Do you have an annual Points target?

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PointsTravel

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Hi Everyone. I'm a newbie to hunting points, usually I just accumulate via credit card spend. My question is do you have an annual points target (more specific than 'as many as I can get!')?

I thought it might be interesting to hear what other people have as their target. I'm focusing on QFF points but happy to have responses from other programs too!
 
All of them.

Haha no seriously just as many as I can get my hands on.
I work it out according to how many flights I want to go on. For example next year if everything goes to plan we will need 500,000 points.
So we aimed to have 600,000 up until the end of september this year. so usually around 20-25% more than we need at any one time.
 
Just calculated, across LifeMiles, Singapore, QFF, Velocity, Asia Miles I (and my wife) have used 772K points this year so that's about my target. If I'd had to use QFF only would have had to be close to double that.
 
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I'm pretty much guided by the number of points required to redeem. And my accrued points guide what I can in turn redeem:shock:
 
As many as possible....
 
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I find it best to set the goal so I know which miles to collect. I like to have a list of 3 trips to work for, I have been known to swap them around if I hear a program is devaluing or something like that.

For example if I want to go to South America, I want to collect One World such as QF or CX as they have more options. In some cases like Fiji or Bali, pretty much any program can get you there so I would set a goal for the easiest miles to collect. My income shuts me out of the best cards so I use Coles & Woolies to get VA & QF respectively. In other words, set the goal and shop accordingly!
 
No particular target for the year but I rely on property taxes , payroll taxes and ATO mostly to keep the numbers ticking over. Add in two or three credit card sign ups and my end of year total points/Miles are generally more than the previous year. Of course there are lots of other stuff I put on credit cards because I can.
Have London and Los Angeles booked and the rest of the family seem to travel more than us.
 
No targets here, however as points are always on my mind almost everything I spend money on I'm earning points somewhere. That and the cc churning game.
 
My question is do you have an annual points target (more specific than 'as many as I can get!')?
My aim is to have enough to at least cover the next OW long-haul trip I want to make.... so it's not a fixed period target.... more of a rolling goal.
 
No explicit target but more goals based.

Looking at 2 overseas J/F trips per year and 1 or 2 PER-SYD domestic.

I pretty much look for value opportunities and exploit them while available be it CC sign ups, grey areas like the BW Transaction account, or just buying points for specific redemptions.

First time in J my wife said you cannot send me back there, and so far we haven't flown less than J on a flight that offers more than 1 cabin. Will be breaking this with an Ashes trip to Adelaide in December but not going t spend 30k to upgrade a free Amex flight on a 737.

In the 3 years I have been looking at this we have flown PER-SYD or PER-MEL in J 5 times as well as Noumea & Ile des Pins in QF J, Europe return inSQ J, Suites EY F & Apartments, with a side trip to Conrad Rangali, Conrad Koh samui on SQ and MI J plus have a trip booked Japan for Sakura on CX & TG and a return to Conrad Koh Samui on SQ J & TG for 2018.

Add in Hilton Diamond for $95 plus 1.5 nights at Rangali each we have spent probably $6,000 total on acquisition costs for a retail value approaching $100,000.

Sitting on about 1,000,000 combined points balances across various currently but will be burning more soon.

Money for jam really.

The game will end eventually but hey enjoy it while it lasts.
 
In the last 18 months, we have been very fortunate (in large part thanks to the strategies we have learned from some of the brilliant travel minded people on this forum) to redeem our points for the two of us to have gone to Europe and back in F, as well as locking in our next two holidays to Bali and the USA in F (well Bali is a mix of J and F). We've taken our balance down to ZERO as of 3 weeks ago.

Our goal is to get enough points in the next 12 months to be able to book our annual big holiday for 2019 (as the USA trip is the 2018 trip), or to save up enough in the next two years to do RTW tickets (F/R) in 2020 for our 5 year anniversary (marriage, not points hoarding). Not knowing what changes to the rules for redemptions will come down the line between now and then, we just shop/spend smart. Every dollar we spend has points taken into consideration. Did we get the highest possible number of points for that spend, without paying more. We don't carry cash, and any we do have goes into a jar and deposited in the ATM on the weekend, so we aren't spending without earning.

Previously, once we had a good balance, we start looking at what the current "fares" are, where that could take us, and start to make plans based on that. We monitor when we have enough (or when we can justify the spend for topping up the points, such as buying from Amex at 2.5cents per MR point is of value if we are going to be short but have a set date in mind that we want to book by).

We always are crosschecking each others spending.... Did you buy that on eBay through the Velocity eStore? Did you use Platinum Edge for your petrol? etc.

Now that we have both maxed out the Amex signup bonuses under current rules (it was good while it lasted), we struggle to find bonuses that are worth the application note on our Veda. But, since we have locked in fixed rates for the next 5 years for our house and investments, we won't really need to be impressing a bank for a while, so we can churn cards for the next few years.

The short answer is no set numerical goal. The goal is, see a point, grab it.
 
As many points as I can get without spending too much extra.
 
As many as possible....

I factor in cost and time to acquire. So for me is is as many as possible that are low cost and low effort per point.

For example while many people buy points I have so far always been able to achieve enough points for my travel by lower means than buying Lifemiles, AA etc. though yes some points may had some cost re the occasional surcharge or card fee.

I have been averaging over a million a year between my wife and I for a while now. Only over the last two years have I gained some points from my own business spend, though % wise that is low.

I much prefer points that can land at Krisflyer. However QFF throws about with various partners so many point promos that I keep acquiring them too. To a lesser extent Velocity as well.


I have only bought tickets for one long haul international flight (for two) in the last 16 years and hope to keep it that way. And that was for a great deal to NYC that when you factored in FF points earnt cost very little.
 
We do buy at least one ticket each year and the rest we usually use points or miles. Yes there has to be a balance where the time it takes should be considered. This year I bought two tickets for each of us.
One of my sons has just flown his GF in First Class so he is needing to really keep going on the points making too.
 
As many as I can before the game ends really.

Booked PE and J flights for our holiday this year including the parents and in-laws, and some travel for work
 
As many as I can, without "buying" Points. I'll happily pay a reasonable annual fee (eg. $289 for Virgin 120,000 velocity points), but wont buy 100,000 AA miles on one of their promos/discounts/bonuses.

In the last 15 months since starting, mrs tizey & I have amassed a lot of points across QFF, VFF, KF, SPG & AA (via Amex), at a net cost of about $4000 in annual fees I havent been able to rebate back using travel credits/flights/balance transfers that come with the cards, which has us flying F/J everywhere we want to go, and staying in high end accommodation we'd never dream about paying for. Whilst its cost us $4k in fees, we'd have easily spent $15-20k in booking and paying for economy travel to do what we've been able to do on points, which including the $4k of fees and approx $3k in taxes, are still miles ahead.

We've got 2017 & 2018 travel plans fully accounted for in points with extra leftover, and now its 'maintenance' mode of just taking good offers as they come up... eg. 60k signon bonus, 120k signon bonus, easy spend criteria that we can meet without spending more than we would. Paying $1200 each for the platinum charge was still a good decision last year, but probably not one I'd make again at the minute for 100k points as its not sufficient enough value with what points we have in the bank now.
 
I don't have a target. But I'd be very disappointed if I couldn't achieve at least 500,000 points over a 12 month period.
 
I only accumulate QFF points and try to maintain a minimum balance of 1,000,000 points, currently 100,000 below target :)
 
As many as I can, without "buying" Points. I'll happily pay a reasonable annual fee (eg. $289 for Virgin 120,000 velocity points), but wont buy 100,000 AA miles on one of their promos/discounts/bonuses.

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Or in other words you (as do I) will "buy" points for say upto 0.5 cents per point, but not 2 cents per point.

I try and keep my point acquisition cost as low as possible. Most are at at very low to no $ cost.

With Credit card joining bonuses I mainly look for fee waived, fee effectively waived due to Travel/flight credit etc or like you for high points per fee $. I do not apply for all CC as some sign on bonii are not that valuable after looking at cost/time/credit record hit.

For businesses that charge credit card surcharges if it gets above 1 % I start to not pay by CC. Certainly the places that charge Amex 3% and VISA/MC free will have me pull out a VISA/MC payment method instead.
 
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