2019 was my second year fully devoted to the points and miles game. It marked another strong year in terms of points accumulation. However, in terms of how I did it, there were some key differences compared to last year. I’d classify 2019 as a year of steady accumulation of points. I began 2018 getting quick, large points bonuses from credit card signups and I have a similar plan to do so in 2020. But this year was about continuing to climb the points mountain, mainly to support my goal to celebrate my anniversary in Hawaii next year. This year I accumulated enough points for free airfare, hotel and car rental!

Let’s take a look back at what I accomplished in 2019.

Credit Cards

• Credit cards opened: 4 (including 1 that my wife, Annie opened)
• Sign-up bonus points earned: 185,000 points
• Referral bonus points earned: 0 points
• Everyday spending: 172,818 points

Credit card sign-up bonuses earned were down substantially, from 305,000 points in 2018 to 185,000 points in 2019. This is due to signing up for fewer new credit cards this year. The reason I signed up for fewer cards is Chase’s 5/24 rule. Chase will not approve you for a new credit card if you’ve opened five or more new cards, from any bank, in the last 24 months. They introduced this rule several years ago to prevent card churning. In other words, they don’t want you to get a bunch of credit cards just for the sign-up bonuses. I’m very interested in applying for one or more Chase Ink business cards, so I intentionally didn’t apply for many new cards this year in order to get out from under the Chase 5/24 rule.

In 2019, I opened an American Express® Gold Card, a CitiBusiness® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® MasterCard, and the American Express Blue Business® Plus card. I opened the Amex Gold Card on January 2, 2019 even though I was already over the Chase 5/24 rule because the offer was just too good to pass up. You’ll notice that the other two cards I opened this year were business cards. I did this because business cards from many popular banks do not appear on your personal credit report, and thus they don’t count toward the Chase 5/24 card limit.

Annie opened only one card this year, a Chase Freedom Unlimited® card, and earned the 15,000 point sign-up bonus. We both use this as a catch-all card for spending at retailers that don’t offer any point bonuses on our other cards. Now that I have the Amex Blue Business card, I’ll start using that as my catch-all card.

Between the sign-up bonuses and everyday spending, I earned a total of 357,818 points this year!

Now let’s take a closer look at each of the new cards I opened in 2019.

American Express Gold Card

I absolutely love my American Express Gold card! After receiving it early in 2019, I moved almost all restaurant and grocery spending to this card, which earns 4x Membership Rewards® points for every dollar spent. The card has an annual fee of $250 but I’ve received so many credits this year that the card has actually paid me to own it! I’ve received $100 in restaurant credits (there was a limited time 20% back offer for first year cardholders), $100 in travel credits, $100 in Grubhub credits and $25 in Amex Offers. In total, I’ve received $325 back which means this card has made me $75!!

CitiBusiness / AAdvantage Platinum Select

I don’t use the CitiBusiness® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® card much. As I wrote in a post from July, I only opened this card to earn the credit card sign-up bonus and save $99. I had owned a Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® card since 2015 and my annual fee was coming due. Instead of keeping that card and paying the fee, I downgraded it to the no annual fee Citi AAdvantage MileUp℠ card. To keep benefits like free checked bags on American Airlines flights, I opened the business version of the same card. The business card also waives the annual fee during the first year. So in the end, I kept all the American Airlines benefits I love, saved $99 and earned a 70,000 mile sign-up bonus!

American Express Blue Business Plus

Finally, I only applied for the American Express Blue Business® Plus card in mid-December. I’ve already been using it for purchases at retailers where I don’t get bonuses for spending. This card earns 2x Membership Rewards® points for every dollar spent up to $50,000 annually. Points earned on this card will automatically combine with those earned on my Amex Gold card, giving me even more Membership Rewards® points to use on future travel.

Trips: Flights and Hotel Stays

• Flights taken: 12 (4 business + 8 personal)
• Miles flown: 34,791
• Miles redeemed: 33,000
• Individual hotel stays: 20
• Total hotel nights: 38

I traveled way more in 2019 than I did in the prior year.

	2018	2019
Miles Flown	10,034	34,791
Hotel Stays	7	20
Hotel Nights	13	38

Much of the increased travel is from five bigger trips. It started in January when we spent 4 nights in Orange County visiting friends. Just a month later, I accompanied Annie on her 6-night business trip to China. Then in June, we went on a 14 night family trip to Israel. At the end of August, I took a road trip to South Dakota lasting 5 nights. And finally, in November we spent 4 nights total between Tucson and Phoenix.

Here are a few highlights from my favorite trips this year:

China

What a year of travel, right? Going to Beijing was something I couldn’t pass up and I’m so glad I could accompany Annie on her business trip. The trip began with an unexpected non-stop flight in United’s new Premium Plus seats on their 777-200 aircraft. I was very impressed with this new cabin and it made the 13-hour journey so much more bearable. Once in China, I experienced as much as I could in only five days, including a visit to the Great Wall of China and a one-day excursion to Shanghai. I loved the modern city of Shanghai, which has a breathtaking skyline and gave me the material for my funniest hotel review of the year—the Charms Hotel Shanghai.

Israel

Going to Israel with eight other family members to celebrate my nephew’s bar mitzvah was truly a once in a lifetime experience. Visiting Israel is an inspiring experience, with so much significance from a historical and religious perspective. It’s such a unique place for so many other reasons as well. One thing that makes it so unique is how many different groups have conquered Israel over thousands of years. The Jews, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Seljuk Turks, Crusaders, Egyptians, Ottomans, Mamelukes, Islamists and others have all ruled the area at one time or another. Any visit to Israel should include my “7 must do” activities, which include visiting the Western Wall, the Dead Sea, and Masada.

Arizona

For my last trip of the year, I redeemed points for free flights from Chicago to Tucson and Phoenix to Chicago. The best way for me to do this was to redeem 42,000 British Airways Avios for flights on Oneworld Alliance partner American Airlines. Since British Airways is a transfer partner of Chase Ultimate Rewards, I simply moved enough Chase points to cover the redemption. At the time Chase was offering a 30% bonus on all transfers to British Airways, so it only took 33,000 Chase points to get me enough Avios to redeem for the flights!

Points earned off airline flights and hotel stays:

• American Airlines: 4,997 miles
• United Airlines: 10,752 miles
• Hilton Hotels: 42,450 points
• Marriott: 411 points
• InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG): 2,240 points

The main differences between this year and last were increased earnings on United Airlines and Hilton Hotels. The miles earned from United Airlines were up significantly this year (10,752 vs 3,775) mostly due to the China trip. With Hilton, I increased my efforts to stay at Hilton Hotels whenever possible. This year I spent 10 nights in Hilton Hotels, including every time I traveled for business.

Promotional Activity

As much as I can, I take advantage of the various promotions the airlines, hotels and credit card companies offer throughout the year. However, this year my total promotional points earning activity was down compared to 2018. This is due almost entirely to the fact that American Express did not run the same amazing Hilton promotion this year. Last year, on my Hilton Aspire card, for every $2,000 spent, I earned 20,000 Hilton bonus points. On Annie’s Hilton card, for every $1,000 spent, she earned 10,000 Hilton points. In total, we earned 40,000 points last year. Without this lucrative promotion, our overall points earnings were down by 32,000 points.

Even though I earned far fewer points this year, there were still some good promotional earning activity.

Points and miles earned via promotional activity in 2019:

• United Airlines: 9,354 miles
• Hilton Hotels: 20,549 points
• Marriott: 50 points
• InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG): 1,000 points
• American Express Membership Rewards: 8,286 points

As shown above, Amex offered a promotion of 5,000 bonus Membership Rewards® points for adding authorized users and meeting a $500 minimum spend. They also offered extra points for spending at Grubhub and Amazon during the year. Amex also surprised me right after Thanksgiving with a promotion to earn up to 5,000 bonus Hilton points for spending $1,000 by December 4.

With United, I earned lots of miles this year by signing up for their MilePlay promotions via the United app and from shopping portal bonuses.

Surveys

I find surveys to be a very easy, although somewhat boring, way to earn points and miles. Whether it’s clicking away while watching bad TV or while waiting in line somewhere, surveys are a simple way to earn some extra points and miles.

I earned points via 6 different survey websites. Points and miles earned via surveys in 2019:

• American Airlines: 10,235 miles
• United Airlines: 3,435 miles
• Alaska Airlines: 1,762 miles
• Hilton Hotels: 88,401 points
• InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) : 425 points
• Hertz: 7,700 points

Shopping and Dining Portals

Shopping and dining portals are another easy way to earn extra points and miles.

If you are shopping online, instead of going to the merchant first, start at a shopping portal. Since I use multiple shopping portals, I always check Cashback Monitor first, to see which portal will give me the most bonus points at a specific merchant.

With dining portals, any restaurant participating with the Rewards Network will earn bonus points or miles when you dine there. As long as my credit cards are enrolled before dining, I earn points or miles each time I eat a participating restaurant.

But where I really increased my mile earnings this year is with the United MileagePlus X app. It’s essentially a giant gift card store that allows you to earn United miles when you make purchases. The MPX app allows you to earn extra miles on in-store and online purchases, on top of any miles, rewards or cash back you may earn with the credit card you use to make the purchases. Any time I’m at a retailer, I will check this app to see if it’s advantageous to buy a gift card via just making a regular purchase. This year I doubled the number of miles earned via shopping portals, with a huge amount coming from my increased usage of this app. To learn everything you need to know about the United MileagePlus X app, check out my post from this past March.

Points and miles earned via shopping and dining portals in 2019:

• American Airlines: 6,368 miles
• United Airlines: 13,920 miles
• Marriott: 1,544 points
• Chase Ultimate Rewards: 265 points
• American Express Membership Rewards (via Rakuten): 2,226 points

Bottom Line

This was a year of points accumulation and “once in a lifetime” trips! I’ve developed a deeper understanding of where points and miles can take me. Plus, with the points balances I currently have, I’m setup for many wonderful trips in the years to come.

When I’ll take some of those trips has possibly changed. With the turn of the calendar, I’ll be starting a new job, so there will almost certainly be less opportunity for leisure travel this coming year. I will need to be more strategic about which trips to take and when, but I still hope to take a few great vacations in 2020.

The new job has made it difficult to plan my anniversary trip to Hawaii. I’m not even sure whether it’s realistic anymore. If I can still make it work, I’d love to still do it. But it’s also possible we’ll need to celebrate our anniversary with a minor trip and do something big later in the year or in 2021.

In 2020, I will continue to accumulate points and once I’m free of Chase’s 5/24 rule in May, I will apply for new credit cards to earn huge sign-up bonuses.

I’m looking forward to a lot of positive things in 2020 and I’m excited to see where the year takes me. Happy new year everyone!