using frequent flyer points
 

what was the largest purchase you ever made and received frequent flyer points for?

Sadly they wouldn't allow me to put my entire car on the card, but allowed me to put $3000 of the total on it.

I also have an AAdvantage Citibank card for my business, and have learned that some wholesalers, fabric companies, etc. will accept the card. One month I paid my month's statement to a carpet manufacturer for purchases of $9000. That was nice.

Our son's college tuition--all five years!

Ditto on the tuition, and also bought a used car for 10,000 USD on our USAirways Bank America card.

By the by, we are still hanging on to this card. As long as USAirways exists and as long as they are the only game in town for us, we have decided to just keep going.

I plan to put as much of our daughter's wedding on a FF charge as I can. It will be this card, or whatever comes next. So far, I bought half the dress, veil, shoes, purse... Also put the down payment on the florist.

Sadly, the club where the wedding is being held won't take plastic.

We decided to keep our Bank of America US Airways card. The only thing we have changed is the both my husband and I had one, and now we only have one card.

I paid my School District Taxes with my AA advantage Citi Bank Card..
Also, after reading Patrick( Thanks:)) posts of how fast He accumulates his miles by using his credit card for everything,I quit writing checks and use his methods also.
However, when I receive the bill at the end of the month, I pay it in full.

It is amazing how much I learn every day just reading Fodor's posts.

Don't even think about using your CC for large (or small) purchases unless you can pay it in full every month!

I agree about being able to pay it off every month. But do some of you have an Equity Credit line for large purchases? I never write one of those checks directly for anything. I put the large purchase (including a car if I could) on the credit card first to get the miles, then pay the credit card the next month with the Equity credit line check. Not only do I get the miles, but I delay starting the Equity interest charges for a month.

I put all my reimbursed business expenses on my British Airways Visa - so they are basically free miles.

It wasn't me (darn!) but one of my business associates put our company's annual golf outing on his AMEX to get the points for it - $21,000!

$$$$ College tuition at a private school (also room & board while in the dorm)
$3,500 down payment on car
$5,000 savings bonds
$9,000 new roof for house
$25,000 house remodeling expenses
$$$$ two weddings

Always pay in full every month. Or transfer balances for large purchases to interest free cards. Those miles add up.
Besides paying every purhcase with a miles card, also put every monthly bill possible on it. Haven't been able to get the mortgage payment on it, but can put the homeowner's insurance on it every year. Put almost all utilities - including electric, phone, cable, internet,security system and cell phone. I do not pay property taxes as there is a hefty fee for this. Even pay some life insurance on card.

My US Federal income tax return on my Amex card the first year I got hit with the marriage penalty. The team of psychiatrists that treated me in Vienna afterward advised me to avoid any mention of the amount.

Betsy,
While generally I agree with you, I think there is a very large exception to that rule. Namely, those people who have access to a low interest roll-over credit balance transfer either from an existing card or from new offers.

I've rolled over a fairly sizeable balance for about 4 years at rates that have ranged from 0% to 2.99%. I've refinanced it at least a half-dozen times without a problem. I could have repaid the amount but why do that when I've been able to invest that money and get a signficantly higher return.

The S&P 500 for example is up about 40% from two years ago. If you had that balance in a mutual fund that indexes the market you've more than covered the interest cost, even with paying taxes on the investment income.

$20.000 for a musical instrument--and Delta was offering double points at the time!!

college tuition for two kids

two cars

kitchen remodel

almost forgot.... Savings bonds

For a while you could buy them online using your credit card. I took big chunks from savings accounts and bought US
savings bonds

Unfortunately...the govt no longer allows you to gather miles this way.

We also used the home equity line of credit for the tuition bills we put on the FF credit card. I do pay my balance every month, but the tuition for our daughter was too much for us to cover in one month. Same with the car.

We got a good deal on the equity credit line from our bank, so it is working well for us.

tuscan..

RE: putting a car on your card.

Check with your bank. I was able to charge cars on my CC and then take out a car loan from the bank to pay off the CC company before the month was up.

To protect the bank, I had them listed on the title when I bought the car(paying by CC) as already holding a lien.

After reading Dick's post about Savings Bonds, I remembered an article in the paper from several years ago where a couple had been using their American Airlines card to purchase Traveler's Checks from their local AAA office at no fee. They'd buy some massive amount, believe something like $10K to $50K a month, deposit the Traveler's Checks and never pay interest. The airline eventually caught on a changed the terms of their card to prevent similar moves. But not before they had accumulated hundreds of thousands of miles.

American Express is offering 25,000 bonus points for trips booked with certain tour companies by 3/31/05.

I booked a Tauck tour for this summer, and I will get the points for the $$ PLUS 25000 bonus points.

I paid for two college tuitions on a rewards card. Instead of sending the university a check, I charged it in two installments each semester, and sent the check to the CC company instead.

My wife and I have flown to Europe, South America, and Asia on points.
and had many "free" resort vacations.

Part of a car purchase and this year I remodeled the kitchen ,2 bathrooms, the laundry and a powder room and my contractor went with me to Expo and let me charge all cabinets,flooring and appliances on my card..double miles on Amex= 2 business class tickets to France this past fall!!

Ryan, what a great story. I'm thinking of heading to AAA this afternoon. I'm trying to figure out what AA or Citibank could do to prevent that? How can they prevent you from buying TC

IT is too late for the AAA "deal".

AAA will only allow you to charge travelers checks on a AAA credit card. My hat is off to those that took advantage.

United Visa had an occasional promotion. You could get double miles on any check you wrote to pay off another CC. No transfer fees involved. You just had to pay interest on the money. I used my United CC to "pay off" my USAir.I didn't owe USAIR any money on the account so a credit balance was vcreated. Then told USair to pay United. THe net result...I paid interst on the advance for a week and got 50,000 miles ...each time I got the offer in the mail.

I got a few friends into doing the same for themselves.

As my son would say...sweet.

I own three restaurants, i set up some major suppliers on my amex platinum card, i'm ringing $50,000 a month in miles, which translates to two free first class tickets to europe every four months, three trips a year for tickets that would cost $25,000 a trip! not bad!

Tuscan, are you trapped by UsAir in CLT like me ?

Patrick - your equity line of credit charges start from the date of posting! If this is not clear on your statement call you Equity Line of Credit bank for verification! Sorry if this is a shock to you!

I've been considering getting an AA Advantage card or the Capital One...most of my current miles are with AA. Any opinions on the best card to go with? Also, all the AA cards I've seen have an annual fee (~$75)... are there any out there without the fee that I'm missing?
thanks

Hi,
As a self-appointed Frequent Flyer Diva, here are some of the ways I've earned miles
-college tuition (3 years, until the college started charging a fee: caveat--never pay a fee for Frequent Flyers
-home remodeling (a big one)
-car down payment (another big one)
-furniture purchases
-anything you can pay off in one month!
If you can't pay the balance within the billing cycle, it's not "free" anymore!
I've had the AAVisa card for 15 years and it's fine; we looked into the Capitol One, but there were hidden restrictions that we didn't care for. Another tip: focus on one airline that goes where you like to travel and get all your miles on that card. (Although we do have the USAir Visa too and alternate purchases according to billing dates)
This approach has gotten us many free tickets to Europe, Hawaii, Aruba, and Bermuda. In fact, I rarely purchase tickets anymore!

Coqui1024

I just had an offer for an AA Mastercard bronze, with no annual fee.I didn't look at it closely as I already have an AA Visa and an AA MC. You might check into it though

Forgot to mention..with the no fee bronze AA card you don't get 1 mile/1 dollar ..it's 1 mile/$2.00 and there is a cap but i don't recall what it is. I use my card for everything so the $50.00 fee give me many more miles than a free card would.

tuscan, regarding points for a wedding -

Many years ago the Marriott newsletter included an article about a man who told his daughter that she could have any kind of wedding she wanted... as long as it was at a Marriott property. He received points for every dollar he spent on the wedding and had enough points for a great cruise.

He and his wife went on the cruise. I still think it would have been a great honeymoon "gift"! :-)

N2it, I think you failed to understand my post. Of course, the Equity Credit line charges from the day you write the check, but my point was I put a big charge on a CREDIT CARD to get miles and to delay writing that Equity Credit check for the first month. That way, it DOES delay interest charges for a month, as you'll get no charges from either the credit card or the Equity Credit account until after you've paid off the credit card charge with the check. Get it?

In other words, if you're buying something like $ 6000 worth of new appliances that you'd normally put on the Equity line, instead, charge it to the card, get 6000 miles and then a month later pay off that balance to the credit card company with the Equity check. You've saved an extra month of interest charges from writing the check itself at the time of purchase.

Is it better to have miles or cash value that Discover & AMEX offers ? as I see it if you have the cash you are not restricted as to when you can use your miles

Well, jean to each his own, but I usually cash in my miles for free business class tickets to Europe. Those are actually worth about $7000 or more each and cost me 90,000 miles. I easily earn 90,000 miles most years using all the sources mentioned above including lots of bonuses -- very few from actual miles. I can't imagine why I'd have to do to earn $7000 credit on a cash back card! I think using miles to get a free flight that could possibly be gotten for $200 -$300 with a little advance planning is foolish -- at least for me.

Late last year I received a Citi-Bank CC offer including a zero-percent transfer option for 13 months. I had 60 days to make the transfers and had to put and additional $100 on the CC for the transfer offer to be valid. So I transfered college tuition from Miles CC plus spent $103 on card (and no more ever!!). So I have zero interest on the transfer until February 2006. I pay about 96 cents a month interest on the $103 I put on the CC. Patrick, sorry I misunderstood your post!!

I guess this is kind of repetitive, but we also use our CC for large purchases, i.e., new cars, remodeling, etc. We always have the cash to pay off the following month.

What I don't understand is this: Friends and family know that we do this, yet no one has a CC linked to an airline FF program.

We want as much bang for the buck as we can get.

My nanny tax :-( (but, hey, now I can run for President!), and the $1000 it took to buy additional miles to be able to purchase biz class tix with miles (believe it or not, that was cheaper than the coach seats we might have upgraded-- scary!)