Hola amigos, Jim here from Spanish and Go your
resource for learning real world travel Spanish. And today I want
to talk to you about how to fly for free like May and I have
done 27 times in the last two years. So that's 27 plane
tickets we didn't pay a dime for and I'm going to show you how
you can do the same thing. So let's get started.
So first off I just want to say that this video is mainly for
people in the U.S. so sorry everyone else but the benefits
that are going to talk about here are aimed at legal
residents of the U.S.. So I wish I knew about the stuff I'm going
to tell you today years ago because I didn't realize that I
was leaving hundreds if not thousands of dollars on the
table. And that's basically getting a rewards credit card.
Now if that freaks me out don't leave just
yet because if you know how to use a credit card responsibly
you will pay nothing extra. You will reap all
of the benefits and pay zero interest and that life is good.
You'll be flying for free. So as long as you can pay off
your credit card there are tons of opportunities for you to gain
lots of points either for cash back or to use for travel.
And I'm going to tell you exactly how we do it.
So there's really three main credit cards that we use where
we get the majority of our points. And there's one other
one I'm going to tell you about at the end of this video.
But strategically using these three credit cards that I'm
going to tell you about gives us all of the points we need
to travel basically anywhere we need to go throughout the year.
So the first two credit cards I'm going to tell you about have
no annual fee and you're literally just leaving money on
the table if you're not using these. And the first one is the
Chase Freedom card. Now this is the first rewards credit card
that I got and I was shocked by how much cash back I was able
to earn. It was literally an extra free four or five
hundred dollars a year just by strategically using this
credit card. Straight off the bat, you get 150 dollars cash
back if you spend 500 dollars on the card in the first three
months of getting the card. And in most cases this is pretty
easy to do. It really was for me because I was able to put my
cell phone bill on there and all my groceries and that basically
took care of the five hundred dollar requirement.
But beyond that this card will get you at least three hundred
dollars back a year for travel if you use it correctly.
So the coolest thing about this card is you can get 5
percent back on the rotating categories they have throughout
the year. You can get 5 percent back on gas part of the year,
5 percent back and groceries and sometimes restaurants and
other things as well. So if you use this card
strategically and you make sure that you maximize the 5 percent
cash back categories you can easily get three hundred dollars
back a year. I pretty much maxed out the benefit of this card
every year by spending at the places where the category
gives you 5 percent back. So I highly recommend this card
to anyone who can pay a little closer attention to where their
money's going and what to use the card with.
Now you're going to get 1 percent back on everything
anyways which is decent but it's not as good as the five
percent which leaves me to the next card. So the second travel
rewards card that I got and that I still use to this day is the
freedom unlimited. So this card is a little lower maintenance
you get one and a half percent back on absolutely everything.
No limits. That's the unlimited part. And you also get some of
the same great benefits like when you sign up for the card
you get a hundred and fifty dollars back as long as you meet
the 500 dollar spending requirement within the first
three months. Which again, is pretty easy to do if you're
putting your bills on your cards. Just make sure
that you never carry a balance and you pay off the card and
you're good. You won't ever pay anything extra for having these
cards. And you might be thinking getting another credit card just
so you can get that extra half a percent more is a little
ridiculous. Maybe it is. Maybe that's not what everybody
needs to do. But for me I still use this card even though I also
have the Chase Freedom card as well as one other.
And you'll see how these cards end up working together in just
a moment. The third card I want to tell you about is the Chase
Sapphire Reserve card. Now this is the first rewards
card I ever got that has an annual fee. So to make sure that
you can offset that card I'm mainly recommend anyone
who travels maybe three times a year or more to get this card
now right away. You can get fifty thousand point bonus when
you get this card as long as you spend four thousand
dollars in the first three months. Now that's a lot of
money. It's a lot more than the other cards I mentioned
where you only have to spend five hundred dollars
in the first three months to get the bonus. But if you strategize
and only get this card when you're ready to make a big
purchase it can really pay off. Now there's an annual fee of 450
dollars but if you travel a lot the benefits outweigh the fee
you have to pay with this card. First off you get 300 dollars
and travel reimbursed every year. So as long as you're going
on trips the first three hundred dollars of any flight you pay
for or even transportation by bus can be reimbursed.
Three hundred dollars every year. So that basically brings
the annual fee down to 150 dollars. How do you offset that?
Well, there's some other cool benefits like you can get
Global Entry and TSA PreCheck basically for free.
They'll reimburse you the amount that you pay to get Global Entry
or TSA Precheck. And if you've never heard a Global Entry
before I'm going to leave a card up above where you can check out
our video about the benefits of getting global entry.
If you travel a lot I highly recommend it. So the other
benefits with this card are you can get three points per
dollar on dining out and travel purchases. For me that's a lot
of money that I spend every year because May and I eat out a lot
and we travel a lot. So it's easy to accumulate lots
of points just by using this card when we go out to eat
or if we have to pay for a bus. And another huge benefit
of this card is that all of your points are worth 50 percent more
when you reimburse them for travel. So that means I can move
over the points from the Chase Freedom card and
the Chase Freedom unlimited card over to the Chase Sapphire
Reserve card and all of a sudden there were 50 percent more.
So basically now anytime I earn any points on the Chase Freedom
or the unlimited I move them over to the Chase Sapphire
reserve and they're worth more and we're able to fly farther.
So you're 150 dollar bonus from the earlier cards is actually
worth 225 dollars by the time you transfer the points over to
the Sapphire Reserve. So if you're just starting out
trying to travel more. It can be a tough pill to swallow maybe
it's not worth while to get the Sapphire Reserve for you but
for us it's been an awesome card to have an addition to the other
two that we have. So there's one more card I want to tell you
about. And we just got it. But it's been really helpful
for us since we own a business and it's the Chase Ink Business
Preferred card. Now there is an annual fee with this card.
It's ninety five dollars and if you own a business it can be
really helpful because you get extra points for common business
purchases especially online business purchases like what May
and I run with this channel. And you get three times
the points on things like advertising online.
But the sign up bonus is 80,000 points. So if you're able
to spend I think it's four or five thousand dollars
in the first three months you get that eighty thousand
point bonus and meeting these bonus requirements can sound
ridiculous. Like we're going to come up with four or five
thousand dollars in three months? All you have to do
to meet these spending requirements is plan ahead
before you even get the credit card. Figure out how you're
going to spend the money to meet that bonus requirement to be
able to get the bonus for the Freedom card and the
Freedom Unlimited. I'd say it's pretty straightforward.
You can just plan to put all your bills on a credit card and
it's fairly easy to meet the spending requirement that way.
But when you're talking about these bigger spending
requirements like four or five thousand dollars in three months
you really have to plan ahead. What we do is plan on getting
the cart around the time that we already plan on making some
larger purchases. Any equipment that we need we
plan out in advance. Ok if we're going to get into the camera
it might be two three thousand dollars. Or a new computer.
New computers for both May and I. That basically meets the
spending requirement rate there. We just planned that out
in advance and make sure we're able to meet the spending
requirement to get the bonus. And it's totally worthwhile
because 80,000 points can go a really long way.
So as I mentioned earlier in the video May and I have been
able to get 27 plane tickets in the last two years just using
points alone. We're not rich. We're not super high income.
We have pretty average salaries or we did before we left are
regular jobs and started this channel. But I'd say most people
in the U.S. can benefit at least from one of the cards mentioned
in the video. There's many benefits to using a credit card
over paying cash or debit. And as long as you pay off
the account every month there's nothing to worry about.
So if you think any of these cards can help you travel more.
Check out the links in the description. If you end up
applying for one of the cards and getting it through the link
you're actually help our channel quite a bit. So if you enjoyed
this video guys don't forget to Like and Subscribe for more
travel and Spanish tips. And remember El Camino es el
Destino. The journey is the destination. So we’ll see
eachother soon.