Many years ago I was traveling with Allison's dad (Fred) and we stopped at a convenience store so he could get some coffee. I think the total was something like $1.56 and he pulled out his credit card and paid for the coffee. I could not believe someone would pay for a cup of coffee with a credit card especially my father-in-law. That is when he explained POINTS to me.
According to Fred, he charged everything he could each month and then paid the credit card bill off each month with the bill arrived. At the time I believe he had a credit card linked to Marriott and one linked to United Airlines. Even though there was a fee associated with each of these cards, he used them enough through-out the year to earn enough points for hotel stays or airline tickets to more than make up for the fees associated with the cards. The key was you had to pay off the balance each month to avoid paying interest.
Allison and I liked the idea of free travel and decided we should give this a try. The first step we had to tackle was to pay off the credit cards we were carrying balances on each month. Once that was accomplished we applied for a card linked to Marriott (seemed the obvious thing to do since we own a timeshare with them). Soon enough we were earning points and charging anything and everything we could each month, keeping in mind that we must pay the bill off when it came in. For several years we accumulated Marriott points and would use them for weekend getaways to various places. We them decided to get an additional card linked to Delta Airlines. We got very good at charging nearly everything each month and earned enough points to travel to several different places virtually for free. We just had to pay taxes on the airline tickets and taxes on the Marriott stay.
A few months ago we discovered COPA Airlines is affiliated with United and that they have a direct flight to Panama City from our area. Thinking ahead of the numerous trips we will be making to Panama, we decided to get a new card linked to United Airlines. We figure by the time we move to Panama in a couple years we should have enough mileage points to be able to travel back to the US at least a few times and maybe work in some trips to other destinations as well.
Unfortunately, we are reading more and more that Panama is cash bases and credit cards are not the norm. We are going to have to train ourselves on how to use cash rather than credit cards. Seems like that should be easy enough, however it looks like we will be missing out on quite a few points. Overall, I would say the trade-off of being retired, living in Panama and not getting points will out-weigh our other option.......
No comments:
Post a Comment