How We Flew Business Class To Europe Using Points

Lisbon, Porto, and Barcelona

We have accumulated over 1 million points this year by focusing on putting our everyday spending on credit cards. The only spending we don't use a credit card for at the moment is our home/auto insurance, life insurance, and our home mortgage. We focused on earning Chase Ultimate Rewards this year, and between the two of us opened 6 credit cards.

Step 1: I opened a Chase Sapphire Reserve card. This could also be accomplished by opening a Chase Sapphire Preferred however I chose the Reserve due to the premium travel benefits it offered (lounge access being my most favorite). Whichever one you choose the most important step is to make sure you hit the sign on bonus. When I opened this card it was a 60,000 sign on bonus after spending $4000 in 3 months. You can learn more about each of these cards here.

Step 2: Open a Chase business card. This can be done with an LLC or any type of side hustle. Business cards do not affect your personal credit utilization and do not affect the 5/24 rule (opening more than 5 credit cards in 24 months). If you do not have a EIN for your business simply use your SSN for the card application.

1. I first opened Chase Business Ink Cash which was 75,000 points after spending $6000 in 3 months.

2. I then referred my husband (player 2) for the Chase Ink Business Preferred which offered 100,000 points after spending $8000 in 3 months. We had some big purchases we needed to make so the $95 annual fee was worth the points. By referring my husband, I also got 40,000 for a referral bonus.

3. My husband then referred me back for a Chase Business Ink Business Preferred which gained us another 140,000 points (sign on bonus and referral combined.

Some important tips to keep in mind:

• Make sure you can hit your sign on bonus and limit annual fees. The Ink Cash is $0 but the preferred is $95. We will cancel these when the 1st year is up.

• Include your annual household income on application (this includes everyone).

• DO NOT add authorized users to you card as this takes a slot in your 5/24 rule.

• Most importantly, pay off your credit card at each statement.

Step 3: This was 355,000 bonus points earned between the two of us in approximately 8 months! You have to transfer all the points into your Chase Sapphire Card Ultimate Reward bank which you can do through the website. You can call Chase and link house hold members to your account so I was able to transfer the 140,000 bonus points from my husband's account to mine.

Step 4: Know all of your transfer partners. It is not best practice to book travel through the Chase portal. You have to make an account through each of these programs and should be done in advance before considering transferring points.

Step 5a: Find your reward search. Our recent trip was done on Air France.

JFK - CDG - LIS Business class one way was 41,240 miles + $223 in taxes per person x 3 for a total of 123,750 miles and $669

BCN - CDG - ORD Business class one way was 56,500 miles + $297 in taxes per person x 3 for a total of 155,375 miles and $891

Total amount for business class flights: 280,000 points + $1560 USD

Step 6: We had about 75000 points left over and used some for a hotel stay in Porto, Portugal.

I used my $300 travel credit (Chase sapphire reserve annual credit) for a portion of our hotel stay in Lisbon, Portugal

We decided to pay cash for our hotel stays in Barcelona, Spain

*I am not a financial advisor or accountant*