What I learned helping a friend get to Japan (pt 1)
I started this blog because I wanted to help people travel. It's turned out to be a great crutch against my senility, too, but first and foremost I like helping people check things off their bucket lists. A good friend of mine – let's call him Jim – returned from his first visit to Japan in 2016 eager to return "in a couple of years". He asked me for help, and I feel like there were some great lessons for everyone that we learned along the way.
In Jim's example, $700 is a lot of money, so maybe it's worth it. But by using points to fly ANA direct, he can maximize his time having fun in Tokyo without paying a premium.
A couple of other positives: Amex is quick transfer partner with ANA (<48 hours), so you can quickly snag good seats when you find them (Marriott point transfers take several days). Jim also wanted access to Amex Offers, where you can occasionally score some bonus points. Lastly, the 25,000 point signup bonus only requires $2000 in spending, which is much more attainable for him than many of the cards with bigger bonuses. The bonus will put him more than half of the way to his off-peak ticket straight out of the gate.
One of the cool things about Amex referrals is that your friends don't even have to get to the same card type as you. With these bonuses under his belt, he's earned enough points to reach his goal without even needing to worry about the points he's earning from each of the dollars he spends.
The big lesson here is:
The offers range in size and style – sometimes it's simply "earn 1 extra point per dollar at Best Buy" and other times it's "earn 20,000 points at Bottega Veneta", so it's a good idea to periodically check in on your new offers and mention any you think your buddies might be interested in. If you're buying online, Amex offers usually "stack" with whatever bonus you might get from using a shopping portal, so use both whenever possible.
With my own buddies, we don't even try to split the points earned by the bonus, it's just a friendly "what goes around, comes around" kind of mentality. But you can handle that part however you want.
Background
Like many millennials, he's got crushing student loan debt and is early in his career so he's not too flush with cash (nor does he have a trust fund or wealthy parents). He does, however, have great credit (above 750), a stable job, and a good credit history with a Chase Freedom card.Getting to Japan
One of the very sweetest spots in the world of airline points is the All Nippon Airways (ANA) reward chart – in low season you can fly round-trip in Economy from the US to Japan for 40,000 miles – nearly half of what United charges for that same flight. Departing New York, that flight is routinely $1700. Yes, you can get that price closer to $1000 if you take a longer multi-stop itinerary, but there's a big lesson here:For most Americans, vacation days – not money – are actually your most precious commodity.Ask yourself, "How much is losing a full day of vacation to a long, indirect flight really worth?" – i.e., you're not "saving money", you're trading 7% of your vacation (1 day out of 14) for that money.
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| You can easily lose well over a day of your vacation to stopovers |
In Jim's example, $700 is a lot of money, so maybe it's worth it. But by using points to fly ANA direct, he can maximize his time having fun in Tokyo without paying a premium.
Getting the points
So how does he accrue 40,000 ANA points? Well, ANA's own credit card has a very low signup bonus and no good bonus categories, so he's going to need an Amex or a Starwood/Marriott card (ANA's only point-transfer partners). He decided to go with the Amex Everyday card (the one that Tina Fey is always hawking) because he's averse to paying an annual fee, and he makes many small transactions per month, making it easy to hit the card's 20% points bonus when you make 20 transactions in a month.A couple of other positives: Amex is quick transfer partner with ANA (<48 hours), so you can quickly snag good seats when you find them (Marriott point transfers take several days). Jim also wanted access to Amex Offers, where you can occasionally score some bonus points. Lastly, the 25,000 point signup bonus only requires $2000 in spending, which is much more attainable for him than many of the cards with bigger bonuses. The bonus will put him more than half of the way to his off-peak ticket straight out of the gate.
Earning – hit that signup bonus!
Soon after his card arrived, one of Jim's close friends had a big upcoming purchase and he let Jim charge this on the new Amex, and then Venmo'd Jim the cash for the transaction. This quickly put him very near the $2000 signup bonus threshold. This brings me to the next lesson:The Churning forum is littered with tragic tales of people missing their signup bonus by putting it off until the last minute, or trying to spend precisely the amount needed and not a penny more. Trying to do both is asking for trouble.meetslightly overshoot the bonus threshold as soon as possible!
- I've seen a returned sweater destroy an sign-up bonus (the mechant return credit put them back under the spending threshold).
- I've seen people order something online on day 89 of a 90-day bonus window and a minor inventory problem causes them to miss the bonus.
- Or they buy something that had a week-long lag before the charge went through (and missed the cutoff date)
- I've seen people rush out to buy a pile of gift cards to meet the bonus not knowing that Amex is notorious for denying bonuses due to large gift card purchases.
Earning – referrals
American Express also offers a generous referral bonus program, where friends who sign up for cards through your own personalized link earn bonus points for themselves and a referral bonus for you. Over the course of a several months, two different friends used his link, netting him another 20,000 points. (His referral link is here if you feel like an Amex card is in your future).
One of the cool things about Amex referrals is that your friends don't even have to get to the same card type as you. With these bonuses under his belt, he's earned enough points to reach his goal without even needing to worry about the points he's earning from each of the dollars he spends.
The big lesson here is:
Having a buddy (or two or three) helps everyone reach their goals.
Earning – Amex offers
Another advantage of having an earning buddy means you can take advantage of each others' unique Amex offers. Amex offers are tailored to each person and are updated every few weeks. If your buddy has an offer they're not going to use but that you'd like to, just charge it on their card and Venmo or ApplePay them for the cost.
The offers range in size and style – sometimes it's simply "earn 1 extra point per dollar at Best Buy" and other times it's "earn 20,000 points at Bottega Veneta", so it's a good idea to periodically check in on your new offers and mention any you think your buddies might be interested in. If you're buying online, Amex offers usually "stack" with whatever bonus you might get from using a shopping portal, so use both whenever possible.
With my own buddies, we don't even try to split the points earned by the bonus, it's just a friendly "what goes around, comes around" kind of mentality. But you can handle that part however you want.
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