At its core, Frequent Miler is a blog about the miles & points “game”. The game goes like this: we take advantage of marketing offers to earn huge numbers of miles & points. Next, we take advantage of “sweet spot” awards to get the most value from those miles & points. Repeat… Travel… Enjoy… See “The Games We Play” for more information.
Who Is Frequent Miler?
Stephen
AuthorStephen Pepper isn't a Dr or a Sergeant.
What Is Frequent Miler?
You’ve probably heard of other sites that sound similar. Why should you specifically visit Frequent Miler?
Readers Come First
Most points & miles blogs make their money from credit card affiliate links. If you click through one of these links and get approved for a credit card, the blog gets paid a commission. That’s true for Frequent Miler too. The difference is that we never display our affiliate links if we know of a better public offer. For example, it’s common for an affiliate link to lead to a 40,000 point bonus at the same time that a 50,000 point offer is available which doesn’t pay a commission. We only display the better offer. As a result, we believe that our credit card pages are the best on the internet.
Further, our posts are driven by our interests, not by a desire to “sell” credit cards. If we write that we love a credit card perk, it’s because we’re truly excited about it, not because we want you to sign up through our affiliate links. In fact, you’ll find just as many posts singing the praises of cards in which we don’t earn affiliate commissions as those we do. The same is true in reverse. If we don’t like a card we’ll tell you so even if it means losing commissions.
We Analyze The Heck Out Of Things
We’re known for our in-depth analyses of rewards cards, special offers, rewards programs, and much more. If you want to know whether a deal is worth doing and how to maximize value from it, this is the blog to read. We collect our best in-depth posts on our resource page here or select from the topics below.
We Have Fun
We love what we do. The content on this site exists because we write about topics we’re excited about. We love the game, and the excitement shows in our writing. For the last two years we’ve engaged in (ruthless) but friendly competitions to have a little fun and test out miles & points or travel concepts. Not only are the Frequent Miler challenges a ton of fun for us and our followers, but it can lead us to discover many, many great deals that we then share with followers. The most spectacular deal found during the 40K to Far Away challenge was the ability to fly from anywhere in the US to Hawaii for only 7,500 points! You can read more about the challenge and what we learned by clicking here. We plan to do similar challenges at least once a year, but maybe more often. Of course, our fun isn’t limited to an occasional challenge. Nick and Greg do a video and podcast each week (Frequent Miler on the Air) where we discuss the latest miles & points topics, argue about who’s right or wrong, and generally have a great time. Viewers and listeners regularly tell us how much they enjoy listening in. To subscribe, search for Frequent Miler on whatever podcast app you use, or subscribe to our YouTube channel by clicking here: youtube.com/c/thefrequentmiler. We also enjoy meeting our readers! Once every two or three months we visit you. Visits usually involve a few presentations and plenty of opportunities to chat. We call this series “FM to Go“. Click here to read all about it.
Frequent Miler Hall of Fame
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How To Get The Most From Frequent Miler
Read our blog, starting with this Start Here page, listen to our podcast, check out our Youtube channel, or follow us on social media!
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Frequent Miler on Youtube
Our Favorite Credit Card Perks | Coffee Break Ep34 | 11-19-24
19:04
Premier Inn London Heathrow Terminal 4 Room Tour
01:06
Million Mile Madness Final Check-In
01:12:17
Easy path to Delta Elite status in 2024 | Frequent Miler on the Air Ep281 | 11-15-24
41:51
Million Mile Madness Live Checkin #2
42:10
Doing good and earning points with Kiva microloans | Coffee Break Ep33 | 11-12-24
08:55
Million Mile Madness Live Check In #1
57:19
How to find the best routes with Flight Connections
12:13
1 Million Miles in 2 Weeks or Less | Frequent Miler on the air Ep280 | 11-8-24
01:09:39
Preparing for Million Mile Madness | Ask Us Anything Ep70 | 11-6-24
01:00:37
Heads up! Because I solicit team feedback when answering questions on posts and pages like these, it may take some time for me to get to your questions. Thanks in advance for your patience! - Carrie
I love the FM team and have really enjoyed your blogs, videos and social media posts. I’ve learned so much but find that my largest out of pocket expense is domestic positioning flights. I know that sounds crazy but flying around the world biz class and staying at high end hotels is cheap compared to the couple hour flights to position from my small airport. Larger near by airports are 3+ hours away and the cost difference isnt enough to make it worth while. I use several search tools (seats,pointsyeah,Googleflights) but continue to struggle. I know you have discussed domestic positioning flights before but really need some help with piece of the puzzle.
Love your podcast so much, its the one i listen to over and over. Thank you for all the great content!
I have learned so much from your podcast. It is so dense with information that I sometimes have to listen more than once! I have a followup question to your most recent episode on Hyatt Globalist. How long does the status last? Do you need to time it like the Southwest cards to maximize it? Do you get it for the rest of the current year and the next year? Also, I understand that on the business card, you need to finish a block of $10k spend before the year is over to carry over those 5 nights, but is there a limit for the time frame to earn the status? If for example, I have 10 nights now and for some reason i do not reach 60 by the end of 2025, do my nights expire at some point or is it totally cumulative?
Thank you so much!
When you achieve Hyatt Globalist status, the status lasts the rest of the current year, all of the next year, and through February of the year after that.
Nights towards elite status do not carry over from one calendar year to the next. You need to earn 60 nights within a single calendar year to get Globalist status
I love your channel!! I have a question. I’m currently doing the AA / Hyatt status challenge consisting of 10 nights for explorist and 20 nights for Globalist. There is a current promotion in Florida giving you 2 nights and 1k points per night. I’ve reached out to Hyatt and sometimes they say yes and sometimes they say no… any thoughts? If you guys can help, I’d be so grateful.
I am new to Frequent Miler and am a little overwhelmed with all the content. I’m traveling to Asia in a couple of years and want a credit card that will put me in the best position to upgrade to first class (a recent trip to Europe made me realize that economy on long hauls is not as easy as it used to be…). I can’t find a post that addresses this. Any recs?
In most cases you’ll be much better off not by using miles to upgrade but by using miles to book business or first class from the get-go. To best position yourself for booking international business class flights you’ll want to accumulate transferable points such as Amex Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Capital One Miles, or Citi ThankYou Rewards. Check out our best offers page to find cards offering the most of these points.
With lounge buddy no longer being supported – what does frequent miler suggest as an alternative or could you integrate this lounge feature into your app?
I’ve been using the LoungeReview app recently. It seems to work very well.
Hi All,
I had the Citi Premier card until it recently automatically changed in my account to the Strata Premier card. I earned the welcome bonus on the Citi Premier on 6/3/2020. I want to get the welcome bonus offer on the Strata Premier. My questions are:
1) Do I cancel the old Citi Premier (now Starta Premier) first? If so, what do I do with the transferable Thank You points to keep them transferable when/if I get the Strata Premier? I currently also have the Citi Double Cash and Citi Rewards+ card. Or do I downgrade to another card first instead of canceling?
Thanks for any help with this,
Barry
You don’t have to downgrade or cancel. You can have more than one Citi Strata Premier Card. You do however, have to make sure that it has been at least 48 months since you’ve earned the bonus on the Citi Premier card from 2020. This is not the open date of the account, it is the date that you saw the bonus points post to the account.
In Ask Us Anything Episode 65, Stephen mentioned a firefly festival in IN and a spreadsheet he has of stuff to see in every state. Um….any chance he’d be willing to share that.
Hi Team…….Love the site and appreciate the content very much. I have a question about Companion Pass please. I was awarded it on 7/15/23 (through 2024), so given that when did or does the calculation for the next one start and run through?
Recently in Amex pop up jail. Received Amex B Plat 150k offer. Approved. My plan was to use Plastiq pay mortgage to meet 15K SUB. It’s a no go it won’t process. Can you fore see any downside to cancel card before any spend placed on it? Aware of pre paying taxes and the usually SUB spend. Any thoughts on cancelling.Neg/pos.
Love your site.
Have you stopped giving readers a notification when Staples does no activation fee VGCs or MCGCs? I always find it helpful. Thx!
Yep, we still publish posts whenever they run these deals.
I used to get email notifications from Frequent Miler for these hot deals. Haven’t gotten one in months. Anything just should do to get future notifications? Did I get unsubscribed?
I’m not sure what’s happened there. We have three different email subscription options:
You can subscribe to one of those options here & that way you’ll be notified about the Staples deals 🙂 https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe/
I just came back from target, wanting to purchase some airbnb gift cards and they said they do not give the 10% discount or the 5% red card discount.
The deal on Airbnb gift cards this week is to get a $20 Target gift card free when buying $200 Airbnb gift cards rather than it being a 10% discount.
With regards to the 5% RedCard discount, you would get that despite what they say as you get the 5% discount on all third party gift cards, but not Target gift cards. The way these deals work is that to calculate the 5% Target subtracts the value of the Target gift card from the value of the third party card and gives the discount on that. With this particular deal, you’d therefore get a 5% discount off $180 of value which is $9. That means paying with a RedCard would cost you $191 and you’d get a $200 Airbnb gift card and a $20 Target gift card.
You can do this deal online too, so no need to go into the store to purchase if they’re not sure how it works.
I have a question. Is there a way to use BA miles to get to fly Lufthansa to Berlin? I’ve heard their business class flights are great. Any other great ways to utilize BA miles to get to German and not have to pay those fuel charges? I’d rather not have to go Iberia to Madrid first. Air Canada? Not sure….
Hi! Any advice on keeping the T-mobile autopay discount while still using a credit card? Set up autopay and then go in manually a few days before and pay the majority of the bill, leaving a small amount for autopay to bill? Thx so much!
Yes, that works. You can even manually pay the full balance with a credit card after receiving the bill and retain the autopay discount provided you keep your checking account as your default autopay option.
Hi Frequent Miler, Requesting your thoughts on this. Hyatt emailed today with a promotion around Mr. and Mrs. Smith. When I first read the title I was excited as I have my eyes on several MMS properties I’m hoping to book with points. Then I started reading the email and was disappointed to see the MMS is not integrated with Hyatt yet. Then when I fully digest what Hyatt was offering and read the fine print, I felt despair! The Hyatt is selling MMS gift cards that are only valid for MMS bookings and not valid at Hyatt (see copy from FAQs below). This would seem to suggest that Hyatt intends to maintain MMS as completed separate from Hyatt. Which would seem to mean that we’ll never be able to use Hyatt points to book MMS. I had been dreaming of using Hyatt points to affordably book one of MMS choice properties in the South Pacific (and stockpiling UR points to make the booking), but now it seems this will never happen …
Can you please provide your thoughts?
I always appreciate your posts and all the expertise of offer up on the points world.
Thank you!
Daniel
Here’s a link to the FAQs – https://mrmrssmith.redeam.com/detail/mms-gift-cards?FAQs=true
Yeah, I found that promotion discouraging too. I HOPE that this is just a stop-gap and that Hyatt will integrate Mr & Mrs Smith for real (like they did with SLH) in the future, but I don’t have any inside info one way or the other about that.