Ha! That’s a long shot, since I’m not affiliated with any credit card or advertisement company. But I thought I would give a summary of how much in credit card points and bonus cash I’ve earnt this year.
Expedia $100 – 4 x $25 coupons for accumulated point booking airline tickets and hotel through them. Although, I could save more point to redeem each time, but if I could apply a discount, I’d go ahead and do so.
Capital One – $400 (40000)it was one of the best deal I got, all I had to do was click on the hotel charges that I’d like to redeem. Voila! With the bonus, I ended up redeeming $450.
Wyndham points – 6000 points for signing up, 45000 point for sign up with credit card. I could use 3000 + cash ($28) and scored an ocean front hotel. It was a bit too sweet. I mostly use it for days inn. Mr and I love traveling by car, most days inn in the country are super nice and clean (you could hardly find anything 4.5 stars in the wood anyway, unless it’s the omnihotel or four season). So this one stretch a long way for me.
Marriott points – 80000 points for signing up with bonus and double bonus, I managed to get 89000 points, enough for 2 nights at their category 9 hotel, but I might end up stretching it for a regular Marriott hotel for 4 nights.
Citicard – 50000 points for $650 redeem for travel. I redeem for travel. We are using it to go to Cozumel island.
Holiday Inn card – 60000 points or 4 nights at holiday inn/express.
I did all of this by spending as I regularly do, plus I’d use credit cards to prepaid my electricity bill, insurance, etc (those bills usually set up as automatic from my bank account, so switching to credit card require a little bit of organizing, but I figured it out.)
Another draw back, I have to call in each time the credit card didn’t automatically waive the first year fee. Also, my credit score took a hit each time I sign up and each time I cancel the card when I’m done with the bonus points. I don’t want to pay the annual fee.
That’s it for this year >$2000 in reward (it’s a conservative estimate, actual savings is much higher). It’s not bad for my first year at credit card hustling. (I only earn <$4k this year in dividend, $2k represent 50% of my passive income)
*it’s all about stretching the dollar. I’ve already save a lot by shopping around. Then, that dollar spent would earn me a bonus point. A couple hundreds here and there adds up.
* spend the regular amount that I’d spend anyway
* organization is the key to success
* bonus is time sensitive – you have 3-5 months to spend a certain amount $1-5k. I haven’t done any that make me spend $5k yet, it would be difficult for me even with the expense on the rental property.
We will staying at a resort hotel in Cozumel. The hotel has it own reef, so we’ll wake up, snorkel, eat breakfast. Doing some touring and sight seeing, come back, snorkel some more. Dinner and bed.
Excursion bucket list – jeep tour, swimming with dolphins, day trip to cancan, see the national park for snorkeling, boat charter for fishing, parasailing, see the Mayan ruins (I’ve heard it’s unimpressive), we’ll only rent a jeep for 1 day, the rest we are going to bike to our excursion point. I haven’t been to Cozumel, I hope it’s not too hilly for bikes. By then, I’ll be too “fat”, biking would be good for me. Also, we had great fun biking in Puerto Rico, Virginia beach, myrtle beach, etc, so we’ll keep biking as long as our health permit.
I’ve hear Cozumel would be safer than cancan and the rest of Mexico, so we’ll just enjoy being tourists.
Our trip won’t be for another 2 months, in the meanwhile, I’ll keep racking up more points for our next trips.
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Update on basketball coaching:
We’ve just learnt our first play – the stack. Hahah the kids was so impressed with the play. I could tell they feel “belong” when we have the code of stack as 1 smack on the ball.
We will keep kit simple with less than 5 plays for the season. All I want for them is too play good defense, shot will go in and shot will go out, defense is the key to winning basketball game at this age -U12.
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