Register Your Credit Cards, You Never Know

One of my 2013 goals was to register for travel promotions; regardless of the likelihood of my participation. Why? Because you never known when an unexpected flight or stay might pop-up. Better to register and not use than regret not registering.

That similar thinking should apply to credit cards. I recommend registering ALL of your credit cards and debit cards with programs like Dining Rewards. As previously written, Dining Rewards earns you points for eating out at participating restaurants.

Recently, I was reminded why registering all of your credit cards with Dining Rewards is smart. On my most recent trip to Connecticut, I decided to get dinner and drinks at Barcelona Wine Bar with friends. My visit was spontaneous.

So you can understand my surprise, when I got an email from Dining Rewards informing me I earned miles from my visits to Barcelona Wine Bar.

I earned 252 Miles. Score! I assume my "2" visits was from our visit to the bar and then the restaurant.

Either way, I am happy I registered my credit cards!

Do you have all of your credit & debit cards registered?
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Harvest Bonus Miles Posts

In October, I wrote that you should check your email for a possible bonus offer from United dining rewards. Known as harvest Bonus, the email could have been easily overlooked as another junk communication from the dining rewards network.

In reality, the offer was simple. Participate in one dine through the network and earn bonus miles. "In my instance, I could earn 2,000 miles after one dine. This was a must participate offer.

How simple was this offer. This $6 smoothie

Earned me 2,018 United miles:

Not to shabby for something I was going to do anyway.

The lesson here? Always look at promotional emails. The ones that look junk maybe the diamond in the rough.


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One Last Way to Earn United Miles: Read Blogs

31 Ways to Earn United Miles Series might be over, but I want to share one more important way to earn miles and points: read the blogs within the community!

Borrowed from Vicki-Arnold.com, which has a great series on Reading Blogs

The suggestion for the 32nd Way came jokingly from Jeanee at Heels First Travel, but no joking its an extremely important tip. As I detailed in one of my first posts, my first step into the points community came from blogs like View From the Wing and Frugal Travel Guy. Even years later, I still spend an hour daily reading various blogs. There is way to much information out there for you to cover it on your own. That's the power of a the Points and Miles / Frequent Flyer blogging community. Collectively, we can bring the best deals, latest travel news, and ways to earn points to all.

Here are few of the blogs that have my interest at the moment:

Heels First Travel

Michael W. Travels

Jeffsetter

Hack My Trip

The Flight Deal - "Not a Point's Blog, per se, but a great place to find flight deals!"

Will Run For Miles

Frequent Miler

So there you have it, 32 Ways to Earn United Miles. Now its time to put them into practice!

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31 Ways to Earn United Miles - Put Into Practice

Each day in July, we talked about one way to help increase your MileagePlus account balance. Throughout the month, I kept on getting the same question: "How will all these small offers get me on my dream vacation? Is it possible to earn enough miles to get me there?

The answer is a big fat yes!

Mileage earning is a marathon and you have two options: run it like the hare or the tortoise Sometimes we want to be the hare and earn miles the quick way by credit card sign-up bonuses. The problem with this is for most people, like me, the race isn't just about taking one trip. Therefore, earning miles only though credit card sign-ups will only get you so far in the race. Why the tortoise wins the race most times!

July was about talking about earning United Miles. August is about doing it!

Throughout the month of August, I am going to try to earn as many United miles as possible. There are only four rules:

           1) Spend the least amount of non-justified money ie money I wouldn't spend anyway

           2) Everything has to be ethical - would my grandfather be embarrassed by what I am doing?

           3) Can only apply for one new credit card that earns United miles

           4) Only miles earned in August and credited by September 30th count

As of today, August 1st, here is the balance in my MileagePlus account:

Yes, you can stop laughing now. I have a whopping 2,622 MileagePlus miles in my account. Just another important reason to do this little experiment. My goal is earn 75,000 miles in the month of August.

Lets see what the month of August brings.
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