Holiday Spending and Credit Card Points/Miles
What Card should I open for the Holidays?
One of the best times to open a new credit card is during the holidays! This is because of all the extra $$ you have to spend during this time period. You might as well get a free vacation while you are at it!
Here are some of my favorite ways to maximize my holiday spending:
Opening a new credit card
The biggest and best way you can maximize your holiday spend is to open a credit card and get free travel! When it comes to Disney some of our favorites are: the Citi Bank Premier or Venture/Venture X cards for tickets, Chase Sapphire cards (we transfer to a Free World of Hyatt for hotels), or Amex Gold for those who spend a lot on groceries and want to get their flights covered!
INK BUSINESS CASH
AMEX Gold Card– This card gives you 4x on super markets. It is one of the most popular cards on the market especially for families who spend a lot in the highest category.
AMEX Blue Cash Preferred – This card gives you 6% back on grocery stores up to the first 6,000 dollars. This is a great card like the Gold.
Go for Southwest Companion Pass-
The best timing to go for the southwest companion pass is in the middle of the holiday season! Why? Because you want the points to hit your credit card at the beginning of the year. In order to get companion pass, you need to have 135,000 points in a calendar year. Your companion pass starts when you get the full 135,000 points. This is why people go for it and complete their spending in January. Because it gives you Jan-Dec of the year you get it + the following year. If you were to finish it in November, you wold only get in Nov-Dec of this year plus the following year.
Most people get this by opening a combination of Southwest Credit Cards
Extra Ways to Maximize
Shopping portals
I was talking to a friend the other day and she had no idea that these existed. Shopping portals are extensions you can add to your web browser that will give you extra points at that company. These stack on top of the points you are already earning from spending on the card! You can have ones for airlines such as United, American, or Southwest. I like to get extra points when I am shopping at places such as old navy, ulta, etc.
They also have general shopping portals like Rakuten which you can opt to get either cash or flexible currency. Rakuten allows you to get AMEX points instead of cash back if you opt in. Here Is a step by step how by Rakuten into AMEX points by the point guys.
Card offers
If you log into your credit card account, you will see at the bottom of the page “credit card offers”. This will give you cash back offers for each of your cards. For example today I got 12% back when I bought something at old navy just by clicking and using that card! This is on top for whatever points you get on the card. This can add up at the holidays.
