Questions and Answers

As a fairly new member of the travel award points club,I have been amazed at how quickly I have been able to acquire miles and points for my travels. This new 5/24 policy by Chase has me concerned about the future of easily funding travel by credit card award bonuses. My wife and I have taken multiple international trips the last few years all of which had been paid completely out of pocket with no credit card award help while flying economy. Our next trip will be in September to Switzerland and Italy in business class with very little out of pocket expense. Are some of you veteran posters worried about the direction that award travel may be heading? I am grateful for what I have been able to acquire in such a short time,but worried that I may have gotten into the game really late.

Well the Golden era of extremely easy award travel might be coming to an end, that said less points floating around should make it easier to find award seats.

Things like Chase 5/24 and Amex once a lifetime bonuses will probably come back to bite the credit card companies in a few years time since their new sign up numbers will fall fast.

My guess would be that either we will see a softening of the rules on sign up bonuses or card product will in general end up earning more points per dollar spent.

Think the Chase Freedom Unlimited, just even higher earnings.

I agree with [USER=268]@No Name[/USER], with a caveat — [I]this[/I] Golden Era is perhaps coming to an end, but there will be others.

If the game to you is exclusively credit card sign up bonuses, you may have to work a bit harder, or be more creative. This is all cyclical, and constantly changing.

As an example, for years I (and others) funded our international premium cabin travel by mileage running on super complex domestic itineraries. We’re talking like seven or eight segments between Portland and Seattle type of craziness. And the combination of poor route management and operational chaos meant that folks were frequently getting $200-$500 worth of bump vouchers on a $175 fare that earned 20k miles. It was a great way to play the game, and one that totally doesn’t work anymore.

But, credit card bonuses were essentially non-existent (I picked up a 40K HawaiianMiles offer during that time, which was like [I]double [/I]what most offers were, and no one would ever get that card now), and the products weren’t even that great when it came time to redeem the miles. Alliances weren’t as prevalent, no one really had lie-flat business class, etc.

So I’m not particularly pessimistic, but that comes from being able to take a long view. Things are certainly changing, but they always are. 🙂