Comments on: The 5 Million Frequent Flyer Mile Challenge

By: Cindy

Cindy — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:52:21 +0000

Wonderful information Chris! For those wondering how to meet their required spending obligations, my girlfriend and her husband will often use their credit card to purchase airline tickets for friends and family to earn rewards etc. The friend/family member then simply writes them a check…done deal.

Of course…if their friends wise up they’ll have to find another source of mileage revenue…

By: Laura

Laura — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 16:34:24 +0000

Hey, thank you so much! I’m really appreciating your blog and your sharing of all these awesome tips, as well as your thoughts, experiences and ruminations. Adelante!

By: Liam

Liam — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 04:35:42 +0000

Wouldn’t the mint idea also work if buying casino chips? It doesn’t on one of the programs here in NZ but might work over in the States.

By: Trackback from Josh Premuda

Trackback from Josh Premuda — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:55:29 +0000

[...] I used to play the credit card frequent flyer point game, where you sign up for a card to get the initial points then cancel the card for a free flight. But, I’ve never done it to the extreme of Chris Guillebeau at The Art of Nonconformity. Surprisingly, it doesn’t really hurt your credit score. [...]

By: Val

Val — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:56:32 +0000

A year and a half ago I began applying for cards with free miles and no annual fees. I racked up at leat 12 domestic plane tickets in a few months between my husband and I. Then a few months ago I found this site and thought “300,000 miles, no way!” When I calculated what I had gotten, I found it to be the same. I did it and didn’t even realize it. I was encouraged to find someone else doing the same thing. After reading this web site, I applied for more cards and now have another 8 free plane tickets and have never paid an annual fee. My favorite card is the CITI Premier Pass that earns miles through ThankYou.com. I was able to fly 5 of us round trip to Orlando, FL for free on my free miles and then use my miles on the ThankYou network for rent-a-cars, hotels and food. We went to FL for 10 days and had free flights, free hotels, free car, $75 in free gas, & $400 in free gift cards for places like Applebees, Olive Garden, Red Lobster etc. The CITI bank card miles can be used for flights too… they are booked through Expedia.com. I just chose to use them for the food, hotel and card because I had so many free flights already.
I can’t even tell you how many miles I have accumulated in the last 1 1/2 years. I lost track as I use them as fast as I earn them.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Thu, 28 May 2009 19:25:11 +0000

My wife and I have got 150K AAdvantage miles apiece churning. 100K in the last 4 months. We apply for a Citi AA AMEX and MC at the same time every 65 days, buy our coins, and close the cards after the miles post 1 week after the first statement. Citi lets you have 6 personal + 2 business cards at a time, and you can get the 25K bonus for each. Keep them rotating, and that’s about 75K every 2 months, possibly 350K+ AAdvantage miles per year if they don’t get wise and shut us down!

My family and I have already flown to Thailand, NYC, LAX, MI, Hawaii, and London by churning.

By: Gary

Gary — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:27:42 +0000

I can relate to your writing. Exellent explanation and detail.

By: Jennifer Filzen

Jennifer Filzen — Fri, 01 May 2009 16:53:56 +0000

Amazing information! Thanks for helping those of us stuck at home see some opportunities to get out and see the world.

By: Investing Made Simple

Investing Made Simple — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:17:56 +0000

I just applied for the (3) Citi cards. Expecting 75,000 miles! Woohoo! BTW, one card you may wish to add to your list is the Starwood Preferred Guest American Express card. You can earn up to 25,000 points:
*Earn 10,000 Starpoints® with your first purchase
*Plus – earn an additional 15,000 Starpoints when you spend $15,000 in 6 months.
Transfer Starpoints – almost always on a 1:1 basis – to the frequent flyer programs of over 30 major airlines

After you earn your 25,000 miles there you can then open a Starwood Business Amex too and do the exact same thing. That’s 50,000 points/miles in 12 months!

By: Aximilation

Aximilation — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:59:44 +0000

Very cool, just a note though, I just checked out the mint and see that it says “You can buy up to 500 $1 coins at face value and receive free standard shipping and handling.” on the main page, but when you try to check out, they want to charge you like $4.95 for shipping, very strange. I was interested in it mainly because if you could buy them with a cashback card (paypal for me – 1%) and have free shipping, you could make a little money, but…with shipping not so much. Anyone know anything about that?