2017 was a good year for us in many ways, including earning nearly 1 million miles and points without flying. Neither my husband nor I are road warriors, so we book very little in the way of paid flights and don't earn frequent flyer miles this way. Instead, we leverage credit card signup bonuses, category spend bonuses, our organic spend, and referral bonuses to earn most of our frequent flyer miles and points each year.
Frequent flyer miles and points for us are a means to an end: flying international first class or business class to the destinations and luxury hotels we really want to visit. Thanks to our frequent flyer miles and points, we were able to fly JAL First Class, ANA First Class, JAL Sky Suite Business Class, Austrian Business Class, Singapore Business Class, Swiss Business Class, Brussels Business Class, Air France Business Class, Fiji Business Class and Air New Zealand Business Premier this year.
As nice as some of the flights were, particularly ANA First Class and JAL First Class, the hotels were far more memorable, especially Laucala Private Island, Aman Tokyo, Amanemu, the Four Seasons Kyoto, the Fullerton Bay Singapore, Four Seasons Geneva, Hotel Le Bristol Paris, and Le Meurice Paris. None of these luxury hotels are available with miles and points, but all are leaders in their markets, and far nicer than anything bookable with points.
So with our luxury travel focus as context, here's a breakdown of our earned and purchased miles and points in 2016:
- 40%: Credit Card Signup Bonuses
- 24%: Spend and Category Bonuses
- 17%: Purchased Miles and Bonuses
- 17%: Referral Bonuses
- 3%: AMEX Offers
- 38% Chase Ultimate Rewards Points
- 19% American AAdvantage Miles
- 19% AMEX Membership Rewards Points
- 10% Alaska Mileage Plan Miles
- 8% SPG Starpoints
- 6% Lufthansa Miles & More Miles
- 180K AAdvantage miles via 2 Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select cards, one for each of us, and a CitiBusiness AAdvantage card, plus the spend to earn the bonuses
- 64K Membership Rewards points via 2 AMEX EveryDay cards, one for each of us, and an AMEX Blue for Business card for me, plus spend to earn the bonuses
- 65K Ultimate Rewards points via an Ink Plus card and spend to earn the bonus
- 55K Lufthansa Miles&More miles via a Miles&More card and spend to earn the bonus
- 196K Ultimate Rewards points, most of it at 5X, from the Ink Plus and Chase Freedom, with most of the remainder at 3X, thanks to our Chase Sapphire Reserve card spend on travel and dining
- 25K AMEX Membership Rewards points from spend on the AMEX Blue for Business (20K of if from 10X on $2000 spend on dining)
- 10K Extended Payment bonus for my AMEX Business Platinum
- 25K AMEX Membership Rewards points for AMEX Offers
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For readers wondering what happened to the 50K Cathay Pacific Visa that I wrote about at https://travelsort.com/50k-cathay-pacific-visa-bonus-offer-review/ I applied for the Cathay Pacific card while I was in Russia, so my app was declined just based on where I was when I applied, and I found other cards to apply for when I returned that occupied my husband and me in terms of minimum spend.