If you missed our Oct. 14 meeting, or just couldn’t take it all in, here is a somewhat abbreviated version of Ed Basl’s presentation. Ed is a member of the Reno Sunrise RC and a retired attorney whose hobby is leveraging credit card points/miles toward covering travel flights and hotel expenses. Ed does not work for any of the companies mentioned and does not endorse them beyond his personal experience. He has volunteered to answer your questions so look to the end of the article for that contact information. His full presentation can be viewed on our YouTube channel here (Oct 14 GT Meeting). — Summary by Lenet Compton
Think About Credit Card Benefits When Planning a Trip
Here is the trip planning process I go through:
- First, decide where you want to go;
- Second: look at what the flights would be for business and first-class seats;
- Third, look at what the hotels and accommodations would be where you are going.
- With those general numbers, start the points/miles searches from your credit cards.
- Then start the booking process for flights and hotels.
If you want to play the “Credit Card Points and Miles Game”, RULE NUMBER ONE is never get a credit card unless you plan on paying it off EVERY MONTH, you will never really save any money if you carry a large balance and are paying 24-29% interest. The math just doesn’t work. However, for those who can and do pay off their credit cards monthly, there are tremendous benefits.
Leverage Sign-Up Bonuses for New Premium Bank Cards
You can use almost all of the major credit cards for large signup bonuses that then have transfer agreements with many airlines and hotels to transfer your points when you need to use them:
- American Express Platinum- $895 now – up to 175,000 points
- Bank of America – $95 – 60,000 points
- Chase Sapphire Reserve- $795 now – 125,000 bonus points
- CapitalOne VentureX- $395 – 75,000 (has been up to 125,000 in past)
- CITI – $595 – 100,000 bonus points
- Bilt – no charge – some offers after sign up include 50,000 points
- Synchrony – Virgin Atlantic – 60,000
- And more. Almost all of these have sign up bonuses of 60,000 to 150,000 points
Many people, including me, are turned off by those high annual fees; but then you have to consider the benefits and do the math to see how those high numbers shouldn’t put you off if you end up getting, 2, 3 or 4 times that value in return. When you compare the costs of what you would pay for business class and Upper Class and First Class that you can instead get with points, it proves the value.
You can downgrade at the end of the year to a no-pay or $95 card after getting the high PREMIUM number of points for a PREMIUM card and finding out you aren’t getting all the extra annual benefits. And you have already gotten the huge value of the signup bonus….
Leverage Membership and Credit Cards from Airlines and Hotel Chains
You should sign up to be a member for all the airline and hotel chains you use, even if you don’t get their credit cards, because it all comes in handy for transferring points from the Bank Cards. And you can also obtain credit cards for almost all of the major airlines and get initial large bonuses for doing so. Some of their premium cards may be worth the highest costs, but maybe not, unless you truly have a favorite airline—my favorite is always which gives me the best price and the best time without skimping on luggage, seats or basic travel…
- Virgin Atlantic – (60,000 points on Synchrony)
- Alaska Air Atmos – ($395 – 100,000 points and more)
- British Airways – Delta – American Express many levels
- United – (100,000 points)
- Southwest –
- American Airlines – and so many more.
Almost all of these have 60,000 to 125,000 bonus signups right now.
Many of these airlines partner with a variety of other airlines, so your points may be used to book more flights than just what is on one airline’s sites.
You can use almost all of the credit cards for hotel chains, and can even transfer points from the bank credit cards for additional points when needed to occasionally top off for an extra free day to your bonus points: Here are some to consider:
- Hilton – Amex Aspire – $550 – 175,000 points; (there are others at $0 for 100,000 points)
- IHG for Intercontinental – $99 – 165,000 points –(or ours was five free nights)!! Times two!
- Marriott Bonvoy – $95 – Boundless – 125,000 points and a free night
- Hyatt – $95 – Up to 60,000 bonus points and annual free night
- and more ….
And when you compare what you have to pay for Hilton, Intercontinental, Hyatt and Marriott rooms to nights covered by credit card bonuses and points, you see how several $99 cards can provide thousands in value in room use.
Leveraging Sign-Up Bonuses and Transfers
Two personal examples of how this can work for you should provide the value I’m talking about: My son-in-law was planning a 10th Anniversary trip with my daughter. He mainly only used one credit card for everything, a Delta Airlines card, that he used at work all the time and had a few hundred thousand points, but only enough for a one way DeltaOne flight to Europe for a Viking Riverboat Cruise they were going on. He wanted to arrange another first class flight home but didn’t have enough points to do so, and the dollar price was over $4,000 each to fly home, compared to the points going over…????
So I checked to see if he had the CapitalOne card that was offering a 25,000 referral offer, and he would get 125,000 bonus offer at the time to sign up. By the time he had asked me to check a few things on the return flight, the best Upper Class European return flight option was on Virgin Atlantic. Unfortunately, he hadn’t asked earlier when I could have got it for less, so he needed 155,000 points for the two of them to fly home. I had plenty of points to loan him, since he couldn’t get his card in time to simply get it on his own. The other major point here is that CapitalOne points transfer to Virgin Atlantic, and oftentimes with a 30% transfer bonus. So I transferred 120,000 points from my CapitalOne Account at a 30% bonus to Virgin Atlantic. That gave me an extra156,000 points in my Virgin Atlantic account. Virgin Atlantic is one of the best and cheapest options for transferring points to another Virgin Atlantic member: Only a flat fee of $15 to transfer the needed 155,000 points. So I transferred 155,000 points to Aaron and Lisa, for $15 and he booked the Upper Class Virgin Atlantic flight. Aaron then applied for the CapitalOne Card on my referral, so I received the 25,000 referral bonus, that I deducted from his 155,000 borrowing,
leaving 130,000 to transfer back later to me; then he received his 125,000 bonus for the CapitalOne Credit Card. Recently, CapitalOne just offered another 30% bonus to transfer points to Virgin Atlantic, so Aaron was able to transfer just 100,000 CapitalOne points to get 130,000 Virgin Atlantic points, and for $15, he was then able to transfer those 130,000 points back to my Virgin Atlantic account, and we were all evened out on the flight help he needed. And he still had the extra 25,000 points left in his CapitalOne points account for future use.
This next example is even better because timing in booking Upper Class seats on Virgin Atlantic is important to research for your particular flights:
We are going back to Italy for Viareggio Carnivale in February 2026. Our best option is West Coast direct flights to London, and then a cheap Ryan Air, EasyJet, or other airline flight from London to Pisa to then go the 20 miles over to the coast at Viareggio. Virgin Atlantic flies nonstop from San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, and Dallas, so I check them all because they are all easily gotten to from Reno on a cheap local flight. I start my planning at 11 months in advance because that is when most flights and hotels open up their booking process. So in March 2025, I checked all the West Coast cities for direct Virgin flights to London for points flights and found Upper Class on Virgin Atlantic out of Seattle for 41,000 points each and each way. They were two or more times as much out of all the other West Coast cities, so I booked it immediately. The cost is the taxes and fees for the two of us only. In recently double checking, the points flights in all the other cities are still twice or more per person for the flights we would want.
On our recent trip to Malta, I used Virgin Atlantic points for each trip from the US to London and our return flight from London to the US: The points for those flights were 55,000 for the two of us on Comfort Plus, since the Upper Class didn’t come down to my points price level. Then a cheap Malta Air flight to Valletta put us where we could use 5 free bonus nights on each of our IHG credit cards that we got at $95 each. The rooms we were in were listed at $420 per night on the IHG site. So what would have cost us $4,200 for 10 days booking directly, instead they were ours for less than $200 of our two card annual fees. We also used our free points nights for Hilton at Heathrow on airport overnights going and coming home. They had been listed at over £200 for each of those nights, and we got them in effect for the $99 annual Hilton credit card fee. So $200 cost for $470 cost of those two nights. And we still have over 120,000 points each left of our bonus sign up benefits to use yet at other Hilton Hotels.
Other Credit Card Benefits
These are just some of the credit card travel hotel stay deals from bonus signups: And once you get YOUR card, you can refer your spouse, partner or significant other, or just your friends….Now five days for $95, can become ten days for $190…. When is the last time you stayed at an expensive Marriott or Intercontinental Hotel or Hilton or Hyatt for 10 days for $190?
There are other benefits as well: All major premium cards like American Express, CapitalOne, and Chase come with their own Airport Lounges, and if they don’t have a named lounge, they all provide sign up access at no additional charge for the Priority Pass Lounges at over 1400 airports.
Some also provide “Primary Insurance Coverage” to be able to decline those expensive rental car coverages when you use the correct credit card to book the rental car.
My main credit card for car rental insurance coverage is the American Express Platinum card. Once you get the Platinum card, you sign up for their separate PRIMARY INSURANCE COVERAGE TO USE FOR RENTAL CARS. When you use that card for the rental you are charged a flat fee of $25 for up to a 30 day car rental added to your credit card at the end of the rental. Primary coverage means your own car coverage does not even come into play like with most credit card coverages that only provide secondary coverage for items your own car insurance coverage may not cover.
Choosing Credit Cards
So what do I consider my most beneficial credit cards to be??
- The CapitalOne VentureX ($395 annual fee, but $300 is directly refunded on the card each year when you book travel though the credit card site, so the card is basically a $95 a year card from that benefit alone). Also, every dollar spent on it gets 2 points for every dollar. Most others are only 1 or maybe 1 1/2 points per dollar spent, except on certain specials.
- The Chase Sapphire Reserve ($550 annual fee, now going to $795, but $300 was directly refunded on the $550 card each year when you book travel though the credit card site, now on the $795 card, $500 is refunded, plus $300 on other travel bookings, so the card is basically a free year annual fee card, if you are a regular traveler that would be spending for hotels or flights anyway, but there are other benefits easily used that make it cost even less of an annual fee).
- The American Express Platinum (now the new annual fee of $895, but provides ways for up to that amount to be refunded depending on how you use it, and those uses are directly refunded on the card each year when you book travel or the other items like; $600 travel costs refunded at $300 every six months on a booking through their travel site; Annual Clear TSA membership that covers the $209 fee automatically; Every four years it covers the $125 Global Entry fee; The American Express Centurion Lounges that would otherwise cost around $69 per visit without the card; And Uber for $15 per month applies to a ride through the credit card sign up and use) So the card can provide more than the annual fee cost and there are more benefits as well.
Each of these three cards are also expanding their own premium lounges and offering free Priority Pass lounges in up to 1400 airports. You simply sign up and it renews your Priority Passport card every year.
These three cards also can transfer points to up to 14-20 different airlines, when you get the bonuses and find what flight will work best for you. If you do book ‘business class’ seats on most airlines with points, you then get access to those airlines premium lounges when you are flying as well. For instance, Air France, Virgin Atlantic, British Airways, and more.
Whatever credit cards YOU get and use for everything you buy to get maximum additional points, ALWAYS pay off the full amount every month, or don’t bother getting a credit card, or you will never get anything close to full, let alone any, value out of any credit card.
Learn from the Experts
Sign up for a couple of these free helpful email newsletters: These sites spend much of their effort trying to get you to sign up for their PAID VERSIONS, but I get enough helpful information from their FREE versions:
- THE POINTS GUY
- THE DAILY DROP
- TIM AT ROAME
- THE POINTS ANALYST
- POINTSYEAH.COM
And here are a couple of useful rental and transport sites to look up and use:
- AUTOSLASH.COM (can cut your car rental costs substantially)
- GETTRANSFER.COM (they bid for your business to take you from point to point)
These websites point out the latest credit cards with the best bonuses, how to use the transfer bonuses, and how to book the flights at the best bonus rates. They try to get you to sign up through their links, because they then get extra bonuses for everyone who signs up for credit cards through their links; but I prefer to find a friend who already has the next card I’m looking to obtain, because then they refer me and get a “referral bonus” while I get the ‘new sign-up bonus’ offered.
Why Do I Do This?
So what can you do lining up frugal travel with points/miles??? In recent years, we have had four round trips to Europe, and additional ones to Grand Cayman, and Cabo and Hawaii, for only POINTS, TAXES, AND FEES, just to name a few: Then you can splurge at your onsite travel, hotels, food, and fun activities, with the money you saved from cheap flights….and recently, many of those round trips have been in lay down business class and comfort plus and Upper Class seats, by playing the points game….
This is my travel hobby, so there is much more information on airline and hotel credit cards. Let me know if you have questions.
Edwin Basl
+1 7757414151
Basl440law@aol.com