silver and Premier Gold members can earn 1,000 base miles per rental.
- Premier Platinum and Premier 1K® members earn 1,250 base miles per rental.
Sign Up For Emails
From time to time, loyalty programs will offer limited time offers which may include free points. They might offer a few hundred points for downloading an app or referring a friend, they only notify folks on social media (which is unreliable) or email, which you have to be subscribed to receive. Make sure you’re subscribed!
Rocketmiles
If you’re booking a hotel, consider using Rocketmiles as it’ll help you earn rewards from a variety of partnerships including airlines as well as Amazon and Amtrak. They have partnerships with more than 40 programs.
Dining Programs
Several loyalty programs are looking to make their way into the OpenTable and Resy business by creating dining programs in which you can earn points for making and keeping reservations.
Many are operated by the Rewards Network and similarly structured.
These include bonus miles for signing up to the program too:
- Alaska Airlines – Mileage Plan Dining (500 bonus miles in your first 30 days)
- American Airlines – AAdvantage Dining (1,500 bonus miles in your first 30 days)
- Delta Airlines – Skymiles Dining (1,000 bonus miles in your first 30 days)
- Southwest Airlines – Rapid Rewards Dining (500 bonus miles in your first 30 days)
- United Airlines – MileagePlus Dining (1,500 bonus miles for your 1st dine)
Hotels offer this as well:
- IHG – IHG Rewards Club Dining (1,000 bonus points in your first 30 days)
- Marriott – Marriott Eat Around Town (up to 6,000 bonus points in your first 60 days)
- HIlton – Hilton Honors Dining (2,000 bonus points)
Survey Groups
There are some survey groups that pay in miles, which is not exactly an “easy” way to earn miles but one that available to some folks regardless.
Miles for Opinions is a survey company that pays you in American Airlines AAdvantage Miles. You get 250 bonus miles for completing your first survey.
e-Rewards is another survey company that pays in “points” but you can redeem those points for points and miles at a variety of loyalty programs.
Utilities
Did you know that you can earn rewards for various loyalty programs if you select a utility provider through an airline or hotel partnership? You usually get a sign up bonus after two months of service plus points based on spending.
For example, if you live in IL, MA, MD, NJ, or PA and can select an electric supplier, you can earn bonus points from Southwest by selecting this deal with NRG Home. You will earn 10,000 Rapid Rewards points after two months of service plus 2 points for ever $1 spent on the supply portion of your bill. You will have to compare the rates to know if you’re coming out ahead but this is an option.
If you live in CT, MD, NJ, NY, or Ohio and are contemplating going with Energy Plus, you could take this deal and get American Airlines AAdvantage miles. You get 10,000 AAdvantage miles after the second month and you also earn 2 miles for every $1 spent on the supply portion of your bill.
Magazine Subscriptions
If you’re paying a magazine directly for a subscription, you’re probably 1. overpaying and 2. not getting your just rewards.
Within each of the shopping portals, there are partnerships with magazine sellers like Magazines.com and DiscountMags.com. In each case, you can not only earn miles and points for your spending but there are special discount too.
Making that transition will likely save you money and earn you a few points and miles.
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About Jim Wang
Jim Wang is a forty-something father of four who is a frequent contributor to Forbes and Vanguard’s Blog. He has also been fortunate to have appeared in the New York Times, Baltimore Sun, Entrepreneur, and Marketplace Money.
Jim has a B.S. in Computer Science and Economics from Carnegie Mellon University, an M.S. in Information Technology – Software Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, as well as a Masters in Business Administration from Johns Hopkins University. His approach to personal finance is that of an engineer, breaking down complex subjects into bite-sized easily understood concepts that you can use in your daily life.
One of his favorite tools (here’s my treasure chest of tools, everything I use) is Empower Personal Dashboard, which enables him to manage his finances in just 15-minutes each month. They also offer financial planning, such as a Retirement Planning Tool that can tell you if you’re on track to retire when you want. It’s free.
Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank or financial institution. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.
